Muted by a Crisis? COVID-19 and the Long-Term Evolution of Climate Change Newspaper Coverage

The reasons for the emergence of environmental issues in public debate have been widely studied, while the reasons for the disappearance of environmental issues from the public agenda are researched to a far lesser extent. This article presents how the newspaper coverage of climate change has evolve...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSustainability Vol. 12; no. 20; p. 8575
Main Authors Lyytimäki, Jari, Kangas, Hanna-Liisa, Mervaala, Erkki, Vikström, Suvi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 16.10.2020
Subjects
Anomalies
Anthropogenic factors
Biodiversity
Climate change
Climate policy
Communication
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Disease transmission
Environmental policy
Human influences
Information sources
Media coverage
Pandemics
Peak periods
Radio broadcasting
Sustainability
Tsunamis
Weather
United States > US
Europe
Finland
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Summary:The reasons for the emergence of environmental issues in public debate have been widely studied, while the reasons for the disappearance of environmental issues from the public agenda are researched to a far lesser extent. This article presents how the newspaper coverage of climate change has evolved in Finland. The study is based on long-term (1990–2020) data from the leading national-level newspaper. The climate coverage has been characterized by an increasing overall trend and remarkable fluctuations in the intensity of debate. The monthly coverage of climate change had four distinctive peak periods. The drops from peak levels are explained by several factors, such as the end of a specific news event or policy process (e.g., international climate policy meetings), lack of weather anomalies (e.g., normal winter weather and snow coverage), silence of key influencers (policy-makers, business elite), and news competition together with reporting fatigue following abundant climate coverage. The first months of the intense phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 showed a deep, but not unprecedented drop in climate coverage from the preceding peak level. The persistence of anthropogenic climate change, gradual mainstreaming of climate concerns across different societal sectors, and recent policy debates around so-called green or sustainable recovery suggest that climate coverage is not likely to be muted in the near future.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su12208575