Who Speaks for the Climate? Understanding Media Representations of Outlier Views on Climate Change

Speaker:
Max Boykoff

Speaker Title:
Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and Environmental Studies, University of Colorado

Event Description:

This talk aims to draw collective discussions toward more textured understanding of how and why disproportionate media visibility has been provided for outlier views – particularly views often dubbed climate ‘contrarians’, ‘skeptics’, ‘denialists’ – on various issues in climate science and governance. Media representations – from news to entertainment – are critical links between how aspects of climate change are discussed between science, policy and public actors, and the everyday realities of how people experience climate change.

Heterogeneous outlier voices like ‘climate contrarians’ have gained more prominence and traction in mass media over time through a mix of internal workings of mass media – such as journalistic norms, institutional values and practices – and external political economic, cultural, and social factors. I posit that to the extent that mass media mis-represent and/or amplify these outlier views, they contribute to ongoing illusory, misleading and counterproductive debates within the public and policy communities, and poorly serve the collective public.
Furthermore, through mass media, many ‘climate contrarian’ interventions have proven (often deliberately) detrimental to efforts that seek to enlarge rather than constrict the spectrum of possibility for appropriate responses to ongoing climate challenges.

Discussing coverage of outlier views will provide an opportunity to discuss larger factors and influences shaping media representations of various aspects of climate change. In so doing, I explore how power flows through these processes of media representations and how (un)authorized voices evident in various media sources shape negotiations of truth claims, and management of the conditions of our lives and livelihoods in the face of anthropogenic climate change. In the context of a wider and emergent ‘cultural politics of climate change’, examinations of mass media representations provide opportunities to contemplate ongoing links and barriers between science, policy and the public. The ways in which media sources represent different aspects of climate change – from what role humans play in the changing climate to how to effectively construct and deploy climate adaptation funds – contribute to citizen perceptions in everyday spaces and deliberations for action in the public sphere.
 

Sponsors:
Institute of the Environment
Journalism
School of Geography and Development

Contact:

Lesa Langan DuBerry

lesa@email.arizona.edu