Television news coverage of global warming
- Univ. of Idaho, Moscow, ID (United States). School of Communication
- Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States). Dept. of Speech Communication
- Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States). Dept. of Communication
Citizens are expressing increased concern over the number and variety of environmental problems. Global warming in particular is a focus of concern for scientists and environmental groups. Such concern should naturally motivate individuals to seek information about these topics. Many people turn to the media, most usually television, for information on the nature of these problems. Consequently, this paper studied media coverage of environmental issues, specifically global warming. Television coverage was examined for: (1) the general nature of coverage; (2) biases in coverage; (3) visual images used to cover global warming; and (4) the congruity between visual and verbal messages in newscasts. Nightly newscasts from the three major American television networks were analyzed from 1993--1995 to determine the overall nature of global warming coverage since the Earth Summit in 1992. Results indicated that television news suffers from some serious inadequacies in its portrayal of global warming issues. The paper concludes by first discussing how its results intertwine with other work in the global warming and mass media field. Finally, the implications of inadequacies in media coverage for policy-makers when it comes to sound management of critical resources in this area are also discussed.
- OSTI ID:
- 376230
- Journal Information:
- World Resource Review, Vol. 8, Issue 2; Other Information: PBD: Jun 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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