MEDIA FRAMING OF GLOBAL WARMING: THE INFLUENCE OF OBJECTIVITY AND MEDIA FILTERS IN THE CLAIMS OF POLITICIANS AND SCIENTISTS

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1 MEDIA FRAMING OF GLOBAL WARMING: THE INFLUENCE OF OBJECTIVITY AND MEDIA FILTERS IN THE CLAIMS OF POLITICIANS AND SCIENTISTS A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Communication, Culture and Technology By Ashley Anderson, B.J. Washington, DC May 1, 2007

2 MEDIA FRAMING OF GLOBAL WARMING: THE INFLUENCE OF OBJECTIVITY AND MEDIA FILTERS IN THE CLAIMS OF POLITICIANS AND SCIENTISTS Ashley Anderson, B.J. Thesis Advisor: J.P. Singh, PhD ABSTRACT This thesis examines the relationship between politics and science in news stories of global warming to show that the news media does not necessarily gravitate toward the side of politics over the side of science. This study first examines political sources and frames versus scientific sources and frames in newspaper stories of global warming from 1985 through 1998 to determine which side politics or science has the most influence in the news media. It compares the average use of each type of source during predetermined political and scientific events. It is not until the Kyoto Protocol that political sources outnumber scientific sources. Also, the newspaper frames over time largely lean toward the side of politics. Following this finding, the study investigates how the newspaper coverage of that time portrays the Kyoto Protocol. It finds that coverage is inclined toward topics favoring the Kyoto Protocol, and therefore the scientific consensus. Rather than dominate the news coverage, the side of politics converges with the side of science. In-depth interviews with science journalists provide evidence journalists rely heavily on the principle of ii

3 objectivity, and, subsequently, scientists in their coverage of scientific issues. Media filters, or the norms within journalism, explain why stories still present minority opinions among scientists. iii

4 I would like to thank everyone in my family especially my parents and my sisters who have always given me encouragement, inspiration and support. I would also like to thank Dr. JP Singh and Dr. Diana Owen, who have provided me with much guidance throughout this thesis and in graduate school. Finally, thank you to my friends who have been there for me throughout this process especially Crystal, the other half of team thesis, and Lauren, for another set of eyes. iv

5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1. Politics v. science: Who dominates the media?...1 Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Background and Methodology: Investigating politics and science in the media coverage of global warming...33 Quantitative Analysis: Sources and frames in newspaper coverage of global warming...56 Qualitative Analysis: The influence of objectivity and media filters...72 Chapter 5. Conclusion: Global warming in public discourse References Appendix A. Qualitative Analysis Coding Instructions Appendix B. In-depth interview questions v

6 Chapter 1. Politics v. science: Who dominates the media? In his article, Constructing climate change: Claims and frames in U.S. news coverage of an environmental issue, Craig Trumbo found that from 1985 through 1994, the number of political sources in newspaper stories of global warming increased as scientific sources decreased in quantity. Claims made over scientific issues largely play out in the news media, a forum that breaks down the complexities of science and politics based on the claims of each. Trumbo s finding raises the question: In the face of both institutionalized dialogues politics and science do media gravitate toward politics? Intuitively, one would think science journalists favor the political agenda over the scientific finding because of the increased usage of political sources and frames. Politicians cater to the news values of timeliness and proximity and are more likely than scientists to establish the institutional connections needed to successfully become part of the final media frame. Nevertheless, this thesis shows the age-old journalistic principle of objectivity maintains the presence of the scientist in science news stories. Objectivity may be the news value that launches the politician into the news story, but it also means that news will be produced on the basis of science. The imbalances that still occur in presentation of the scientific consensus and the scientific minority can be 1

7 explained by the media filters, or news values and journalistic norms, that influence news stories. This thesis uses global warming to examine the balance between science and politics in the media because it is a classic case of a scientific issue wrought with politics. A journalist values presenting the scientific knowledge of an issue, but also values presenting what remains to be known about a scientific issue. It is either the scientific finding or the scientific uncertainty politicians will utilize in order to make their claims. With global warming, scholarship has shown news media accounts are not always balanced in their portrayal of scientific findings. Often, they give the scientific consensus on the theory of global warming and its human-led causes a similar amount of space they grant the much smaller percentage of scientists who question the theory and the human-driven activities that cause it (Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004). The imbalanced portrayals hint at the levels to which journalists have allowed global warming to play out as a political story and as a scientific story. This study uses a two-part methodology to investigate how politics and science are portrayed in the media. A quantitative analysis establishes a higher number of political sources and frames during the Kyoto Protocol. However, it is a follow-up qualitative analysis that allows the research to explore whether the higher number of political sources had an effect on the media frames. Ultimately, the qualitative content 2

8 analysis provided evidence that the politics do not dominate the coverage of global warming during the Kyoto Protocol but rather converge with the side of science. The interviews provide evidence journalists favor reporting objectivity which accounts for the preservation of science in news stories during the Kyoto Protocol. However, the interviews also show that media filters or journalistic norms and news values such as controversy, timeliness and proximity explain why journalists have given equal coverage to the minority opinion. First, this thesis sets out to establish the dominant influence of politics in the news coverage of global warming through the following hypotheses: H: When newspapers are covering political events surrounding the issue of climate change, they are more likely to use politicians as sources. H2: A corollary is that, over time, as more political sources are used, media frames will be more political than scientific. The research will provide evidence for these assumptions through a quantitative analysis of the amount of political sources and frames used in newspaper coverage of global warming. The thesis utilizes data from a previous study that completed a content analysis of Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and Wall Street Journal articles from 1985 to 1994 (Trumbo, 1996). The previous study was published just prior to the Kyoto Protocol and did not produce statistically significant findings 3

9 that political sources outnumbered scientific sources over time. Therefore, the research presented here seeks to establish the statistical significance in the use of political sources in global warming coverage by examining usage of political sources around political events, which are more likely than scientific events to generate news stories that use politicians as sources. Furthermore, it extends the data to include analysis of newspaper coverage during the time period around the Kyoto Protocol, which occurred in December This is the final political event evaluated in the study and is one of the most widely covered global warming policy events in the news media. The study establishes that the Kyoto Protocol is the first political event in which political sources outnumber the scientific sources. Also, the number of stories using political frames increased with time. Both of these findings serve as the basis for the next section of the study, which assumes politics will dominate science in media coverage of global warming. H3: As the use of political sources and frames increases in global warming coverage, journalists will be more likely to use political sources and frames as the foundation for their global warming coverage. The research conducts a content analysis of global warming stories in the five newspapers used in the first section of the study. A qualitative content analysis seeks to provide evidence for the foundation of politics in the media coverage by categorizing 4

10 stories about issues in favor of or against the Kyoto Protocol. It finds that newspaper coverage is largely in favor of the Kyoto Protocol. It uses in-depth interviews to explore norms within science journalism and how those media filters affect media frames of global warming stories. The qualitative analysis provides evidence that politics do not lead journalism coverage of global warming at all. Instead, it shows the news media favor the side of science because of their value of objectivity. Media filters explain the rest. The literature presented in chapter one seeks to build a discussion around how science and politics have formed a deliberative relationship through the media to respond to the need for accountability of technological advancements. First, it provides a discussion of how politics and science are institutionalized. Then, it provides a background on journalistic norms and principles and a brief discussion of how news media filter issues. Following the establishment of the theoretical framework germane to the debates among politics and science in the media, chapter two provides a historical context of the issue of global warming and a background on the Kyoto Protocol. Chapter two also provides an in-depth explanation of the quantitative and qualitative methodologies used for this study and why the methods were chosen. Chapter three explores the first two hypotheses on sources and frames used in newspaper coverage of 5

11 global warming to establish the importance of the politician as a source during the Kyoto Protocol. Chapter four then explores how politics actually influenced the global warming story through a qualitative content analysis and in-depth interviews with science journalists. Chapter five concludes the study with a summary of the findings and implications for future research in this area. 1.1 Journalistic and Democratic Principles Deliberation is a key principle to the democratic process and critical to the relationship between politics and science. Without it, science is not accountable for its research and policymakers would not have knowledge on which to base their policies. One of journalism s core principles is based on the idea that journalists must portray all perspectives of an issue in order to present an issue objectively. Therefore, the news media play a critical role as a forum for deliberation among all types of groups. Journalists choices to use of both kinds of sources political and scientific in scientific stories underline the importance of objectivity in journalism. However, journalism maintains several other filters through which an issue must travel in order to reach the public. The ways in which political agendas and scientific findings meet these filters affect how each ultimately enter media frames. The diagram below characterizes the relationship among these different parts: 6

12 Political Agenda-Setting Scientific Findings Media Filters Media Frames of Scientific Issues Figure 1.1 Overarching the production of media frames is the journalistic principle of objectivity critical to the practice that journalists will include sources beyond the scope of scientists in their stories on scientific issues. This principle guarantees politics will enter stories of science due to journalists value of presenting on all perspectives of an issue. Ultimately, political agendas are more adept at handling media filters, which can result in their dominance in the media framing of scientific issues. 1.2 Rhetoric of Scientific Progress Deliberation among scientists and politicians on technological advancements did not begin until the past 30 years. During this time unfettered technological progress met its critics, who recognize the social and environmental consequences hundreds of 7

13 years of technological advances have left on society. The need for accountability in science fueled deliberation among science and politics to mitigate some of these consequences. As scholars have begun to recognize the implications that hundreds of years of technological advancements have had, individual members of each party politics, science and media have begun to bring the consequences to the public s attention. The debates about these implications are often played out in the media. Society is grounded in a love affair with technology that began in the wake of the Cold War (Winner, 1986). Since that time, scientific rhetoric has utilized the language of progress in order to garner support for its cause. In the wake of a military need for technological research, Vannevar Bush wrote, Science the Endless Frontier, a report on the state of science and what its future held (Sarewitz, 1996). This report established the basic scientific-progress credo still used today by academic and private scientists and researchers lobbying Congress for resources (Sarewitz, 1996). The concept of progress is one of bipartisanship: rarely challenged by politicians always looking for a neutral way to appeal to their constituents who reap the benefits of technological applications. The general nature and support for societal benefit through progress has largely been the impetus for continued funding of basic 8

14 research 1. The rhetoric of progress requires that basic research be free from constraints in order to produce general knowledge that can later be used in beneficial applications (Chubin, 1989). However, considering the outcomes of applied research, both beneficial in the case of some medical technologies, for instance, and detrimental in the case of some weapons technologies, for instance, leaving basic research to the selfgovernance of scientists can be risky. Nevertheless, Vannevar Bush s research agenda proved to be the foundation for the nation s contract with science, carried forth for years to come. As scholars such as Winner have started to recognize the need for accountability of technological progress, deliberation has occurred among engineers and scientists and policymakers. The result is increased consciousness by all members of the public of the unintended consequences of technology. The implications of technology can be placed into two major categories: social and environmental. Technologies both large and small create upsets in the basic social structure of society. For instance, technologies encourage an increased privatization of lifestyles, which can destabilize communities through their impact on social network ties. An example of such privatization is the three-cushion couch, which provides the person seated with the means for maintaining a personal sphere around the body (Sclove, 1995). The general architecture of residential neighborhoods of developed 1 Basic research primarily advances fundamental knowledge and theoretical principles of scientific principles. This research is then extended to applied research to produce applications such as medical devices. 9

15 countries also fuels a private self by creating individual compartments of houses, fenced-in yards and enclosed porches. On a similar scale, a fundamental example of Sclove s (1995) concern with the social consequences of technology is the instance of a small town in Spain that changed after implementing a running water system in the late 1970s. The system, which purportedly improved the quality of life of the town by delivering water directly to each home, detracted from the continuous personal interactions community residents had experienced at the local water well. In America, involvement in small groups and organizations and the New England-style town meeting is of a bygone era (Putnam, 2001). The absence of small-group social interactions once the foundation of society in the United States is partly the result of technologies that keep people immersed in their private lives (Putnam, 2001). The ability of members of a community to interact, work and make decisions convivially is a pillar of Sclove s (1995) solution to the problem of technology s consequences. While his proposal of small-scale communities that live and work closely together using democratic technologies to make decisions about the future use of technologies seems idealistic, the attention he pays the social problems is notable. The importance of a public backing and public involvement with technologies is critical to addressing the consequences of technology. Communication exchange of scientific and technological fact is crucial to this end. 10

16 Environmental consequences, on the other hand, provide a more concrete, if gradual, picture of the long-term consequences of technology. For example, it is difficult for the public to ignore the claims of scientists that the continued release of greenhouse gases through the public s use of everyday items such as vehicles and energy consumption is harming the environment. Due to the mainstream media s ability to identify concretely the environmental problems through scientific fact and to cover environmentally related events such as hurricanes, it can be easier for the mainstream media to address environmental consequences than the social implications of technological progress. The problem then lies in the relationships among scientists, policymakers and the media that follow any time a scientific issue hits the nerve of the national media. The relationships are what ultimately influence the public s opinion of, and the subsequent action or lack thereof, the public takes to address environmental problems as a result of technological use. The historical background of scientific rhetoric and its criticisms cause narrower debates among science and politics. What follows is an explanation of how each side science and politics is institutionalized. An understanding of each institution then provides the framework for how each is framed through the media. This ultimately informs how narrower debates conveying both politicians and scientists occur. 11

17 1.3 The Side of Science Insight into how science is produced and the politics that shape that process provides a necessary background for understanding how scientific issues are shaped in the media. As evidenced in the rhetoric of scientific progress, the production of science is about the pursuit of knowledge. Scientific findings are falsifiable and made by one or more scientists agreed upon by the scientific community. However, politics set up the institutions and resources in which science is produced, and the communities in which scientists are currently a part also influence their output. The relationship between politics and science is shaped by institutions and by the rhetoric of progress. Recently, the evolution of science production and of the institutions that enter science development is defined by Vannevar Bush s Endless Frontier report. The basic democratic dogma of the social contract, based on the idea citizens defer to the sovereignty of the state in their own self-interest in order for a more functional society, is applied to the government-scientist relationship (Sarewitz, 1996). In the post-cold War era, the government charged scientists with a social contract that relies on the independent integrity of scientists. Scientists, who can perform tasks at a level of knowledge not immediately available to the public or policymakers, institute a self-regulation under contract with the government to initiate 12

18 progress based on funding that the government gives scientists. One aspect of this selfregulation is the publication peer-review system, which ensures all science has been checked by other scientists prior to publication. Government officials began to set up measures of accountability and institutions to provide oversight of this process in the late 1970s (Guston, 2000). These institutions clarified the long-standing relationship between science and politics. Ideally, science is fundamentally based on the idea of self-accountability and the independent pursuit of knowledge. The dialogue science has with politics accounts for the problems that occur when science does not meet these standards. 1.4 The Side of Politics While politics often plays a role in shaping scientific institutions as described above, an understanding of them as an individual entity provides a framework for the placement of politics in the media. A political agenda is a set of issues and policies at the forefront of a politician s attention. As issues enter the agendas of politicians, they establish norms in the field that create a long-term sense of stability, but are actually an illusion of equilibrium (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993, p. 9). The mass media play a crucial part of establishing the political agenda as the primary outlet for public awareness of political issues and policies. The longstanding relationship between the 13

19 two politics and media is the core element of how political agendas are filtered through the media. The ideal world of politics is based on the idea that politicians always make decisions based on the public interest. Politicians attention is granted to issues for a number of various reasons. Election cycles, lobbyists, committees or internal political institutions, and the geographic area they represent, all play into how they direct their agendas. The issues politicians choose to glorify eventually determine the media s agenda and, therefore, the public s agenda. Ideally, most politicians make decisions that establish policies for the greater good of the public. However, only a utopian can imagine politicians are unbound to interests outside of their constituent groups, such as interest groups and corporations that lobby for their support. Politicians agendas are rife with conflict, a large part of the factors that establish where they direct their attention (Cobb & Elder, 1983). Conflict, a primary news value, often drives political issues in the news media. How politicians build their agendas is situational, dependent on any number of factors relevant to their political careers and decisions at the moment. However, a distinct framework shapes the matters that lead politicians agendas (Cobb & Elder, 1983). The framework examines how political issues are developed and, subsequently, how systems, power, decision-making and interest groups or grouping affect the issue. Taking these factors into account is the first part of 14

20 examining how an issue becomes political. How that issue plays out in the media is what ultimately informs and engages the public, a part of the democratic process. Several factors lead up to an issue s presence in the mind of a politician. Social conditions or images of political problems alone to not automatically generate policy actions (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993, p. 27). Institutions, place and ideology, and perhaps the most dominant, people, are all reasons that lead politicians in the direction of certain issues. Obviously, constituents make up a large part of political decisions. However, people outside that direct politician-constituent relationship regularly enter the picture. For instance, a scientist s direct relationship to a politician or the politician s membership of a science committee can be responsible for how much a politician knows about a scientific issue. While largely anecdotal, these specific relationships lead up to politicians participation in policy events around an issue. Individual policy events then add up to the larger picture of how an issue is framed politically. Policy events also produce media coverage. Event-driven coverage is highly coveted by journalists, who need to find a way to incorporate the issue as current and in a way that is applicable to their readers lives at the time of the story (Barnhurst & Mutz, 1997). Before policy events, such as hearings, treaties or public debates about an issue, a politician must decide how to direct his or her attention. As mentioned above, the 15

21 agenda-building framework analyzing systems, power, decision-making and interest groups can be useful for defining why certain issues gain ground over others for politicians. Three defined prerequisites for entering the agenda of a politician are: (1) widespread attention or at least awareness; (2) shared concern of a sizeable portion of the public that some type of action is required; and (3) a shared perception that the matter is an appropriate concern of some governmental unit and falls within the bounds of its authority (Cobb & Elder, 1983, p. 86). The importance of media involvement and their role as a forum for outside authorities becomes evident in these criteria. While politicians may not be the outside authorities journalists use when covering scientific issues, they provide the opposing sides journalists look for when they want to provide the audience with controversy. Politicians are influential in determining how an issue is framed in the media, and the framing of an issue affects how people will respond. Entman s (1993) definition of a frame is useful for understanding why politicians frame issues: Framing essentially involves selection and salience. To select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described. (Entman, 1993, p. 52). Frames identify which parts of an issue the public will learn (Entman, 1993). They also establish acknowledged terms for an issue, which are not likely to change 16

22 once established (Entman, 1993). Politicians use these strategies to garner support and ultimately power for their side on an issue. 1.5 Aspects of Journalism Each individual institution described above science and politics enters the news story in different ways. A number of widely held practices, values and principles affect the media frame. The next subsection describes these filters and how politics and science encounter them. 1.5A Objectivity in News Media Journalism is historically steeped in the notion of objectivity. John Stuart Mill first presented the idea of a free marketplace of ideas in On Liberty in He opined that all people should be able to contribute to a forum of ideas for the following reasons: that silencing an opinion risks silencing the truth; that a wrong opinion may contain an element of truth that helps to find the whole truth; that even an opinion which is the whole truth has to be tested and defended in order to be held on rational grounds; and that a commonly held opinion must be challenged in order to retain its vitality and effect (qtd. in Richards, 2005, p. 17). Throughout history, journalism has been a vital part of keeping the public informed in an egalitarian and democratic society (Ward, 2004). The role news media play in informing the public is based on the idea of mere transmission of information 17

23 among individuals and groups without interference. Today, objectivity is still a core principle by which journalists produce their stories. Journalists continue to perceive themselves as a critical part of the democratic process. The Code of Ethics published by the Society of Professional Journalists states in its mission that: public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues (Society of Professional Journalists, 1997). Objectivity is largely nothing more than a principle by which journalists work. What objectivity actually is or whether journalists ever achieve objectivity in their news accounts is left to individual interpretation. Nevertheless, this study presents the idea of objectivity as comprised of three elements: accuracy, fairness and completeness. This study operationalizes each of the three subsets of objectivity, but the three ideas often overlap. The diagram presented below demonstrates how each part of objectivity is its own entity, but also shows how they overlap [see figure 1.2]. This diagram is in no way meant to be all-inclusive of every aspect of objectivity a journalist might take into account. Rather, it is meant to characterize a few of the main elements of objectivity and demonstrate how other elements of objectivity could be included within these three main aspects. 18

24 Accuracy Inclusion of all available information to the journalist. Absence of factual error. Inclusion of all newsworthy details pertinent to an accurate understanding of the subject at hand. Completeness Granting various sides of the debate the attention they deserve. Presenting stories without personal or organizational biases. Figure 1.2 Fairness 19

25 Completeness Completeness encourages journalists to maintain a full account of all details at hand. To borrow part of Richards (2005) definition, journalists achieve completeness in a news story when they are unable to obtain further (newsworthy) details or when additional information would not significantly affect what readers or viewers will tend to decide after reading or viewing it (p. 29). However, as Richards (2005) recognizes, whether a news story is complete depends on several factors, including the journalist s approach and background knowledge and the pressure newsrooms put on journalists to file news stories in the timeliest manner possible. Completeness seems a small part of objectivity, but it encompasses aspects of the other two elements of objectivity fairness and accuracy. Completeness means that a journalist will incorporate all sides or perspectives of an issue into a story, a key component of fairness. Also, completeness encourages journalists to present all information available on a subject. While providing all available information is a part of the accuracy component of objectivity, accuracy extends into a broader realm of presenting information ethically. 20

26 Accuracy It is difficult to define the word accuracy within the context of journalism, largely because the outputs journalists produce are constructed through a foundation of various elements, including tools and information available to the journalist, the environment in which the journalist works and the personal ideas or interpretations a journalist brings to a story. Taking into account even these few elements of how news stories are produced, it is nearly impossible to give a full and complete definition of the term accuracy. Nevertheless, this study approaches accuracy with the understanding that journalists produce their stories with all of the facts possible, within the confines of space and informational constraints, and with the absence of factual error (Kiernan, 2006, p. 85). How audiences collect and perceive information is as much a part of the construction of information about society as the choices journalists make when they produce news stories. Audiences understanding of information from the mass media is based on preexisting meaning structures or schemas (Scheufele, 1999, p. 105). The public builds its interpretation of information and view of reality from personal experience, interaction with peers, and interpreted selections from the mass media (Neuman, Just & Crigler, 1992, p. 120). On the other side, journalists choose various sources in order to establish objectivity in their reporting, and those choices are often a 21

27 reflection of a bias of or convenience for the journalist. This draws the discussion to the third element of objectivity fairness. Presenting an accurate news account typically means a journalist has to present unbiased, or fair, information. Fairness Portraying unbiased information is not the only aspect of fairness, but a large part of the objectivity element that means providing more than one side of the debate. The term fair is often coupled with the term balance because both rely on the idea that the news media should give various sides of debate the attention or space each side deserves (Richards, 2005, p. 30). Journalism also faces several external influences that affect how a reporter presents an issue. Journalists must bypass these as much as they can in order to present information fairly. Providing multiple sides of an issue is a widely held principle in journalism, and is often the core belief of the definition of objectivity. One study found four different meanings of objectivity in which journalists believe: 1. An equally thorough questioning of the position of each side in a political dispute. 2. Going beyond the statements of contending sides to the hard facts of a political dispute. 3. Expressing fairly the position of each side in a political dispute. 4. Not allowing your own political beliefs to affect the presentation of the subject (Graber, McQuail & Norris, 1998). 22

28 This study reflects the varying viewpoints of the topic of objectivity by journalists from five different countries, but also exemplifies the importance of debate within journalism. Fairness also encompasses the ability to present information without the external influences inherent to journalism. Politics and outside corporate interests inevitably seep into the process of media production based on the financial and logistical limitations that the media has in collecting and producing information. According to scholars Herman and Chomsky (1988), the business and government interests maintain control over what appears in the media, which is actually a propaganda tool. The propaganda model reveals that elite powers of both business and government control the media through the following characteristics: size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; the reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and experts funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power; flak as a means of disciplining the media; and anticommunism as a national religion and control mechanism (Herman & Chomsky, 1988, p. 2). These institutional constraints make it difficult for journalists to maintain fairness in their coverage. Awareness of the constraints is important for journalists when they produce their stories and for the public when they consume news. 23

29 1.5B Media Filters The primary role of journalism is often described as a mirror of society. A journalist enters the field in order to present objective information to the public and believes his or her information dissemination is crucial to the democratic process. However, journalism is rarely truly reflective of society in the face of resource and space constraints, deadlines to meet, limitations of journalists knowledge and access to sources and norms of media organizations. Examining news stories within these filters provides insight into how journalists approach all news stories, and, specifically scientific stories. Media filters are characterized in this study as influences from within the news organization that obstruct journalists pursuit of objectivity in the news production process. The influences may be institutional or individual. The way in which media present an issue, including which sources are used to present those frames, often depends on various media constraints outside of the control of the journalist. The realities of resources available in both funding and time to journalists are a part of the cycle of news production. Individual-level choices often affect journalists decisions, yet those decisions are made within the realm of media organizations and their routines, as characterized by Shoemaker and Reese in Mediating the Message (1996, 24

30 p. 86). The audience and its news consumption preferences, the advertisers that sometimes dictate the stories covered by the news outlet, and the media organization itself are all issues taken into account when journalists produce stories (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996). News Values One media filter that affects the ultimate output of news production is the element of news values a journalist upholds to meet the demands of the news audience. These are characteristics that often make up a news story: prominence/importance, conflict/controversy, human interest, the unusual, timeliness and proximity (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996). When compared with the qualities of political agendas and scientific findings, it is clear to see how each of these news values caters to the political side over the scientific side. A topic is more likely to make the news the more lives it affects or if it relates to a powerful individual or institution that can affect the lives of the public, when considering the value of prominence or importance (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, p. 111). In science coverage, it would make sense that politicians fare better than scientists as sources due to their power to impact policy regulations made on a scientific issue and on how science is produced and developed. Scientists discoveries 25

31 are important, but politicians are largely responsible for deciding if and how much scientific findings matter through the development of policy actions. Adding a human element to a story is another quality journalists uphold when producing news stories. Journalists attempts to add the human interest value to scientific issues often does the science a disservice. The scientific method of inquiry is often something that occurs over years or even decades with several researchers providing input into one scientific discovery. The journalist, on the other hand, prefers to portray scientific discoveries as the outcome of a lone researcher in the laboratory having a Eureka moment (Kiernan, 2006). Politicians careers are immersed in the human element because of their reliance on directly addressing how their policies and actions affect the general public. Therefore, their agendas are easily covered by the media. Perhaps one of the best known news values, conflict or controversy, is based on the notion that people assume that most of the time things are harmonious and when they are not, people want to know (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, p. 111). The media will often portray the opposing side to the consensus by the scientific community on scientific issues. This might be acknowledgement of a few scientists who believe in intelligent design alongside the broad scientific community that agrees on the theory of evolution. In the case of global warming, the popular press has given roughly equal 26

32 coverage to the idea that both human-induced causes and natural climate fluctuations are causing global warming. On the other hand, scientists perspectives published in peer-reviewed scientific journals acknowledge both of these types of causes but place greater emphasis on human causation of global warming than natural fluctuation (Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004). Politics are often the impetus for conflict in scientific stories. The news value of the unusual is another tool journalists use to gain news audiences by profiling anything out of the ordinary. What journalists regularly portray as new developments in the field of science are often actually the result of years of work on the part of the scientist (Kiernan, 2006). While this does not necessarily mean journalists are portraying science inaccurately, it does mean journalists do not always find value in reporting everyday occurrences in the science community, which are not always of an unusual nature due to the length of time it takes to reach a finding. That may lead to inaccuracies or a misunderstanding by the public of science as a result of science journalism in the long-term. On the other hand, it is easier for politicians to quickly bump the status quo, and therefore create an unusual circumstance to cover, by hosting an event or preparing a speech on an issue. The long-term method of scientific inquiry often does not stack up to the journalistic need to produce news immediately, the value of timeliness. The amount 27

33 of time scientists spend on their research generally lasts years, while news stories happen by the minute. The immediacy of journalists line of work and the lengthy process scientists require in their research causes some of the tension between the two groups. The result is often a truncation of years worth of scientific findings into a short news story. Furthermore, events surrounding scientific issues are much more likely than everyday steps toward a scientific finding to get covered because they provide the journalist the ability to produce stories that can be related back to the present. Politicians are more adept at maneuvering their agendas to the news value of timeliness. They even have staffs of press secretaries and public relations employees that design news releases based on when journalists have to meet their deadlines. Finally, the value of proximity denotes that news audiences value stories that happen locally. Stories concerning global warming are rarely relatable to people unless they are focusing on the direct impact humans can have on the issue or on an event that could be related to global warming. For instance, global warming did not hit the mainstream press regularly until after At that time, two events fueled the initial coverage of global warming: NASA scientist James Hansen s testimony in front of Congress and a summer drought in the United States. The local angle or the ability of a story to relate to news audiences directly is almost fundamental to the political story 28

34 about a politician who represents a certain constituency or brings the human element into telling their stories in order to gain support for their policies. Norms and Institutions in Journalism Outside of the core values of news, journalists make decisions within the realm of several other institutional norms. Reporters make choices concerning the usage of sources based on who will speak to them within the time they need to produce their news stories. Reporters are usually assigned a beat, which allows them to build resources and contacts within a certain sector of the community they are covering (Kiernan, 2006). Beats are useful in immersing a reporter in a community, but they can limit the scope of the journalists resources. For instance, an environmental reporter might miss a story about a business attention or lack of attention to its impact on the environment because it was only within the realm of the business reporter, who may prioritize other stories over it. Science journalism, in particular, has two distinct rules that impact science coverage. The Ingelfinger Rule implies that scientists who publicize their findings in the mainstream press prior to a formal peer-reviewed publication will not be considered for publication in a scholarly journal (Kiernan, 2006). This can be a great hindrance to scientists willingness to work with the media. However, the scientific 29

35 community does cooperate with the media through public relations organizations at scholarly journals. The journals generally provide approved science journalists information about the latest scientific publication news prior to publication in the scholarly journal. They often provide the news up to a week prior to publication in the journal in order to allow journalists enough time to prepare their stories accurately and comprehensively (Kiernan, 2006). It is evident that the media and scientific community are lacking several criteria to establish successful working relationships that would precede fully objective coverage of science. The media and the politician, on the other hand, hold a close relationship, with each feeding off the other s agenda and continuously placing different issues at the forefront of the public s eye (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993). If politics are a necessary component in raising awareness around an issue, it is not without difficulties. For instance, a beat system might allow reporters to focus on a specific community, but it results in reporters covering several alternative aspects of a single issue and never reaching any overarching synthesis of the issue (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993, p. 103). Media tend to present information with a bottleneck of attention, never focusing on any single issue for long (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993, p. 125). Issues can be covered in waves with sporadic, but never sustained, attention. The element of sporadic attention is important to keep in mind 30

36 when considering the media coverage of scientific issues. Coverage of a scientific issue often developing over the course of several years can come in waves, drawing attention to the issue at various points of scientific knowledge. 1.6 Conclusion News is constructed based on several factors of production and institutions outside of the fundamental concept of news as a mirror of society, but they are also based on the idea of presenting objective information. Part of that is presenting facts and situations as they are. This is especially important in cases where people cannot see all of the images to fully grasp situations (Lippmann, 1922). For instance, without media, people often have no outlet besides the government to learn what is going on in a war that is occurring on the other side of the world. Part of presenting objectivity in work is using various sources to cover all sides of an issue. However, as more sides become represented, the goal of presenting fact often becomes sidelined to presenting the moral judgments of interest groups. While a part of the foundation of objectivity, presenting many sides of an issue often results in politicians getting a say just for the sake of their political interests. While it is the duty of politicians to establish interests to represent their polities, it is also their responsibility to represent the greatest good for 31

37 the greatest number of people. The problem lies in their tendency to cater to outside interest groups, business interests and lobbyists instead. In the case of global warming, the politics that have won the dominant influence on the issue may have confused the public s understanding of the scientific consensus on the topic. The result is a delayed reaction to addressing the problem and further environmental or social consequences. 32

38 Chapter 2. Background and Methodology: Investigating politics and science in the media coverage of global warming Debates questioning technological progress came to bear in the 1960s, fueling deliberation between politics and science. Debates on global warming, a result of the consequences of technological progress, is at the heart of these ideas and came to bear in the media in the 1980s and 1990s. The prominence the media has given it over time has resulted in a full-scale deliberation among all parties, including scientists and politicians, of the issue. This chapter begins with a background on media coverage of global warming to provide evidence for these claims. This chapter also provides a background on the science of global warming, as well as the Kyoto Protocol. Then, it details the methodology this study will use to examine the research in question. 2.1 Media Coverage of Global Warming As scientists have gained knowledge about global warming and voiced their concerns, the media have increasingly begun to cover the issue. Global warming regularly entered the mainstream press after a summer drought in 1988 and a testimony by James Hansen, a NASA scientist, before the U.S. Congress, initiated media interest (Wilson, 2000). Early coverage in the late 1980s and early 1990s was driven by such environmental images as rainforest depletion, while today s coverage largely refers to such image-friendly stories as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The media has 33

39 played a role in attracting public attention to the issue, but it has not always accurately portrayed the scientific consensus, as evidenced by previous scholarship. Numerous studies have been completed on various aspects of media coverage of global warming, and this summary is not meant to be exhaustive of all scholarship available. Rather, it briefly introduces some of the literature pertinent to a background for this study. Boykoff and Boykoff (2004) established a bias in the media on global warming coverage by measuring the balance with which the media frames the global warming issue. Their content analysis of four major U.S. newspapers compared with peerreviewed scientific journals provided evidence that the mainstream press portrays a relatively even balance between human-induced changes as causes of global warming and natural changes as causes of global warming. The peer-reviewed scientific journals, on the other hand, revealed the scientific consensus acknowledges both human and natural causes but places emphasis on the human causes (Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004). Dispensa and Brulle (2003) also completed a content analysis of two U.S. newspapers, two international newspapers and two international peer-reviewed scientific journals. One of their research questions analyzed whether each article contained at least one sentence supporting the assertion that global warming is produced through anthropogenic, or human-led, conditions, if it did not contain any 34

40 sentences that portrayed the claim that global warming is produced through anthropogenic conditions, or if the article covered both anthropogenic conditions and natural conditions claimed to cause global warming. The study found that a strong majority of the stories published in the news and scientific journals, except the two U.S. newspapers analyzed, contained at least one sentence recognizing the human-led conditions that have led to global warming (Dispensa & Brulle, 2003). McComas and Shanahan s (1999) study of the construction of narratives by the media about global warming, and of how these influence attention cycles, found that the inherent consequences of global warming gained prominence in newspaper coverage in the New York Times and Washington Post during the upswing of newspaper attention. The study also found that the controversy among scientists who research global warming gained prominence during the maintenance phase of the newspaper cycle, when sensational and attention-grabbing stories of the potential danger of global warming were not available (McComas & Shanahan, 1999). While frames of uncertainty have been linked to politicians as the fuel for their proposed skepticism of the theory of global warming, the frames have also been linked to scientists. Zehr (2000) found the uncertain nature of global warming has enabled the scientists to remain the authoritative knowledge provider for global warming. 35

41 It is important to understand the context in which global warming has been portrayed in the media and how biases on scientific knowledge have played out in order to understand the crux of this study which examines whether politicians use of the scientific knowledge or the use of scientific uncertainty as a hook will dominate the media coverage. 2.2 Global Warming Global warming refers to the gradual increase in temperature within the Earth s atmosphere due to the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect causes temperature increases within the Earth s atmosphere when atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide trap the sun s radiation that reflects off of the Earth s surface. When heat is trapped, it is absorbed into the Earth s atmosphere, causing the overall average temperature of the Earth to increase (Mahlman, 2005). Clouds, water vapor and carbon dioxide are all atmospheric elements that absorb the sun s infrared rays instead of allowing the radiation reflect off of the Earth and leave the Earth s atmosphere (Mahlman, 2005). A small amount of global warming occurs naturally, keeping the Earth warm enough to sustain life (Oberthur & Ott, 1999). However, concentrations of carbon dioxide have risen significantly in the past two centuries, largely due to humanrelated emissions of carbon dioxide. As a result, 11 of the hottest years on record since 36

42 1850 have occurred within the 1995 to 2006 time period (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007). Theories of global warming started as early as the late nineteenth century, but it was not until the beginning of the twenty-first century that scientists revealed with certainty that through greenhouse gas emissions, humans are causing significant increases in the Earth s temperature. 2 The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change established in its 2007 report the finding that human-caused climate change is very likely. 3 The report found that carbon dioxide concentrations have increased from about 280 parts per million by volume in the eighteenth century to nearly 379 parts per million by volume in the year 2005 (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007). Global warming theories developed throughout the latter part of the twentieth century. However, policymakers did not turn their attention to the issue until the mid- 1980s. The Villach Conference in 1985 was one of the earliest international policy events on global warming. The gathering of scientists was instrumental in determining that in the first half of the next century a rise in global mean temperature could occur which is greater than any in man s history (qtd. in Weart, 2003, p. 151.) The meeting 2 Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist, was the first scientist to theorize about the possibility of global warming by hypothesizing what might happen if levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were raised (Weart, 2003). 3 The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It acts primarily to provide scientific advice to policymakers (see 37

43 suggested that governmental policies could impact this future warming. Scientists started calling on American politicians to pay attention to the issue around this time through Congressional testimonies and hearings. This was also the time period international policymakers began to host hearings and conferences to have initial discussions on regulations. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established in the late 1980s to garner international scientific consensus on climate change. Since then, the organization has released 4 major reports, each increasing in intensity with its certainty of knowledge around climate change. With each report, the international group of scientists works to come up with an international scientific consensus on the effects of global warming. However, the reports also have to be endorsed by a consensus of government delegates, who sometimes delay or impact the wording of the findings. As carbon dioxide is one of the major known causes of global warming, it is crucial to know where the various carbon dioxide emissions originate. Developed countries generally produce much larger amounts of the greenhouse gas than developing countries due to their enormous use of fossil fuels. The United States has more greenhouse gas emissions than South America, Africa, the Middle East, 38

44 Australia, Japan and Asia combined (Gore, 2006). Europe is not far behind, making just three percent less emissions than the United States [see figure 2.1]. Figure 2.1 Source: Gore, Global warming has altered the Earth and its atmosphere, including rising sea levels, melting of glaciers, increasing extreme weather conditions, such as hurricanes, and changing rainfall patterns. Many of these impacts are both long-term and irreversible. 39

45 2.3 Kyoto Protocol The meeting on global warming held in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997 was actually the endpoint for a negotiation process that spanned several years. Action toward policy implementation on the issue of climate change began with the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro in This conference established the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which acts as the main intergovernmental framework for establishing policies on climate change. This framework is an international constitution and was formally adopted in 1994 after it was ratified by 50 countries. The Kyoto Protocol actually serves as a supplement to this constitution, and requires the reduction of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, by industrialized countries (Bodansky, 2005). The Kyoto Protocol is global in nature with more than 190 countries signed on, but without current support by the United States. While it was opened for signature after the December 1997 meeting, the treaty did not enter into force until February of In light of the importance of the event to this research, several details leading up to and during the event are worth mentioning. 40

46 Several early international policy events responded to the increasing environmental concerns apparent in the late 1980s. The discovery of a hole in the ozone layer, deforestation and greenhouse warming began to enter environmental groups, and subsequently, policymakers consciousnesses around this time period. Environmental events such as a heat wave and drought in the summer of 1988 drew attention to the issue of global warming. Early international conferences each contributed to the eventual establishment of the intergovernmental framework on climate change: the Villach Conference of 1985, the Toronto Conference in 1988, the United Nations General Assembly in 1988, the Hague Summit in 1989, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report published in 1990, the Second World Climate Conference in 1990 and the United Nations General Assembly in 1990 (Bodansky, 2005). Most notably, the Villach Conference established the need for countries to consider the establishment of a global climate convention, the UN General Assembly resolution in 1988 established the climate as a common concern of mankind, and the Hague Summit determined the need for a new institutional authority to preserve the Earth s atmosphere (Bodansky, 2005, p. 153). Divisions between the major players of the framework were apparent early in the international negotiation process. The Second World Climate Conference, held in 1990, showed a few distinct separations between various countries, and, notably, 41

47 among developed and developing countries (Bodansky, 2005). Within developed countries, different countries supported different broad policies. The European Union supported overall reduction of greenhouse gases (Oberthur & Ott, 1999). Japan, United States, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Norway and New Zealand, which made up a group known as JUSSCANNZ, on the other hand, did not support rigorous commitments to greenhouse gas emission reductions (Oberthur & Ott, 1999). Also, a major division lay in whether developing countries should also be responsible for the same amount of emission reductions as developed countries, even though they had not borne the majority of the global warming liability up until that point (Bodansky, 2005). Within developing countries, some were more supportive of a policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while others were more interested in being able to continue industrial growth in order to stimulate economic growth (Bodansky, 2005). Small island countries, which formed the Alliance of Small Island States, supported emission reductions due to their fear of rising sea levels. Larger developing countries, such as Brazil, India and China, were more inclined to fewer emissions reductions in order to spur economic development. Following the establishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change during the 1992 Earth Summit, most countries nearly immediately agreed further mandates were necessary. Follow-up meetings, also known as 42

48 Conferences of the Parties, were held leading up to and following the Kyoto meeting. The first of these meetings is known as the Berlin Mandate and determined additional commitments for industrialized countries for the post-2000 period, extending the initial agreement. The United States was reluctant to agree to these additional commitments because they were only required of the developed countries. Negotiations ensued for two years, and ended with the Kyoto Protocol in The meeting in Kyoto was the second Conference of Parties meeting and lasted for 12 days, resulting in the amendment to the convention framework determined in Rio de Janeiro in The United States played an instrumental role in the negotiations, and had been somewhat influenced by a resolution passed in the U.S. Senate prior to the meeting. In July 1997, the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, led by Senators Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), declared that the U.S. Senate would not ratify any treaty that could cause serious harm to the U.S. economy or one that did not require specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period (Victor, 2004, p. 117). The negotiations at Kyoto comprised three main complications, including exactly what emission limitation targets should be, whether measures to allow developed countries to meet emissions restrictions through flexible measures should be allowed, and whether developing countries should be required to meet 43

49 emissions restriction objectives (Bodansky, 2005). A speech by U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who flew to the conference at the last minute, was heavily covered by the media and portrayed as a last-minute effort by the U.S. Presidential Administration to express its commitment to reaching an agreement despite the Congressional-level debates. The speech focused on the inclusion of market mechanisms, realistic targets and timetables, and the meaningful participation of key developing countries, and instructed the U.S. delegation to have some flexibility in their negotiations (Oberthur & Ott, 1999, p. 56). Ultimately, the final protocol represented a trade-off among several issues. The main objective of the protocol is to stabilize atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases at levels that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system (Bodansky, 2005, p. 162). The crux of the protocol is Article 3, which requires industrialized countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5% below 1990 levels by the years (Oberthur & Ott, 1999). The protocol allows for bubbling, which allows groups of industrialized countries, such as the European Union, to combine their emissions reductions percentages. Further, some flexibility mechanisms were taken into account in the protocol. These allow countries to fulfill emissions reductions requirements through various measures such as forestation or implementing carbon sinks, which take carbon dioxide out of the air and place it somewhere else, such as an ocean bed. 44

50 The current political climate in 2007 in the United States is much more affable to policy action on ways to curb global warming than it was in 2001 when President George W. Bush took office. The same president who immediately knocked global warming off the political agenda after taking office is beginning to acknowledge the problem. He mentioned the problem of global warming for the first time in his 2007 State of the Union address. Also, a Democrat-controlled Congress in 2007 is hosting more hearings and forming more committees on the issue. Internationally, the scope of climate change is also evolving. For example, the United Nations Security Council an organization that typically meets to discuss weapons of mass destruction or border disputes discussed global warming for the first time in As pressure from other countries continues to increase on the United States and as the issue becomes linked to energy policy and oil usage, it is likely to become a cutting edge topic amongst American politicians. 2.4 Quantitative Content Analysis The Kyoto Protocol was important as an international policy event, but it was also widely covered by the media. The definition of news broadly constitutes something new and something novel (Barnhurst & Mutz, 1997). An event covered in the news can be minute or spontaneous, such as a local petty crime, or major and 45

51 planned, such as the Kyoto Protocol. The quantitative analysis of this study looks not just at the number of political sources used in newspaper coverage, but also at the number of political sources used during political events. One would assume that even if political sources had not begun to dominate the mainstream news on global warming, they had begun to penetrate the political events of global warming much earlier. As time passes, the number of policy events on global warming increases, and, therefore, one would assume the number of political frames around an issue would also increase. These two ideas are represented in the following hypotheses: H: When newspapers are covering political events surrounding the issue of climate change, they are more likely to use politicians as sources. H2: A corollary is that, over time, as more political sources are used, media frames will be more political than scientific. Therefore, this study analyzes source and frame data from approximately more than a decade of newspaper coverage in order to establish the number of sources used in newspaper coverage around political events and the number of political frames used as time passes. The research for the quantitative analysis is based on research published in 1996 by Craig Trumbo in the journal Public Understanding of Science. The article, Constructing climate change: Claims and frames in U.S. news coverage of an environmental issue, used a content analysis of five major U.S. newspapers from

52 through While not statistically significant, it found that over the span of the decade studied, the type of sources used shifted. Scientists were cited more in the beginning of the time period and politicians were quoted more at the end. This chapter expands the Trumbo (1996) study by repeating the analysis for newspaper coverage surrounding the Kyoto Protocol, which occurred in December While a mere extension of the study to the Kyoto Protocol is important to a quantitative analysis of the issue of climate change, this chapter s empirical contribution lies in the quantitative analysis of newspaper coverage specifically related to events. Trumbo s (1996) study examined global warming media coverage broadly across a time period that nearly equaled a decade. This chapter categorizes media stories by events around which they are written. The gradual increase of political influence over the issue of climate change jumps during the Kyoto Protocol. This political influence maintains itself prominently during coverage of global warming, as shown through the large number of stories written on the issue during this short period. Science is discovered in small gradual developments over time, and politicians make it easy for journalists to maintain coverage of a scientific issue such as global warming through their short-term attention to an issue through media blitzes, press conferences and meetings that add to the human element of an issue. 47

53 The decade covered in this study marks the beginning of mainstream political involvement in global warming. Trumbo s (1996) study begins prior to the scientific event of the James Hansen testimony in front of Congress in 1988, which, coupled with one of the hottest summers on record, spurred long-term media coverage of the issue of global warming. Over time, the issue of global warming gradually becomes an international one. A world climate conference in 1990 and the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 are just two examples of international-level events that drew together representatives from different countries. However, the Kyoto Protocol drew media coverage and subsequent public awareness to a new level. This was partly due to the large number of representatives from news media organizations in attendance at the event. Also, domestic policy events leading up to the December 1997 meeting fueled the press coverage. Differing goals and ideas between the Clinton Administration and the Republican Congress provided the press with a source of conflict, a value the news audience holds. Therefore, this event became a tipping point not just for political involvement, but also for more widespread knowledge of climate change in the general public. A number of outside parties entered the news story during this time period. Journalists found a way to incorporate business interests and trade organizations, environmental interest groups, economists and regular citizens into the story of global warming. 48

54 The decision to investigate why mass media gravitate to coverage of political agendas over scientific findings when covering global warming is based partly on the idea that journalists value having an event to cover when they are describing complex scientific issue such as global warming (Kiernan, 2006). Covering the pure science of an issue is not always enough to garner attention in the news media. While images of the environmental risks often bring the science into the story, journalists still turn to political events, defined here as Congressional or international policy meetings, speeches and the release of policy plans, when available. However, they also cover scientific events, defined by this researcher as publications in peer-reviewed scholarly scientific journals, testimonies of scientists, and meetings of scientists. The study does not include all scientific events that occurred during this time period, but several of the prominent ones that influenced media coverage. Focusing on sources used around these events parcels out the coverage of the event to the two sides of the political and the scientific. This research uses a content analysis of five major U.S. newspapers: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. 4 The study uses data collection methods Trumbo (1996) used. 4 The original data set used in Trumbo s (1996) study was obtained. The data from that set comprises the data in the analysis representing 1985 through The author of this study collected the data for October 1997 through December The Factiva database was used for Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor and Washington Post articles. The National Newspaper Database was used for Los Angeles Times articles. 49

55 Stories of global warming are defined as those that contain one of the following phrases: global warming, greenhouse effect, or climate change. The study also categorizes four frames 5 : Define problems: These stories deal with what will happen as a consequence of this phenomenon. Impacts may be negative (coastal flooding), positive (improved regional agriculture), or debated. Diagnose causes: evidence as to reality of climate change as a problem. These are typically presentations of scientific findings that support the idea that there is a problem (evidence of rising sea level), refute the idea that there is a problem (evidence that changes are within limits of natural variance), or present the argument that the nature of the problem is unknown. Make moral judgments: action statements. These stories present general statements calling for action or reporting action taken (the USA should sign a treaty, did sign a treaty), arguing against action or reporting action blocked (emission standards not needed, scientific testimony altered), or present the argument that a course of action is not clear. Suggest remedies: provide specific information about how solutions should be implemented. These stories report specific solutions that have been proposed or implemented (tougher emission standards), solutions that have been rejected or deemed inadequate (voluntary programs), or present a debate about a specific solution or solutions. Note that the specificity of the solution a statement of exactly how the solution should be carried out is an important distinction between an action statement and a solution statement. (Trumbo, 1996, p ). The frames were coded based on the initial impression of the researcher from the headline, or the first few lines of the article. In order to examine the corollary hypothesis, this study assumes more scientists will be associated with the first two 5 Robert Entman first came up with the framework for these four categories of frames in his article, Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm, published in the Journal of Communication in His definition of frame is, to select some aspects of perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described (Entman 1993, p. 52). 50

56 frames define problems and diagnose causes because of the need for scientific expertise in determining what global warming is and what causes it. The study assumes more politicians will be associated with the second two frames make moral judgments and suggest remedies because of politicians influence on the actions, such as treaties, involved in the two frames. Sources were defined as those people to whom the journal quotes or attributes directly in the article. Two categories of sources were counted: scientists and politicians. Each group breaks down to the following specific types of sources: Scientists: university scientists, government scientists and other scientists (including foreign scientists); Politicians: Congressional members, members of the Reagan or Bush Administrations, members of the Clinton Administration and foreign officials. The statistical analysis collapses the individual types of each source into the two categories politicians and scientists examined in the hypotheses. Nineteen major scientific and political events were chosen for analysis in this study. Overall, most of the science-based events occur during the years in the beginning of the study approximately 1984 through 1990 and the policy-based events occur during the final years of the study approximately 1991 through However, there are events of each type throughout the years of the study. Journalism is largely based around being able to cover an event, so as to link it to the current actions 51

57 of the day. While scientists don t necessarily have the background to complete this, politicians are adept at hosting events. 2.5 Qualitative Analysis Chapter four combines a qualitative content analysis of newspaper coverage during the Kyoto Protocol with in-depth interviews with science journalists. The content analysis allows the study to look more closely at the newspaper coverage of the Kyoto Protocol, established in chapter three as the first coverage that utilizes significantly more political sources than scientific sources. A qualitative analysis of the articles during this time period provides an understanding of how a jump in political sources affects the perspective of the news media coverage of global warming. It explores the following hypothesis: H3: As the use of political sources and frames increases in global warming coverage, journalists will be more likely to use political sources and frames as the foundation for its global warming coverage. The qualitative content analysis examines newspaper articles from Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal during the time period of October 1997 through December This begins the analysis two months prior to the Kyoto meeting held in December 1997 and monitors the coverage for a year following the meeting. Stories containing one of three 52

58 phrases, global warming, greenhouse effect, or climate change, anywhere in the text of the article are considered to be stories useful for this analysis. However, during this time period several stories may mention these phrases, but are not specifically about global warming. This may be due to the increased public awareness of the issue. For instance, an article may mention global warming in a story that mentions several general problematic social or economic trends of the time. Only stories focused specifically on the topic of climate change were included in the analysis. All editorials and letters to the editor, as well as short news summary articles and articles on news in brief, were not included in the analysis. The coding of this analysis attempts to support empirically the qualitative analysis. A likert scale of one through five shows empirically whether articles were pro-kyoto or anti-kyoto. A five-point scale places those articles closer to anti- Kyoto at one and those articles closer to pro-kyoto at five [see figure 2.2] Figure 2.2 Anti-Kyoto Neutral Pro-Kyoto The researcher attempted to determine the article s code based on the headline and the first few paragraphs of the article. The angle of the article should be evident to 53

59 the coder based on this amount of text, because the main perspective the article uses is generally given in the lead of the article. This is due to the traditional style of news stories in the inverted pyramid, which gives the most important information of the news story first in case the reader stops reading mid-way through the article. If not, the coder read further into the article to determine the focus of the article. This strategy is partly due to the multiple perspectives a newspaper article can take. The lead typically comprises the first sentence or two of an article. If an article is not in the standard inverted pyramid style typical to most news stories, the crux of the article may come in a paragraph after an initial anecdote. Allowing the researcher to read further into the article in order to find the angle of the article, permits the researcher to categorize each article based on the main focus of the article. See Appendix A for definitions and examples of each category of analysis. The coder of this study is also the author. Ultimately, resource limitations required the main author to also code the study. Ideally, a study of this nature would utilize outside coders to complete the analysis. This protects against any author bias that might favor findings in support of the study. It also provides a stronger possibility that the analysis can be replicated for the same results. Another challenge of this study was the categorization of each story. Each article did not fit perfectly into one of the provided categories. To accommodate the 54

60 broad range of stories, each category was defined as clearly as possible in the coding instructions. The in-depth interviews were conducted with six science journalists, all of whom have covered the topic of climate change for their respective publications. The publications the journalists work for range from daily newspapers to weekly news magazines and to scientific publications. The publications represented include Nature, Chemical Engineering News, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, National Geographic and U.S. News & World Report. Names of the journalists are not used in this study for purposes of anonymity. While the content analysis allows the study to explore how the choice of sources affects the slant of newspaper coverage, the interviews provide insight as to why those choices were made. The interviews were semi-structured in nature, allowing the investigator to target the interview as it progressed toward the topics that were most likely to provide the most insight to the study at hand. However, an initial list of questions the researcher used is provided in Appendix B. The main author of this study also completed each interview. 55

61 Chapter 3. Quantitative Analysis: Sources and frames in newspaper coverage of global warming The quantitative analysis of this research sets out to establish the influence of politics in global warming media coverage through the dominance of political sources and frames over scientific sources and frames. Due to journalists preferences for covering events, this research assumed political sources would be used more around political events. It found that politicians first significantly outnumbered scientists as sources during media coverage of the Kyoto Protocol, clearly emphasizing the importance the media placed on politicians as sources during this event. The difference between the average use of politicians and scientists was 0.10 when the analysis incorporated the Kyoto coverage into all political events studied. When it examined just the Kyoto coverage, the average use of politicians was 0.38 higher than the average use of scientists. The study also found that political frames increased over time as the number of political events on global warming increased. Nevertheless, scientists maintained an integral role in media coverage of the issue during the political events examined in this analysis. They are used as sources during political event coverage, and the scientific frame of define problems is still widely used during the Kyoto Protocol. However, the political frames of moral judgments and provide solutions are more widely used. The moral judgments frame makes up more than half (53.5%) of all frames in the Kyoto Protocol time period. 56

62 The bulk of the study examines a ten-year period from 1984 through However, additional data collected to incorporate the time period of the Kyoto Protocol show a major jump in the number of instances of politicians being cited as sources. In addition, the number of newspaper stories about global warming in the time surrounding the Kyoto Protocol (n=341) makes up more than half (57.5%) of all stories (n=593) analyzed in the study. It is clear that the Kyoto Protocol, the seminal international policy event for global warming, not only advanced politicians as sources more noticeably in news coverage about global warming, but also provided the issue of global warming with more overall prominence in the media. 3.1 Background As scientists gained knowledge and consensus about global warming, journalists began to pick up the story, which became increasingly media friendly. In the 1980s, the mass media started to take cues from environmental groups denouncing the demise of rainforests and drawing awareness to images of landscapes being destroyed by human harm (Weart, 2003). The visual connection, so critical to appealing to media s need to draw in consumers through extreme images of environmental disaster, became a central point of the media s entrance into coverage of the issue. Volcanic eruptions, drought-like conditions and the depletion of rainforests provided the media with environmentally friendly images pictures for the general 57

63 public to grasp easily. Beyond coverage of stories containing ready images, journalists also tend to cover events. Scientists, who initially drew public attention to global warming through their scientific expertise and concern, do not typically partake in the types of events that gain media exposure. Politicians, on the other hand, do. Policy events around the issue of global warming gained ground over time, and politicians became more established as a credible source around the issue of global warming in the news media. As described in the previous chapter, this chapter utilizes data on political and scientific sources and frames in five major newspapers to establish whether politicians or scientists were a larger part of news coverage. Political events are defined as those that are political hearings, testimonies, speeches or conferences. Science events include gatherings of scientists, publications of scientific findings, scientific discoveries and scientists testimonies. Political events are easily identifiable in the news media due to the urgency with which they get covered. Scientific events, on the other hand, are more gradual in their impact on news media coverage. A scientific event, such as the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo described below, might cause a shift in scientific thought that could begin a more gradual change in how global warming is covered in the media (Weart, 2003). This volcanic eruption allowed researchers to generate computer 58

64 models to predict how the changes in atmosphere as a result of the eruption would change the temperatures in the Earth. The events chosen here reflect those scientific events and political events that were the most prevalent of the time period studied. The events had an influence on mainstream media coverage. A brief introduction to these events follows. 3.1A Science events Villach conference, November The Villach conference was a gathering of scientists from 29 countries in Villach, Austria hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Meteorological Organization and the International Council of Scientific Unions. The conference mainly focused on assessing the impact of greenhouse gases and the emission of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere. Oversight hearings in Congress about rising sea levels, June NASA scientists James Hansen testified in two days of hearings by the Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee. He provided a picture of potential consequences of the Earth s atmosphere and sea levels as a result of global warming. Warming of the Alaskan Artic article in Science, October This article focused on climactic change in the Arctic, described as the region affected most by global warming. 59

65 Geneva meeting on CFCs, December Concerns over the effects of chloro-fluoro carbons on the ozone layer were raised in the mid-1980s, when scientists became aware of a hole in the ozone layer. While not directly related to global warming, the media tended to relate issue of ozone protection with global warming. Some of the gases that cause global warming also harm the ozone layer. Scientists convened in Geneva to discuss the implications of chlorofluorocarbons on the destruction of the ozone. The meeting resulted in only tentative advancements and no solid agreements. Broecker commentary in Nature, July Wallace S. Broecker, a scientist based in Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, published an article comparing human actions with the climate to Russian Roulette. He commented global warming might happen more suddenly than most scientists predict and produce unexpected changes on the Earth. James Hansen testimony in front of Congress, June The testimony of NASA scientist James Hansen in front of Congress during the summer of 1988 is often cited as the main event that began regular media coverage of global warming (Wilson, 2000). The testimony, along with a summer drought during the hottest summer on record to date, propelled the issue into the media spotlight. Even though this issue took place in a political atmosphere as a Congressional hearing, it is labeled as a scientific 60

66 event here because Hansen focused on drawing attention to the science of global warming. Rise in sea levels study article in Science, May Two scientists from the University of Toronto, published findings in an issue of Science that global sea levels rose 10 inches in the past 100 years. First International Panel on Climate Change Report published, May The International Panel on Climate Change was established in 1988 by the United Nations. The publication reported that global warming has been occurring, and that it is likely to continue occurring in the future. Industry lobbyists and some scientists disputed the tentative conclusion in the report. Mt. Pinatubo eruption, June Following a volcanic eruption in the Philippines, NASA scientist James Hansen used computer models to predict the Earth would temporarily cool for a few years. The National Academy of Sciences and Britain s Royal Society of London released a joint statement, February Leading up to the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Brazil, to be held in June, the National Academy of Sciences and Britain s Royal Society of London released a statement that said, "The future of our planet is in the balance." The statement emphasized the problems of 61

67 sustainable development during the rapid pace of global population growth, and it specifically mentioned climate change as one of the planet s challenges. 3.1B Political Events Montreal Protocol, December The Montreal Protocol is an international treaty about the ozone layer ratified by the U.S. Senate in December 1987, although it had been opened for signature in September The treaty, which went into force in January 1989, limited substances thought to be the cause of ozone depletion. Toronto Conference, July A conference held in Toronto called for specific limitations on emissions of gases that destroy the ozone. Ninety-one-nation energy talks, September The 91-nation energy talks of 1989 shifted its focus from the traditional discussions of price and supply to focus on the environment. Speakers acknowledged the problem of carbon dioxide emissions as a cause of global warming. Thatcher s address to the United Nations General Assembly, November In an address to the United Nation s General Assembly, Britain s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher encouraged the United Nations to complete a treaty by 1992 to limit greenhouse gases. 62

68 Bush Administration s science adviser speech, December D. Allen Bromley, the science adviser to the Bush Administration, said in a speech he expected an international framework convention which would lead up to a treaty to form within 18 months on global warming. Following this, President Bush included global warming in a proposal to Soviet Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev to begin negotiating a treaty the subsequent autumn. World Climate Conference, October-November The second annual world climate conference took place in Geneva from October 29, 1990 to November 7, Representatives from more than 130 countries agreed to begin work immediately on an international convention to be completed by Global Climate Treaty signed in Rio de Janeiro, June The Earth Summit, or United Nations on Environment and Development conference, was held in Rio de Janeiro in June The conference resulted in the adoption of Agenda 21, a plan for achieving sustainable development worldwide through United Nations member states. The Summit set the stage for subsequent conferences, which focus on human rights, population, social development, women and human settlements, in addition to environmentally sustainable development. Leading up to the conference, the media also covered the pressures other countries were putting on the United States in their commitment to curbing greenhouse gas emissions. 63

69 Clinton s Climate Action Plan, October President Clinton offered a plan to return greenhouse gases to levels equivalent of 1990 by the year It included measures for the United States to reduce carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydroflourocarbons, and other gases to accomplish this goal. Specifically, the measures fell within several broad categories, such as energy reduction actions, alternative transportation options and forestry initiatives such as tree planting. Kyoto Protocol, December More than 160 nations eventually adopted the Kyoto Protocol. The parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to limit emissions of industrialized nations for the years (See the Kyoto Protocol Background section in chapter two for more details on the Kyoto Protocol.) A timeline of the events used in this study clearly shows the scientific events dominate the first part of the decade, while political events dominate the second part [see figure 3.1]. Science events Political events Figure

70 3.2 Politicians and Scientists as Sources Overall, politicians appear as sources about as many times as scientists appear as sources. A t-test analysis was used in order to allow a comparison between the average mean usage of the two types of sources politicians and scientists. The t-test analysis for the newspaper stories of the entire time period studied (n=593) showed scientists were used slightly more than politicians as sources overall in stories of global warming. The scientist mean was 0.99, while the politician mean was 0.98 in global warming in the five major newspapers examined from 1984 through However, when research breaks down the newspaper coverage into time periods according to the political and scientific events described above, politicians significantly outnumber scientists as sources during the Kyoto Protocol. Table 3.1 summarizes the findings. 65

71 Table 3.1. T-test Analysis: comparison of political and scientific sources with political and scientific events in newspaper coverage of global warming. Scientific Political Event Kyoto and Kyoto Protocol Event (no Kyoto) Political Event Independent Variable: Sources Political source mean Scientific source mean Mean difference N *All findings are significant at the p<0.05 level. Scientists clearly show dominance as a source over politicians when analyzing only the stories within time periods around scientific events. This shows the highest average mean difference (0.91) of any of the events examined. When analyzing only political events without the data from the Kyoto policy event, the scientists still hold a stronger presence as sources. The mean difference between scientists and politicians during political events is smaller than it was during the scientific events at However, when the newspaper coverage surrounding the Kyoto Protocol is added to the political events overall, the analysis shows that political sources begin to outnumber the scientific sources for the first time. Here, the mean difference is 0.10, with the mean of politicians as sources outnumbering the mean of scientists as sources. Finally, the t-test shows that if politicians and scientists are compared as sources only 66

72 during the coverage of the Kyoto Protocol, politicians are used quite a bit more than scientists are used as sources. The mean difference between the two is 0.38 during this time period. Politicians do not ever reach the high mean difference that scientists do during the scientific events, but they establish a strong presence during the Kyoto Protocol coverage. This certainly emphasizes the influence politics have in the media coverage of global warming. Nevertheless, scientists still outnumber politicians as sources prior to the inclusion of the coverage of the Kyoto Protocol. This indicates the Kyoto Protocol serves as a critical point in the issue of global warming. While it is impossible to verify without more data, one could assume that politics continues to play a crucial role in news stories of global warming after this time period studied, due to the extension of debates around global warming policies. 3.3 Framing of Scientists and Politicians The second group of findings examines the use of scientific and political frames, as associated with progressive time periods. This analysis has shown informally that most of the scientific events occurred at the beginning of the time period analyzed, while the political events occurred toward the end of the time period of 1985 through As shown above, the political sources gradually increased over 67

73 time as political events surrounding the issue of global warming increased. Therefore, this research explores the corollary hypothesis: H2: A corollary is that, over time, as more political sources are used, media frames will be more political than scientific. Overall, this hypothesis is supported because the two scientific frames are more prominent at the beginning of the time period: Figure 3.2 The two scientific frames define problem and diagnose cause dominate coverage in the time period of 1985 through Define problem makes up 31.4% and diagnose cause makes up 47.1% of the coverage of all frames during this time 68

74 period. On the other hand, moral judgment makes up 19.6% and remedy makes up 2.0% of all frames covered during this time period. In the subsequent time period, 1989 through 1991, both scientific frames decrease slightly and both political frames increase slightly. The define problem frame makes up 13.1% of all frames in this time period. The diagnose cause frame, the other scientific frame, makes up 31.8% of the frames in this time period. On the political side, the moral judgment frame makes up 45.8% of frames in this time period. The remedy frame makes up 9.3%, higher than the 2.0% in the first time period. The third time period of 1992 through 1995 actually shows a slight decrease in the percentage of all frames tested, with the exception of the define problem frame and the remedy frame. From 1992 through 1994, the remedy frame is at its highest, and makes up 21.8% of all frames covered. The define problem frame increases slightly to 14.3% from 13.1% in the 1989 through 1991 time period. The diagnose cause frame decreases from 31.8% to 26.0%, and the moral judgment frame decreases from 45.8% to 39.0%. Again, the Kyoto Protocol event, from 1997 through 1998, shows a change from the general trend of the decrease in the scientific and the increase in the political frames. The first scientific frame, define problem, increases to less than a quarter (21.6%) of all frames in this time period. The political frame of moral judgments makes up more than half (53.5%) of all frames in this time period. The second political 69

75 frame drops to 10.5% of the coverage during this period. That may be a reflection of the large number of stories within the moral judgment frame during this time period. The moral judgment frame included stories about the Kyoto Protocol negotiations. While the political frames do dominate in this time period, supporting the hypothesis, the scientific frame of define problem still plays an important role in the coverage during the Kyoto Protocol. This indicates the importance journalists placed on incorporating the science of global warming in this time period. Nevertheless, the newspaper coverage emphasized the political frame over time, and it particularly emphasized the moral judgment frame during Kyoto coverage. 3.4 Conclusion The Kyoto Protocol played an important part of both analyses of sources used and frames used during global warming coverage. Science, the scientists and scientific frames, remained an important part of global warming coverage throughout the entire time period studied. News media coverage of global warming slowly inched toward the political side until the Kyoto Protocol, when it clearly moved to more coverage of the politics of the issue. However, the evidence that journalists maintained coverage of defining the problem in the Kyoto Protocol period of coverage indicates their attention to the science while covering the large-scale political event. The analysis of the frames 70

76 represents what seems to be a more dichotomous coverage by the media during the Kyoto event. The political maneuverings occurring in the time period were covered the most, as evidenced by the importance of the moral judgment frame. However, the science of global warming addressing the questions of whether existent or not or whether caused by humans or not makes up another large part of the coverage in the Kyoto time period. Although a scientific frame may be revitalized during a political event such as the Kyoto Protocol, ultimately, politicians may be at the helm of maintaining public awareness around the issue. However, mass media is integral to establishing the public s perspective on issues. The media s coverage of the Kyoto Protocol was likely reflective of the active involvement of the Presidential Administration at the time, which supported participation in the agreement. The next step in this research is to investigate the Kyoto coverage more closely to see how the political influences affected the overall media coverage of the issue. A qualitative analysis of the articles in this time period will examine whether newspaper coverage leaned in favor of or against the Kyoto Protocol. Also, it uses in-depth interviews with science journalists to explore how journalists make choices when choosing sources and angles for stories about science in the media. 71

77 Chapter 4. Qualitative Analysis: The influence of objectivity and media filters Thus far, the research of this study has shown a shift in newspaper coverage to incorporate more political sources and frames, which outnumbered the scientific sources and frames for the first time during the Kyoto Protocol. However, the next chapter of this study shows that politics do not direct the newspaper coverage during the Kyoto Protocol, but rather complement the side of science. Broad political support for the Kyoto Protocol by the Clinton Administration, combined with a growing agreement among the scientific community about the problem of global warming, resulted in a convergence of the two sides in newspaper coverage of the issue during this time period. The research of this chapter finds that newspaper coverage largely leans toward support of the Kyoto Protocol with half (52.9%) of all newspaper articles (n=380) on the favorable side of the agreement. Another third (29.2%) of newspaper articles during this time period falls into the neutral reporting category, and another 17.8% of coverage on the negative side of the Kyoto Protocol. The existence of a convergence between politics and science during the Kyoto Protocol raises the question of why politics do not influence the news media coverage more when the political sources significantly outnumber scientific sources. The answer lies in the tendency of journalists to favor reporting objectivity, which in science journalism is coverage that is based mostly on reporting from the foundation of 72

78 scientific findings. Nevertheless, science is not always the basis for stories on global warming, which can be explained by the filters media use to frame their stories. These media filters, as well as the fact that the political support paralleled the scientific support during this time period, reflected the overall stance of news media coverage in favor of the Kyoto Protocol. Therefore, the initial hypothesis presented here can be rejected. H: As the use of political sources and frames increases in global warming coverage, journalists will be more likely to use political sources and frames as the foundation for their global warming coverage. The side of politics in media coverage in this study has been defined as the use of political sources and frames. This chapter uses this broad concept of politics as a dependent variable in order to analyze media frames. This chapter will first use a qualitative content analysis of the newspaper coverage during the Kyoto Protocol to establish the general tone of the news media. It examines whether coverage spans topics mostly in favor of, neutral to, or against the Kyoto Protocol, and therefore the scientific consensus. The second section of the chapter introduces in-depth interviews with science journalists who have covered the issue of climate change. The interviews explain the convergence of politics and science in the media during this time period. However, convergence is not always the case; the interviews explain the rest of the news coverage with media filters. 73

79 4.1 Background/theoretical framework Objectivity is the main framework with which journalists approach their work. The idea reaches as far back as the nineteenth century, when John Stuart Mill presented the marketplace of ideas theory, which purports that all voices within a democracy should have a forum to place their ideas (Richards, 2005). Since then, journalism outlets have been the location for a forum of ideas and have played a crucial role in maintaining a dialogue between various groups, namely the government and the public (Ward, 2004). Objectivity in journalism often means exchanging information among groups such as these without interference from a bias or external influence. The profession of journalism often used this neutral stance to increase its stature in the beginning of the twentieth century when muckrakers and yellow tabloid journalism predominated the scene (Ward, 2004). Therefore, the concept of objectivity itself became more defined and stricter, more methodical, and more professional (Ward, 2004, p. 216). Impartiality and factuality became standards through which journalists strive to frame their news stories (Ward, 2004). While complete objectivity is not realistically attainable, many journalists undoubtedly framed their news stories within these standards. 74

80 There is no doubt that the concept of traditional objectivity is fading in today s newsroom built around technological advancements that eliminate some of the traditional journalism constraints, such as space available to print or time available to broadcast. The formula of a news story that values objectivity first is often presented in the traditional inverted pyramid style of reporting that presents the most important facts of the story first (Ward, 2004). Even in the changing digital era of journalism, this style of story has not necessarily been lost. Therefore, stories often incorporate some of the traditional concepts of objectivity fairness, completeness and accuracy (Richards, 2005). Journalists are fair and complete when they have incorporated a balance of all perspectives and a comprehensive account of the basic ideas of an issue. Accuracy entails such techniques as checking claims and sources, attributing comments and quoting sources and testing facts. Journalists strive for presenting accurate accounts not founded in bias, interpretation or falsehood. But in reality, they never attain these goals. However, their methods inherently reflect these ideals and subsequently affect the news stories they produce. Objectivity may form the foundation for how a journalist approaches his or her work, but the audience approaches a news story with several values in mind. Ultimately, these news values are largely the reason journalists produce stories the way they do. Three of the six news values Shoemaker & Reese (1996) identify are analyzed 75

81 in the research presented here. The first value conflict/controversy is held by an audience that assumes things are generally harmonious. When issues are not harmonious, the audience wants to know (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996). The second value of timeliness is based on the idea that audiences have limited attention spans. Therefore, current events that may require current actions are more interesting to news audiences (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996). The third news value of proximity that audiences hold results in news stories presented with a local angle or an angle to which people can easily relate (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996). 4.1A Kyoto Protocol In the policy environment, the Kyoto Protocol represented the culmination of the international policy actions on global warming that began with the establishment of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change during the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in Widespread American media coverage of global warming is typically understood to have begun with the testimony of NASA scientist James Hansen in 1988 in front of the U.S. Congress. However, several of the main international policy events of the late 1980s and early 1990s were not as highly covered by the U.S. news media. The Kyoto Protocol, on the other hand, was a highly covered event, as reflected in the 76

82 number of stories that covered global warming even just during the two-week time period of the Kyoto meeting during the first two weeks of December The conflict between the Clinton Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress may have led to the extensive coverage the media granted the Kyoto Protocol. The Clinton Administration was also instrumental in garnering media coverage with its high-level presence at the conference. Vice President Al Gore was not initially an attendee, but flew to the conference during the second week to encourage U.S. negotiators to be flexible. (See Kyoto Background section in chapter two for more details on the negotiations during the Kyoto meeting.) Over time, news media coverage of the scientific side of climate change has reflected the increasing willingness of scientists to speak out on the issue. Initially, news coverage reflected scientists acknowledgement of the problem of global warming, but also the idea that without more data, scientists were not certain about how serious global warming is or how quickly it is occurring. Over time, the scientific consensus about the threat of global warming increased. Most recently, this was reflected in the coverage following the latest United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report published in February (See Kyoto Background section in chapter two for more information on the history and proceedings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.) One of the most publicized 77

83 aspects of the report was the statement that scientists are 90% sure global warming is caused by human-related emissions of greenhouse gases. However, even ten years prior to this report, during the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, scientists were much more likely to convey their agreement over the existence of global warming than they were in some of the earliest news coverage in the early 1980s. How, despite news values that favor covering the differences of politics and science, do politics and science manage to converge in the Kyoto Protocol? Each side politics and science meet the various media filters differently. This research proposes analysis of how those filters affect media frames. 4.2 Findings The overall slant of the newspaper coverage during the time period analyzed is in favor of the Kyoto Protocol. A content analysis of 380 articles shows that 52.9% of articles were about ideas that favor the Kyoto Protocol. Another 29.2% of articles were neutral on the topic. Finally, 17.8% of the articles were about topics or ideas not in favor of the Kyoto Protocol. (See Figure 4.1) As seen in the research conducted for the previous chapter, the quantity of political sources outnumbered scientific sources for the first time during the Kyoto Protocol. However, politics did not necessarily dominate science in this coverage, but rather converged with it in coverage favoring 78

84 the Kyoto Protocol. For instance, an article published in the Washington Post on December 8, 1997 used Vice President Al Gore s arrival at the summit as its lead. His speech to the international delegation was quoted in the second paragraph of the story in which he said, Let us resolve to conduct ourselves in such a way that our children s children will read about the Spirit of Kyoto and remember where humankind first chose to embark together on a long-term sustainable relationship between our civilization and the Earth s environment (Warrick, 1997). The lead of this article clearly exemplifies the broad political support of the Clinton Administration with the scientific consensus in favor of at least initial policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. 79

85 Figure 4.1. Newspaper Stories by Category Anti-Kyoto Pro-Kyoto While the slant of the coverage largely leaned in support of the Kyoto Protocol, quite a few stories also fell in the middle categories of the content analysis that numbers one through five. Articles least in support of the Kyoto Protocol were numbered with one, which only made up 3.9% of all articles. Articles most in favor of 80