A Changing Climate : How Climate is Communicated in Swedish and North American News Media

Sammanfattning: This study analyses the frames and discourses in different news media reporting on the same events in news outlets in Canada, the US, and Sweden. This was done by analysing both digital-born media and legacy media. The theoretical framework consists of theories about discourse, framing, media logics, the economic prerequisites for journalism, and environmental journalism. The aim is to find what frames, discourses, tone and what voices are being heard in the news coverage of Greta Thunberg’s climate protest, the migrant caravan, and the UN report on climate change released in 2018. Also, differences in the different media are analysed. This is done through discourse analysis by using Fairclough’s CDA and the three-dimensional model, combined with tools from critical linguistics. The analysis of the news texts found that the discourses in the coverage of the three events followed previous research on journalistic values, production and the way that climate change events were reported (or not reported) on. The study also found some themes, frames, that were producing new discourses in climate change journalism. Among these was the way that Greta Thunberg and other young voices were heard on a subject that previously has been heavily focused on politicians, scientists and NGO’s. Thunberg and the migrant caravan were also covered more extensively by the news media included than the UN report, not framing climate in the articles, even though they are about climate change events.