The media and entertainment sector is an under-acknowledged player in influencing public attitudes and behaviors, and the role of media in shaping public perception and discourse around climate change cannot be overstated. Media and entertainment companies hold immense sway over public opinion, shaping societal dialogue through the content they produce, disseminate, and endorse. This influence has been termed the media’s Brainprint — the industry’s psychological impact which extends into people's everyday decisions and product preferences, driven by media's deep ties with advertisers.1
Laura McGorman
Tailoring Climate Messages
For the past several years, the Data for Good at Meta Program has been partnering with the Yale Center for Climate Change Communication on an international Climate Opinion Survey. In 2022, this survey reached over 100,000 people in over 200 countries and territories and asked about their knowledge of, and attitudes and behavior towards, climate change issues and what should be done to address them. The results paint a picture of deep concern around the world and the desire of a significant majority of people to see governments and others take meaningful action.
Over the course of the last several years, we've learned that there are significant regional, gender-based and age-based differences in how people view climate change, showcasing that we must view this problem through an intersectional lens. For example, although the majority of people in nearly all countries surveyed say they are somewhat or very worried about climate change, these rates are particularly high in many countries in Central and South America, where more than 9 in 10 respondents report worry about the issue.
Similarly, while women are disproportionately impacted and more worried about climate change, they also report knowing less about the issue around the world. As a result, the messages that reach communities about how to combat climate change must all be uniquely tailored and contextually specific to the needs of the population at hand.
Media representations of climate change play a significant role in shaping the public's understanding of this pressing issue — for non-experts, including citizens and decision-makers, these representations are often the primary source of information. Over the past few decades, there has been a growing focus on climate change in both research and the media. This trend accelerated in the 2000s, driven in part by high-profile events such as the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,2 Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", and the COP15 conference in Copenhagen.3
Tim Kelly
Where Did Media Go Wrong?
The dissolution of public media is a worldwide phenomenon with long and varied histories. In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Fairness Doctrine of 1949 required broadcast license holders (television and radio) both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints. The doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest; and to air contrasting views regarding those matters.4
While the original purpose of the doctrine was to ensure that viewers were exposed to a diversity of viewpoints, it was used by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to combat political opponents operating on talk radio. In 1987, as access to channels began expanding across the US, the FCC abolished the fairness doctrine. Note that the Fairness Doctrine is not the same as the equal-time rule, which is still in place. The fairness doctrine deals with discussion of controversial issues, while the equal-time rule deals only with political candidates.
Different situations have played out around the world, but all with similar outcomes. Many countries perceived public radio broadcasting as an opportunity to support democracy, and they developed well-informed and politically engaged broadcasting. The BBC was the bellwether for this work that was replicated by national governments worldwide. Many of these entities were independent, overseen by government-appointed but autonomous boards, and were fully publicly funded.
But towards the end of the 20th century, cable TV became more widespread in Europe and North America. As the number of broadcast licenses increased, radio and TV audiences began to fragment. At the same time, governments began to privatize utilities — including broadcasting entities, and cut public broadcasting funding. With nowhere else to turn, public broadcasters began to ramp up advertising. By 2000, the broadcasting industry had been transformed. Broadcasting transitioned to a global marketplace of thousands of channels with public broadcasters pushed to the periphery, with dramatically reduced audience shares and smaller budgets.
Fast forward to today, and Facebook and Google dominate digital advertising. Local news organizations have been forced to fire journalists and reduce coverage, which has diminished critical analysis in journalism. With the ever-growing move to digital, many of these organizations have replaced advertising revenue with paywalls to access their digital content, and thereby limiting their distribution to a tiny segment of the public willing to pay for content. As a result, the media industry becomes evermore concentrated, with large corporate entities like Disney, Discovery/Warner, NBC/Universal, Google, Apple, and Meta essentially controlling the news, sports, and entertainment that the public sees. Ever-increasing competition puts ever greater pressure on media conglomerates to secure readers, sometimes through sensational content driven by an angry user base. This reality vastly limits the widespread dissemination of reporting on science and vital news about saving/sustaining Earth's life support systems, and today, most reporting on these topics is available only through a few outlets with content only available behind paywalls.5
Is there a way forward out of this conundrum? In a world in which media distribution is largely controlled by massive technology companies, how can public broadcasters best reach people? With audiences fragmented and people increasingly consuming media alone, is there still a role for programming aimed at big, broad, general audiences? In a world in which gathering and analyzing public input is easy, what mechanisms could public broadcasters develop to increase their responsiveness and accountability? Maybe a large public service coalition of media companies, ad agencies and funders could be a start.5
Nowadays it is increasingly difficult to access unbiased media coverage. There is growing concern about the influence of the ultra-rich and industry interests on mainstream media outlets, potentially distorting the conversation around climate action. In the US, just six corporations control 90% of what is broadcast and read, while in the UK, 75% of total newspaper circulation is billionaire-owned.6 This narrow level of media concentration creates a risk of skewing public discourse and can limit the diversity of perspectives presented to the public. Corporate interests risk impeding transparent coverage of climate issues and injustices, especially when these topics conflict with their own business operations or political alignments. Hence, there is a critical need for independent, public-interest journalism in promoting informed, nuanced dialogue about climate change and its societal implications.
This situation is further complicated by a constantly evolving media environment. The media landscape is facing challenges such as tribalism and polarization, exacerbating the problem of industry interests shaping discourse around climate action. Many outlets are now driven by shareholder value, with subscriptions and views taking precedence over nuanced reporting and balanced coverage. This has led to a polarized media environment, where the way in which climate change is covered leads to further division and mistrust. Selective framing and reporting influence the perception of facts, often reinforcing values and worldviews that are incompatible with ambitious climate action.
A healthy media system is crucial for a healthy democracy. Investing in public media systems has been shown to promote democratic values and a more informed public. Yet, a study from the University of Pennsylvania found that the US is lagging behind other democratic countries in terms of public spending on media,7 as it relies heavily on individual donations. Consequently, US media is greatly commercial, dominated by a few corporations, which is poorly regulated.8
This corporate dominance, alongside other factors, has shaken public trust in the media. Many people feel they can't trust the information they receive from the media. According to a 2022 survey, 60% of people believe it's too difficult to find trustworthy information about climate change, while 59% feel there isn't enough reporting on solutions to the problem. To make matters worse, only 46% of people trust journalists to tell the truth about climate change and what needs to be done to address it. Trust in government leaders is even lower, with just 44% of people expecting them to provide accurate information.9 Many people have stopped looking at news altogether: a Reuters Institute survey across six continents found that interest in news has fallen sharply across the world, from 63% in 2017 to 51% in 2022.10
Despite this distrust, the power of media is indisputable, and the way climate change is portrayed in the media is highly influential in shaping our attitudes towards it. Many news outlets tend to sensationalize the issue with frames that create an image of conflict, leading to the perception that climate action is a contentious topic. Many media discourses on climate change use logical fallacies, whether intentionally or not. For example, it is widely believed that reducing carbon emissions means sacrificing economic growth, or that moving away from fossil fuels means reducing energy security — both of which lead to limiting the scope for ambitious climate policies.11 On the other hand, some media use frames such as urgency or even doomism to emphasize the severity of the situation. While highlighting the urgency of the issue is important, climate doomism, in particular, has been criticized for its negative effects on people's attitudes towards climate change (see Is Doomism the New Delay?).
In the face of these challenges, we are seeing a shift in media consumption: The United States has one of the highest news-avoidance rates in the world, at 4 out of 10 Americans.12 Journalist Amanda Ripley argues that current news, even from high-quality outlets, is not designed for humans, as we are unable to cope with the extremely negative framing that news expose us to 24/7. While negative words in news headlines have been found to lead to increased consumption rates,13 continued bombardment with negativity doesn’t bode well for long-term healthy engagement with media. Her research found that the missing ingredients in the news landscape are hope, agency and dignity — as well as providing information that’s both actionable and local.12
Sources of information have also changed across time. Younger generations rely on social media for news, while older generations stick to traditional sources like newspapers and television. Gen Z and younger millennials get news from social media, around 71% daily and 91% weekly. Moreover, 44% of Gen Zs never recur to traditional sources for news, compared to 35% of younger millennials and 31% of older millennials. Conversely, older generations used to turn to Google for news, but Gen Z is shifting towards platforms like TikTok. The growing social media preference among the younger crowd is pushing major publications to deliver news through platforms like TikTok. While older adults often stick to traditional sources, the shift to social media is prompting larger publications to adapt and cater to the younger audience.14
Changes have also occurred in the platforms where people access news. Today, more than eight in ten Americans regularly get their news from an online platform, with more than half of people getting their news from social media.15 While the minority of people take climate denial seriously these days, division has become a new strategy to stall climate action. Social media platforms have emerged as breeding grounds for misinformation, which can pose challenges in distinguishing between genuine and fake news. One 2018 study focusing on Twitter showed that fake news is up to 70% more likely to be retweeted than truthful tweets.16 The use of programmed bots to propagate fabricated information has added to this problem, contributing to confusion, fear and social discord. This division is also driven by discussions which over-focus on individual behavior changes, whilst neglecting the bigger picture.
“Of course lifestyle changes are necessary, but they alone won’t get us where we need to be. (...) If they can get us arguing with one another, and finger pointing and carbon shaming about lifestyle choices, that is extremely divisive, and the community will no longer be effective in challenging vested interests and polluters.”
But there’s potential for improvement. The key to more effective climate communication lies in discursive mobility — finding common ground on the bigger picture while disagreeing on specific details. To achieve this, media platforms must introduce more nuanced perspectives that encourage constructive dialogue and avoid reinforcing divisions. While there is some thriving climate journalism, a significant portion of it is inaccessible to the general public as it sits behind paywalls, which restrict its reach and effectiveness.
There are, however, a number of positive examples in the climate journalism space which give hope for the media to act as an integral player in accelerating climate communications:
- The Oxford Climate Journalism Network is a program of the Reuters Institute, building a global community of reporters and editors working to improve the quality, understanding and impact of climate coverage across different platforms.17
- Covering Climate Now is a network and resource sharing platform of over 500 journalists and news organizations across 57 countries, focusing on bringing more climate stories into news coverage as well as informing on the urgency of the climate crisis.18
- DeSmog is a journalism and activist website focusing on climate change stories. Founded in 2006, the network reports on climate misinformation campaigns and organizations working against climate action.19
- Climate Action Tracker is an independent scientific project holding governments accountable for their climate policies, producing informative visual resources communicating global heating projections.20
The Solutions Journalism Network aims to bring about a global shift in news understanding by communicating solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems — providing nuanced explanations and building agency and hope by supporting 47,000 journalists with tools and resources.21
Despite some positive trends, several challenges remain in the media landscape, compounded by the fact that social science research is not taken into account adequately when constructing climate messages. Dominant media narratives portray climate change as a distant, large-scale problem, creating emotional and psychological distance and undermining people’s motivation to act. In particular, a strong emphasis on the consequences of climate breakdown and over-focus on the role of national and international policy — rather than people power — can diminish the public’s sense of collective efficacy. Further, news media focus is mostly on research from a limited set of journals, often neglecting multidisciplinary research and therefore reducing the diversity of perspectives (see Where Have We Gone Wrong?).22 Lastly, media tends to perpetuate the knowledge deficit model — which has been effective for raising awareness in the past, but fails to meet the challenge of linking knowledge to meaningful collective action.
The pivotal role of media in shaping global perceptions and catalyzing action on the climate crisis cannot be denied. Yet, enduring challenges rooted in ownership structures, funding models, and inherent biases threaten its potential for meaningful, positive impact. The emergence of progressive examples showcases the possibility of overcoming these obstacles to foster informed and balanced discourse. Now more than ever, the onus rests on media organizations globally to embrace and further develop these practices. By doing so, they can not only restore public trust in media but also play a transformative role in driving cohesive and effective action against climate change. To do this, media must move beyond narrow framings frequently utilized in climate discourses, and zoom out to capture the bigger picture of how climate change is viewed and best communicated on an individual, community and societal level.
Why We Need an Ecosystem View
To effectively engage the public on the climate crisis, it is necessary to adopt an ecosystem view of climate communication that considers the individual, collective and systemic levels, examining all dimensions of the problem. This means reversing the breakdown of complexity and reintroducing nuance into climate messaging, acknowledging that climate change is not just an environmental problem, but also a social and economic crisis. Communication strategies should therefore address the various impacts climate change has on society, including social justice issues and economic implications. As part of this, it will be crucial to highlight the need for holistic and collaborative solutions, as well as co-benefits of climate action.1 Effective communication should emphasize the opportunities for positive change and the potential benefits of taking ambitious climate action.
Keep reading- SustainAbility, WWF-UK. Through the Looking Glass Corporate Responsibility in the Media and Entertainment Sector.; 2004. Accessed July 21, 2023. https://www.grainesdechangement.com/docs/medias/Through%20the%20Looking%20Glass.pdf
- IPCC. Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Masson-Delmotte V, Zhai P, Pirani A, et al., eds. 2021;Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA,(2391). doi:10.1017/9781009157896
- Schäfer MS, Schlichting I. Media Representations of Climate Change: A Meta-Analysis of the Research Field. Environ Commun. 2014;8(2):142-160. doi:10.1080/17524032.2014.914050
- Pickard V. Perspective | The Fairness Doctrine won’t solve our problems — but it can foster needed debate. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/02/04/fairness-doctrine-wont-solve-our-problems-it-can-foster-needed-debate/. Published February 4, 2021. Accessed August 8, 2023.
- Knight Foundation. Public broadcasting: Its past and its future. Published 2017. Accessed May 31, 2023. https://knightfoundation.org/public-media-white-paper-2017-gardner/
- Gander B. Taking America: When Billionaires Own The Media. Medium. Published 2022. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://barry-gander.medium.com/taking-america-when-billionaires-own-the-media-5d7a3cccaf5
- Benton J. Do countries with better-funded public media also have healthier democracies? Of course they do. Nieman Lab. Published 2022. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/01/do-countries-with-better-funded-public-media-also-have-healthier-democracies-of-course-they-do/
- Pickard V. American Media Exceptionalism and the Public Option. In: Democracy without Journalism?. Oxford University Press; 2020:136-163. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190946753.003.0006
- Edelman. Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report 2022 - Trust and Climate Change.; 2022:58. https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2022-11/2022%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barometer%20Special%20Report%20Trust%20and%20Climate%20Change%20FINAL_0.pdf
- Newman N. Overview and key findings of the 2022 Digital News Report. Reuters Institute. Published 2022. Accessed May 24, 2023. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2022/dnr-executive-summary
- Olano LV. Communicating the Climate Crisis. Climate-XChange. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://climate-xchange.org/communicating-the-climate-crisis/
- Robertson CE, Pröllochs N, Schwarzenegger K, Pärnamets P, Van Bavel JJ, Feuerriegel S. Negativity drives online news consumption. Nat Hum Behav. 2023;7(5):812-822. doi:10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4
- Ripley A. I stopped reading the news. Is the problem me — or the product? Washington Post. Published July 8, 2022. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/how-to-fix-news-media/
- Young S. Different Generations, Different Sources Of News. Leaders. Published April 12, 2023. Accessed August 29, 2023. https://leaders.com/news/business/different-generations-different-sources-of-news/
- Shearer E. More than eight-in-ten Americans get news from digital devices. Pew Research Center. Published 2021. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/01/12/more-than-eight-in-ten-americans-get-news-from-digital-devices/
- Langin K. Fake news spreads faster than true news on Twitter—thanks to people, not bots. Science. Published 2018. Accessed May 31, 2023. https://www.science.org/content/article/fake-news-spreads-faster-true-news-twitter-thanks-people-not-bots
- University of Oxford. The Oxford Climate Journalism Network. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Accessed August 21, 2023. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/oxford-climate-journalism-network
- Covering Climate Now. Covering Climate Now – Home. Covering Climate Now. Accessed August 21, 2023. https://coveringclimatenow.org/
- DeSmog. DeSmog - Home. DeSmog. Published August 17, 2023. Accessed August 21, 2023. https://www.desmog.com/
- Climate Action Tracker. 2100 Warming Projections: Emissions and expected warming based on pledges and current policies. Published 2022. https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/
- Solutions Journalism Network. Solutions Journalism Network - Home. Accessed August 21, 2023. https://www.solutionsjournalism.org/
- Perga ME, Sarrasin O, Steinberger J, Lane SN, Butera F. The climate change research that makes the front page: Is it fit to engage societal action? Glob Environ Change. 2023;80:102675. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102675
Figure 36: Media Shares Diagram by Parrot Analytics
Figure 37: Media Ownership Diagram by Record & Vox
Figure 38: Climate Action Tracker - global temperature increase projections by 2100.
Source: CrashCourse
The media and entertainment sector is an under-acknowledged player in influencing public attitudes and behaviors, and the role of media in shaping public perception and discourse around climate change cannot be overstated. Media and entertainment companies hold immense sway over public opinion, shaping societal dialogue through the content they produce, disseminate, and endorse. This influence has been termed the media’s Brainprint — the industry’s psychological impact which extends into people's everyday decisions and product preferences, driven by media's deep ties with advertisers.1
Laura McGorman
Tailoring Climate Messages
For the past several years, the Data for Good at Meta Program has been partnering with the Yale Center for Climate Change Communication on an international Climate Opinion Survey. In 2022, this survey reached over 100,000 people in over 200 countries and territories and asked about their knowledge of, and attitudes and behavior towards, climate change issues and what should be done to address them. The results paint a picture of deep concern around the world and the desire of a significant majority of people to see governments and others take meaningful action.
Over the course of the last several years, we've learned that there are significant regional, gender-based and age-based differences in how people view climate change, showcasing that we must view this problem through an intersectional lens. For example, although the majority of people in nearly all countries surveyed say they are somewhat or very worried about climate change, these rates are particularly high in many countries in Central and South America, where more than 9 in 10 respondents report worry about the issue.
Similarly, while women are disproportionately impacted and more worried about climate change, they also report knowing less about the issue around the world. As a result, the messages that reach communities about how to combat climate change must all be uniquely tailored and contextually specific to the needs of the population at hand.
Media representations of climate change play a significant role in shaping the public's understanding of this pressing issue — for non-experts, including citizens and decision-makers, these representations are often the primary source of information. Over the past few decades, there has been a growing focus on climate change in both research and the media. This trend accelerated in the 2000s, driven in part by high-profile events such as the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,2 Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", and the COP15 conference in Copenhagen.3
Tim Kelly
Where Did Media Go Wrong?
The dissolution of public media is a worldwide phenomenon with long and varied histories. In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Fairness Doctrine of 1949 required broadcast license holders (television and radio) both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints. The doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest; and to air contrasting views regarding those matters.4
While the original purpose of the doctrine was to ensure that viewers were exposed to a diversity of viewpoints, it was used by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to combat political opponents operating on talk radio. In 1987, as access to channels began expanding across the US, the FCC abolished the fairness doctrine. Note that the Fairness Doctrine is not the same as the equal-time rule, which is still in place. The fairness doctrine deals with discussion of controversial issues, while the equal-time rule deals only with political candidates.
Different situations have played out around the world, but all with similar outcomes. Many countries perceived public radio broadcasting as an opportunity to support democracy, and they developed well-informed and politically engaged broadcasting. The BBC was the bellwether for this work that was replicated by national governments worldwide. Many of these entities were independent, overseen by government-appointed but autonomous boards, and were fully publicly funded.
But towards the end of the 20th century, cable TV became more widespread in Europe and North America. As the number of broadcast licenses increased, radio and TV audiences began to fragment. At the same time, governments began to privatize utilities — including broadcasting entities, and cut public broadcasting funding. With nowhere else to turn, public broadcasters began to ramp up advertising. By 2000, the broadcasting industry had been transformed. Broadcasting transitioned to a global marketplace of thousands of channels with public broadcasters pushed to the periphery, with dramatically reduced audience shares and smaller budgets.
Fast forward to today, and Facebook and Google dominate digital advertising. Local news organizations have been forced to fire journalists and reduce coverage, which has diminished critical analysis in journalism. With the ever-growing move to digital, many of these organizations have replaced advertising revenue with paywalls to access their digital content, and thereby limiting their distribution to a tiny segment of the public willing to pay for content. As a result, the media industry becomes evermore concentrated, with large corporate entities like Disney, Discovery/Warner, NBC/Universal, Google, Apple, and Meta essentially controlling the news, sports, and entertainment that the public sees. Ever-increasing competition puts ever greater pressure on media conglomerates to secure readers, sometimes through sensational content driven by an angry user base. This reality vastly limits the widespread dissemination of reporting on science and vital news about saving/sustaining Earth's life support systems, and today, most reporting on these topics is available only through a few outlets with content only available behind paywalls.5
Is there a way forward out of this conundrum? In a world in which media distribution is largely controlled by massive technology companies, how can public broadcasters best reach people? With audiences fragmented and people increasingly consuming media alone, is there still a role for programming aimed at big, broad, general audiences? In a world in which gathering and analyzing public input is easy, what mechanisms could public broadcasters develop to increase their responsiveness and accountability? Maybe a large public service coalition of media companies, ad agencies and funders could be a start.5
Nowadays it is increasingly difficult to access unbiased media coverage. There is growing concern about the influence of the ultra-rich and industry interests on mainstream media outlets, potentially distorting the conversation around climate action. In the US, just six corporations control 90% of what is broadcast and read, while in the UK, 75% of total newspaper circulation is billionaire-owned.6 This narrow level of media concentration creates a risk of skewing public discourse and can limit the diversity of perspectives presented to the public. Corporate interests risk impeding transparent coverage of climate issues and injustices, especially when these topics conflict with their own business operations or political alignments. Hence, there is a critical need for independent, public-interest journalism in promoting informed, nuanced dialogue about climate change and its societal implications.
This situation is further complicated by a constantly evolving media environment. The media landscape is facing challenges such as tribalism and polarization, exacerbating the problem of industry interests shaping discourse around climate action. Many outlets are now driven by shareholder value, with subscriptions and views taking precedence over nuanced reporting and balanced coverage. This has led to a polarized media environment, where the way in which climate change is covered leads to further division and mistrust. Selective framing and reporting influence the perception of facts, often reinforcing values and worldviews that are incompatible with ambitious climate action.
A healthy media system is crucial for a healthy democracy. Investing in public media systems has been shown to promote democratic values and a more informed public. Yet, a study from the University of Pennsylvania found that the US is lagging behind other democratic countries in terms of public spending on media,7 as it relies heavily on individual donations. Consequently, US media is greatly commercial, dominated by a few corporations, which is poorly regulated.8
This corporate dominance, alongside other factors, has shaken public trust in the media. Many people feel they can't trust the information they receive from the media. According to a 2022 survey, 60% of people believe it's too difficult to find trustworthy information about climate change, while 59% feel there isn't enough reporting on solutions to the problem. To make matters worse, only 46% of people trust journalists to tell the truth about climate change and what needs to be done to address it. Trust in government leaders is even lower, with just 44% of people expecting them to provide accurate information.9 Many people have stopped looking at news altogether: a Reuters Institute survey across six continents found that interest in news has fallen sharply across the world, from 63% in 2017 to 51% in 2022.10
Despite this distrust, the power of media is indisputable, and the way climate change is portrayed in the media is highly influential in shaping our attitudes towards it. Many news outlets tend to sensationalize the issue with frames that create an image of conflict, leading to the perception that climate action is a contentious topic. Many media discourses on climate change use logical fallacies, whether intentionally or not. For example, it is widely believed that reducing carbon emissions means sacrificing economic growth, or that moving away from fossil fuels means reducing energy security — both of which lead to limiting the scope for ambitious climate policies.11 On the other hand, some media use frames such as urgency or even doomism to emphasize the severity of the situation. While highlighting the urgency of the issue is important, climate doomism, in particular, has been criticized for its negative effects on people's attitudes towards climate change (see Is Doomism the New Delay?).
In the face of these challenges, we are seeing a shift in media consumption: The United States has one of the highest news-avoidance rates in the world, at 4 out of 10 Americans.12 Journalist Amanda Ripley argues that current news, even from high-quality outlets, is not designed for humans, as we are unable to cope with the extremely negative framing that news expose us to 24/7. While negative words in news headlines have been found to lead to increased consumption rates,13 continued bombardment with negativity doesn’t bode well for long-term healthy engagement with media. Her research found that the missing ingredients in the news landscape are hope, agency and dignity — as well as providing information that’s both actionable and local.12
Sources of information have also changed across time. Younger generations rely on social media for news, while older generations stick to traditional sources like newspapers and television. Gen Z and younger millennials get news from social media, around 71% daily and 91% weekly. Moreover, 44% of Gen Zs never recur to traditional sources for news, compared to 35% of younger millennials and 31% of older millennials. Conversely, older generations used to turn to Google for news, but Gen Z is shifting towards platforms like TikTok. The growing social media preference among the younger crowd is pushing major publications to deliver news through platforms like TikTok. While older adults often stick to traditional sources, the shift to social media is prompting larger publications to adapt and cater to the younger audience.14
Changes have also occurred in the platforms where people access news. Today, more than eight in ten Americans regularly get their news from an online platform, with more than half of people getting their news from social media.15 While the minority of people take climate denial seriously these days, division has become a new strategy to stall climate action. Social media platforms have emerged as breeding grounds for misinformation, which can pose challenges in distinguishing between genuine and fake news. One 2018 study focusing on Twitter showed that fake news is up to 70% more likely to be retweeted than truthful tweets.16 The use of programmed bots to propagate fabricated information has added to this problem, contributing to confusion, fear and social discord. This division is also driven by discussions which over-focus on individual behavior changes, whilst neglecting the bigger picture.
“Of course lifestyle changes are necessary, but they alone won’t get us where we need to be. (...) If they can get us arguing with one another, and finger pointing and carbon shaming about lifestyle choices, that is extremely divisive, and the community will no longer be effective in challenging vested interests and polluters.”
But there’s potential for improvement. The key to more effective climate communication lies in discursive mobility — finding common ground on the bigger picture while disagreeing on specific details. To achieve this, media platforms must introduce more nuanced perspectives that encourage constructive dialogue and avoid reinforcing divisions. While there is some thriving climate journalism, a significant portion of it is inaccessible to the general public as it sits behind paywalls, which restrict its reach and effectiveness.
There are, however, a number of positive examples in the climate journalism space which give hope for the media to act as an integral player in accelerating climate communications:
- The Oxford Climate Journalism Network is a program of the Reuters Institute, building a global community of reporters and editors working to improve the quality, understanding and impact of climate coverage across different platforms.17
- Covering Climate Now is a network and resource sharing platform of over 500 journalists and news organizations across 57 countries, focusing on bringing more climate stories into news coverage as well as informing on the urgency of the climate crisis.18
- DeSmog is a journalism and activist website focusing on climate change stories. Founded in 2006, the network reports on climate misinformation campaigns and organizations working against climate action.19
- Climate Action Tracker is an independent scientific project holding governments accountable for their climate policies, producing informative visual resources communicating global heating projections.20
The Solutions Journalism Network aims to bring about a global shift in news understanding by communicating solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems — providing nuanced explanations and building agency and hope by supporting 47,000 journalists with tools and resources.21
Despite some positive trends, several challenges remain in the media landscape, compounded by the fact that social science research is not taken into account adequately when constructing climate messages. Dominant media narratives portray climate change as a distant, large-scale problem, creating emotional and psychological distance and undermining people’s motivation to act. In particular, a strong emphasis on the consequences of climate breakdown and over-focus on the role of national and international policy — rather than people power — can diminish the public’s sense of collective efficacy. Further, news media focus is mostly on research from a limited set of journals, often neglecting multidisciplinary research and therefore reducing the diversity of perspectives (see Where Have We Gone Wrong?).22 Lastly, media tends to perpetuate the knowledge deficit model — which has been effective for raising awareness in the past, but fails to meet the challenge of linking knowledge to meaningful collective action.
The pivotal role of media in shaping global perceptions and catalyzing action on the climate crisis cannot be denied. Yet, enduring challenges rooted in ownership structures, funding models, and inherent biases threaten its potential for meaningful, positive impact. The emergence of progressive examples showcases the possibility of overcoming these obstacles to foster informed and balanced discourse. Now more than ever, the onus rests on media organizations globally to embrace and further develop these practices. By doing so, they can not only restore public trust in media but also play a transformative role in driving cohesive and effective action against climate change. To do this, media must move beyond narrow framings frequently utilized in climate discourses, and zoom out to capture the bigger picture of how climate change is viewed and best communicated on an individual, community and societal level.
Figure 36: Media Shares Diagram by Parrot Analytics
Figure 37: Media Ownership Diagram by Record & Vox
Figure 38: Climate Action Tracker - global temperature increase projections by 2100.
Source: CrashCourse
Why We Need an Ecosystem View
To effectively engage the public on the climate crisis, it is necessary to adopt an ecosystem view of climate communication that considers the individual, collective and systemic levels, examining all dimensions of the problem. This means reversing the breakdown of complexity and reintroducing nuance into climate messaging, acknowledging that climate change is not just an environmental problem, but also a social and economic crisis. Communication strategies should therefore address the various impacts climate change has on society, including social justice issues and economic implications. As part of this, it will be crucial to highlight the need for holistic and collaborative solutions, as well as co-benefits of climate action.1 Effective communication should emphasize the opportunities for positive change and the potential benefits of taking ambitious climate action.
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