Reporting Climate Change in the Global North and South

Journalism in Australia and Bangladesh

Jahnnabi Das

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138392403
• eBook ISBN: 9780429688294
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book reveals how journalists in the Global North and Global South mediate climate change by examining journalism and reporting in Australia and Bangladesh. This dual analysis presents a unique opportunity to examine the impacts of media and communication in two contrasting countries (in terms of economy, income and population size) which both face serious climate change challenges.

In reporting on these challenges, journalism as a political, institutional, and cultural practice has a significant role to play. It is influential in building public knowledge and contributes to knowledge production and dialogue, however, the question of who gets to speak and who doesn't, is a significant determinant of journalists' capacity to establish authority and assign cultural meaning to realities. By measuring the visibility from presences and absences, the book explores the extent to which the influences are similar or different in the two countries, contrasting how journalists' communication power conditions public thought on climate change. The investigation of climate communication across the North-South divide is especially urgent given the global commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and it is critical we gain a fuller understanding of the dynamics of climate communication in low-emitting, low-income countries as much as in the high emitters, high-income countries. This book contributes to this understanding and highlights the value of a dual analysis in being ably draw out parallels, as well as divergences, which will directly assist in developing cross-national strategies to help address the mounting challenge of climate change.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change and environmental journalism, as well as media and communication studies more broadly.

1 Comparing climate change news

This book presents an examination of climate change news and views in two vastly different contexts—Australia and Bangladesh. Through an analysis of sources in newspaper articles, it aims to assess the significance of country-specific differences in the knowledge production of climate communication. The comparison is a study in contrasts: Australia is a high-income, industrialised, geographically large country in the southern hemisphere with a low population that is able to claim status as an “honorary Western country” (Curran & Park 2000, p. 3). In contrast, Bangladesh is a poor, agriculture-based, small, low-lying, wet and densely populated post-colonial country in South Asia. Yet, climatically, both are exposed to profound challenges from the effects of climate crises. In reporting on these crises, journalism as a political, institutional and cultural practice has a significant role to play. The universal nature of climate change can erase many differences, but more attention needs to be paid to the diverse ways in which knowledge comes to be made in different places (Hulme 2009; Beck 2010; Eide & Kunelius 2017). Journalism provides information, thus contributing significantly to the construction of public knowledge (Kovach 2006; Patterson 2013). It also contributes to the “processes of public dialogue and societal communion” (Cottle 2000, p. 442). In the process of knowledge production and dialogue, who gets to speak and who does not is a significant determinant of the journalists’ capacity to establish authority and assign cultural meaning to realities.

Why contrasting comparison?

The book is comparative, critical and, in a limited way, historical. It assumes that the differences between journalistic practices across the world should not be taken for granted, but empirically explored and tested. It focuses on the news coverage of global and local climate change issues in these two countries. According to many world leaders, climate change is the biggest challenge facing humanity in the 21st century. Although similarities and differences are simultaneously emphasised in comparative studies of journalism, the differences are of particular interest to this book because, while “the similarities are relatively easy to enumerate … what is really interesting are the differences, however we account for them” (de Burgh 2005, p. 1). De Burgh (2005) further maintains that, while professional practices and organisational format of news media may be similar across the globe, the news content and its format are significantly influenced by the location and cultural contexts of journalism (see also Wasserman 2017). This influence makes country-specific differences in terms of location, culture or history significant considerations in any comparative investigation.

In comparing these two diverse countries, this investigation employs Esser & Hanitzsch’s (2012) classification of the comparative journalism research into three categories: actor-based, structural and cultural. The actor- or behaviour-centred approach looks at how professional individuals, groups or institutions make choices in public communication. The structuralist or institutional approach focuses on the broader context, for example, the technological, social, political and economic environment that expedites or restricts communication between actors. The culturalist or interpretative approach considers actors’ communication practices as processes of shared meaning between the practitioner and her/his socio-cultural context (Donsbach 2010; Donsbach & Klett 1993; Hanitzsch & Donsbach 2012). Studies of political communication simultaneously apply actor-, cultural- and structure-based concepts to develop a comprehensive understanding of this particular communication process in comparative contexts (Pfetsch & Esser 2012; Tiffen et al. 2013). These three categories are used as a framework in this book to integrate various theoretical approaches to comparative study, and to identify the close interaction of these approaches rather than assume their mutual exclusivity (Esser & Hanitzsch 2012).

Universalist vs culturalist comparison

Critics who have applied these conceptual frameworks in comparisons of national systems of journalism have identified two distinct streams of scholarship: a “universalist” approach, which aims to produce generalisations based on US experiences and assumes that these generalisations are universally applicable; and a “culturalist” approach, which argues that social reality cannot be understood without first exploring contexts that are conditioned by spatial and temporal factors (Hantrais 1999). Inspired by the “universalist” approach, some scholars argue that there are many similarities in journalism practices around the world. Others, however, argue that the differences in professional norms are more significant than the similarities. Hugo de Burgh (2005), for instance, claims that the differences in comparative studies are more interesting and pertinent than the similarities. When it comes to knowledge creation about climate change, Hulme (2010, in Eide & Kunelius 2017) also attaches significance to the “different ways knowledge comes to be made in different places” and expresses concern about the insensitivity of global knowledge to local issues.

Those who favour a “similarity” viewpoint posit that journalists across the spectrum aspire to be independent and autonomous, irrespective of their diverse socio-cultural and institutional differences. These critics further suggest that a crucial way of ensuring independence from other social institutions is through the norm of objectivity. Investigations of objectivity in mono-national contexts, such as in Brazil (Herscovitz 2004), Germany (Weischenberg et al. 2012), Indonesia (Hanitzsch 2005), Bangladesh (Ramaprasad & Rahman 2006) and the United States (Weaver et al. 2007), have supported the “similarity” assumption in journalistic practice. Comparative analyses (Deuze 2002; Shoemaker & Cohen 2006; Hanitzsch et al. 2012) provide a broad view of the influences on journalistic practices of professional norms such as newsworthiness and organisational imperatives across different countries. However, scholars in the “culturalist” stream (e.g., Berkowitz et al. 2004; Donsbach & Patterson 2004) remain unconvinced by the similarities identified in those studies. They argue that there are some substantial differences in newsroom practices across the globe, due to the myriad social and political factors that influence news production and, ultimately, shape its content.

Eide & Kunelius (2010) tapped into these myriad factors and found that a “domestication” frame predominated in the coverage of the Copenhagen climate summit (COP15) in 18 countries from both the global North and South. The use of a “domestication” frame has two different consequences. On one hand, it empowers journalists to reach their national publics. At the same time, however, it “restricts the resources, connections, sources of information and possible alliances on which journalists may participate in the construction of a (even momentary) transnational public sphere or space” (p. 41). Similarly, Painter’s (2017) extensive analysis of climate change coverage in IPCC news articles in 2013 and 2014, which eventually included five developing and five developed countries, found that the “disaster” theme predominated. These two significant findings in climate communication in the context of global climate events reflect the “universalist” approach, with its associated weaknesses and strengths. One of the advantages of such large-scale studies is the potential to identify “universal laws” (Esser & Hanitzsch 2012) that can be generalised. But, as Livingstone (2003) argues, many phenomena are understood in terms of particular systems (e.g., media systems, education systems). For her, large-scale comparative analysis threatens to undermine “the legitimacy of the nation-state not only for political, economic or cultural purposes but also as a unit of analysis” (Livingstone 2003, p. 480).

Comparative studies have contributed to a growing awareness of journalism across national contexts. However, the selection of the unit of analysis or country suffers from what Curran et al. (2010) term “ideal typification,” that is, the selection of historically well-established and similar media systems to understand the commonalities and differences between them. The current study seeks to go beyond the existing rigidity of unit selection to advance an understanding of journalistic practices by comparing dissimilar countries. As some critics (Benson 2010; Blumler & Gurevitch 1975) argue, such divergent comparison is important in that it has the potential to “render the invisible visible” (Hallin & Mancini 2004) in a useful way. The invisible, according to these critics, is the significance of the divergent journalistic practices. To achieve this goal, it is imperative to select dissimilar cases. However, conducting a dissimilar comparison is difficult because such an approach

can pose challenges to scholars’ preconceptions and is liable to be theoretically upsetting … [But its contribution] is not confined only to testing, validating and revising existing theory. It also has a more creative and innovative role—opening up new avenues.

(Blumler et al. 1992, p. 8)

One of the new avenues for journalism studies is to avoid reductive limitations and pave the way to understanding journalism practices both in their diverse contexts and in a more inclusive manner. To this end, it is crucial to take contrasting countries as the units of analysis because there are significant inadequacies in the existing levels of understanding of journalism practices. For example, contemporary descriptions of journalism in the “developing” world often assume a lack of professional rigor in these less industrialised countries (Shanahan 2011; Romano 2003). This view of professional weakness can be critiqued (Nassanga et al. 2017) as simplistic, because it is a “universalist” outlook that fails to consider adequately the contours of the actual journalism practices in developing countries. As well, it fails to provide any intrinsic reasons for this perceived lack of professional rigor. Such inadequacies can be overcome by simultaneously scrutinising news practices (selection of sources, for example) in both developed and developing countries through a comparative study.

Why does journalistic practice matter in climate change coverage?

One of the many roles that journalism plays in society is that of watchdog or “Fourth Estate,” which involves journalists in monitoring political rulers and systems of governance in a society. In their efforts to fulfil this role, journalists negotiate newsworthiness by engaging in interactions with actors and agents from various other social institutions, fostering both adversarial and symbiotic relationships. This book focuses on precisely how they engage in such negotiations in climate change news. Critics have labelled these engagements variously as, for example, “mediated democracy,” “mediocracy” and “mediated political realities” (Orren 1986; McNair 2000, as cited in Zelizer 2004, p. 145). These terms emphasise the interdependence between politicians and journalists. News media in many societies deem it propitious to interact with political institutions (Alexander 1981; Schudson 2006). They accordingly become embedded in various countries’ political systems, exercising their “Fourth Estate” role, which recognises the informal authority of the press to scrutinise the powerful (Hampton 2010).

This book first considers the political systems in both Australia and Bangladesh and examines the relationship between news media and the state to ascertain the position of news media in relation to other institutions competing for influence in society (Benson 2010). This exercise exposes the complexity and multiplicity of factors involved in the news production process, including political factors, and market or institutional imperatives of media organisations. It also reveals which factors exert the most influence on the news production process. The book explores the significance of the presence of various sources, voices or actors and the absence of others in the news pertaining to climate change in the two contrasting countries. The empirical data comprise newspaper content from Australia and Bangladesh collected during the 2009 Copenhagen and 2015 Paris climate summits. Both these meetings—the 15th and 21st Conferences of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), respectively—took place during periods of intense climate debate across the globe over a new climate agreement. The analysis reveals a complex web of interactions between news sources and changing media ecology during these critical moments of global climate negotiations. An important empirical and conceptual contribution of the book is to shed light on how journalists in the global North and South mediate climate change messages. The privileging of certain voices by granting them visibility over others is a key aspect. By measuring visibility in terms of presences and absences, the book explores the extent to which the influences are similar or different in the two countries and how the sources’ and journalists’ communication power conditions public expressions on climate change. In doing so, the book offers an enhanced understanding of Western and non-Western media systems.

Overall, the book argues that news organisations have used environmental issues, such as climate change, to exercise influence in the public sphere and advance particular political agendas or interests (Mann 2000). Here, journalism is revealed as a key element of political contestation, especially in climate change debates in both Australia and Bangladesh. Media organisations actively seek to gain or retain their power to define the reality of climate change, affirming or challenging other agents’ perspectives in the public debate. These engagements make the journalists party to the political contestation over how to define the reality of climate change. In other words, they become “interested participants” as opposed to their widely perceived status of “disinterested observers” (Glasser 1992; Maras 2013). As a backdrop to this exploration, one can draw a parallel between climate change and journalism, because both are global in scope. The issue of climate change affects everyone in the world. The same can be said about journalism, because some form of journalism is practised in various ways everywhere in the world (de Burgh 2005; Josephi 2005, 2013). As well, fundamental and universal values underpin them both; for example, freedom and responsibility for journalism (Christians 2015), and responsibility and solidarity in relation to the issues concerning climate change. Both journalism and climate change pose ethical and political challenges (Laksa 2014; Hackett 2017). For these reasons, the argument for a comparison of contrasting cases to tease out the nuances of journalistic practices can also be extended to climate change communication. In this way, nuances and differences in climate change issues and frames in different places can be exposed and comprehensively understood in their respective social, political and communicative contexts.

Significance

The investigation of climate communication across the North–South divide is especially urgent under the 2015 Paris Agreement. In the agreement, both high-income and low-income countries commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The ambition to achieve “net zero carbon” by 2050 means these commitments will intensify in the decades to come. It is critical in the context of this agreement that we gain a fuller understanding of the dynamics of climate communication in low-emitting, low-income countries, such as Bangladesh, as much as in the high-emitting, high-income countries, such as Australia. An ability to draw out parallels within the expected di...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Comparing climate change news
• 2. Environmental, political and media systems
• 3. News sources, journalism and the study
• 4. Climate of interpretation: Australia and Bangladesh
• 5. Sources of Australian climate change news
• 6. Climate change news and sources in Bangladesh
• 7. Australia and Bangladesh: Conclusions
• Appendix 1: Analysis of editorial commentaries in Chapter 4
• Appendix 2: Description_Data collection
• Index