Introduction
Climate change is expected to bring serious impacts to the UK. For individuals and households, there remains a significant action gap in both adapting for and mitigating against such risks. Media coverage of climate change risks can influence opinion and willingness to act but the topic can often seem distant, futuristic and hard to conceptualise. In comparison, extreme weather events are local, current and dramatic and can increase perceived relevance and saliency. This research presents a case study of the 2015 winter storms in UK newspapers to understand if, and how, coverage of extreme weather events is being used to raise the discussion of climate change risks.
Methods
A Boolean search was applied to six national newspapers stored on the online database, LexisNexis. The relevant articles were coded inductively using Nvivo11. The analysis sought to identify the topics covered (and not covered) and how this differed between publications. The frames used to present each topic were also analysed as were the individuals or groups given voice within the coverage.
Findings
The volume of coverage for extreme weather events is increasing but is still heavily influenced by newsworthiness, creating cycles of interest rather than sustained engagement. Coverage of the weather events were framed so as to support each publication’s editorial line on climate change. This meant that for an individual reading across publications it was unclear whether climate change was affecting weather patterns and therefore whether the risks were serious and needing to be managed. Further, the extent to which a national readership was motivated to respond to extreme weather risks was contained by a focus on the localness and unusualness of the events, and the resilience of those communities impacted. Several newspapers engaged in campaigns of blame, for example against the Environment Agency, which facilitated a narrative resolution to the events, further containing the sense of risk.
Conclusion
The study finds that coverage of extreme weather in the UK is likely to further entrench opposing climate change opinions. Coverage both dramatizes the events and contains their scale of impact. It is therefore unlikely to increase active preparation for climate change risks.