Climate dystopias in German newspapers : An argumentation analysis of the climate apocalypse imaginary in German newspapers

Sammanfattning: Climate change is a “future-sensitive issue” (Kumpu, 2013, p. 53). Research has shown that expectations about the future influence current behaviour. Furthermore, research has shown that media still play an essential role in informing the public about the topic climate change (Neverla & Schäfer, 2010). However, until now there is only limited research that connects the construction or depiction of future, climate change and media. However, there has been research (Levy & Spicer, 2013) on collectively held climate imaginaries which indicates that there are four distinct versions. Imaginaries are collectively hold semiotic concepts and therefore connect the construction of future, climate change and media. This thesis aims at analysing the construction of the climate apocalypse imaginary in two German newspapers to understand the argumentation schemes used to sustain it. The climate apocalypse imaginary was selected as it is the only negative future scenario. The results indicate that a variety of closely connected argumentation schemes are used by the newspapers. Furthermore, both newspapers use similar argumentation schemes.