“I’m so happy and grateful to once again receive a grant from Independent Research Fund Denmark. A grant like this means I can really delve into a topic and build a comprehensive dataset across different years and countries,” says Professor Irene Pollach.

The topic of the project is the power of the media to shape what topics we think about and what we think about them. The ability of media to influence us is especially relevant to topics we cannot directly observe such as climate change, a phenomenon most people are only familiar with through the media.

The consequence of this is that the media's narrative about climate change can affect people’s understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change. This in turn can affect how people behave as consumers, employees, entrepreneurs, investors or political policy-makers. For example, if the media consistently cites companies as the causes of climate change and politicians as sources of solutions, then consumers may not see themselves as the main force in the fight against climate change.

Through a systematic, narrative analysis of news articles, the project will examine who the media highlights as responsible for climate change in three different countries and whether this has changed over the last two decades as global warming has grown to be the greatest challenge facing mankind. The objective of the research project is to encourage the media to become a more constructive and deliberate actor in the struggle against climate change.

The project is being funded by a DFF Research Project1 grant in the category social sciences.

Click here to read more about Irene Pollach and her research