But conservative newspapers still publish inaccurate information, and a new, more subtle denial emerges of delaying climate action
[26 Agosto 2021]
Bushra: According to the last one studio “Balance as Prejudice, Firm to Retreat? Updates and Analysis of Newspaper Coverage in the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia and Canada over the Past 15 Years”, Environmental Research Letters, “The major print media in 5 countries have represented climate change in a very tangible way, with an accuracy rate of 90% in the past 15 years.”
According to the study authors, led by Lucy McAllister of Technische Universität München and the University of Colorado-Boulder, “Scientifically accurate coverage of human-caused climate change is becoming less biased, highlighting the idea that journalism is not presenting climate change more. as something controversial.” But there is one area in which the team has found partial coverage: conservative media.
Study author Megan Daly of the University of New England-Bedford explained: “We know that in the past, ‘partisan’ reports on climate change have led to a persistent inaccurate perception that there is still significant scientific disagreement on the issue. The good news is that this study They show that in the print media, this kind of problematic reporting has largely fallen into oblivion.”
McAllister agrees, saying: “Two decades ago, the print media often gave the same credit to both legitimate climate experts and anomalous climate deniers. But in recent years, we’ve found that media around the world have actually been on the right side most of the time. However, the facts now outweigh the debate. 9 out of 10 articles in the media accurately reported science related to human contributions to climate change. It is no longer presented as a two-sided debate.”
The researchers analyzed nearly 5,000 articles published in 17 major newspapers in 5 countries – the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia and Canada – In 15 years, from 2005 to 2019, updating the previous research of one of the new study’s authors, Max Boykoff of the Collaborative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of California-Boulder, who studied how normal journalistic life and temperate journalism helped advance A distorted picture of climate science. McAllister recalls that “many continue to cite the 2004 Max Boikov and Jules Boikov article, with the data expiring in 2002, as evidence of persistent bias in the media. A recent analysis was absolutely necessary.”
The research team read the articles to determine if each conveyed the scientific consensus view that climate change is primarily man-made, and it turns out that 2,397 articles accurately represent the primary human cause of climate change. opinions contradictory or deniers.
Even as media outlets around the world have become less biased when it comes to climate, the team found that conservative media, such as National Post in Canada Daily Telegraph and the Telegraph Sunday in Australia and daily Mail And mail on sunday The UK, which has historically been highly conservative and liberal, has less accurate coverage of climate change.
The National Post The coverage was the least accurate, with about 71% of the articles reflecting the scientific consensus on the cause of climate change. Right-wing newspapers also published fewer articles on the cause of climate change.
The most accurate coverage came from the progressive newspapers: The Canadian toronto star (97.37%) and the British Guardian III Foreman (95%) who also had the highest number of articles analyzed.
World events have also affected media accuracy: media coverage was significantly less accurate in 2010 immediately after the University of East Anglia email hack scandal at the end of 2009 and the UN negotiations on the Copenhagen Accord. The coverage was significantly more accurate in 2015, during the negotiation period of the Paris Agreement.”
Boikov asserts: “In this print ports Accurate reports far outweigh inaccurate ones, but that’s no cause for complacency. In recent years, the terrain of the climate debate has shifted forcefully from a mere denial of human contributions to climate change to a more subtle and persistent weakening of support for specific policies aimed at addressing climate change substantially.”
The researchers note that “people rarely read peer-reviewed scientific papers on climate change, and are more likely to learn about it through the media. Therefore, such studies are necessary to understand how to follow ongoing scientific research and policies in the public sphere. There are also other competing pressures that shape our awareness of climate change, such as conversations with family, friends, entertainment, and leaders we trust.”
The results of the study suggest that media analysis should go beyond the idea of a faulty balance. McAllister notes that “most major print media can accurately report on climate change, but new questions are emerging, such as how solutions are discussed. Which ideas get the most text or front page coverage and why? In addition, researchers must consider Types of coverage in countries facing the most severe impacts of climate change.
For Daly, in addition to examining the representation of climate change on television and on social media, researchers should pay attention to new and more subtle forms of denial: “As it becomes more and more difficult to deny the existence of climate change – as more people look directly at the effects of climate change climate in their daily lives – instead, new strategies are emerging to delay meaningful climate action.It will thus be important for researchers to study the more subtle ways in which opponents of climate action are undermining efforts to address the causes and consequences of climate change.
Boikov concludes: “Achieving consistently accurate media coverage is not a panacea for motivating collective action. Our work helps provide insights into how the media describes human contributions to climate change, but it needs to be done more clearly.”
