Environmental Communication

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“We're the Ones to Blame”: Citizens' Representations of

Climate Change and the Role of the Media

Ulrika Olausson

To cite this article: Ulrika Olausson (2011) “We're the Ones to Blame”: Citizens'
Representations of Climate Change and the Role of the Media, Environmental Communication,
5:3, 281-299, DOI: 10.1080/17524032.2011.585026

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Environmental Communication
Vol. 5, No. 3, September 2011, pp. 281299

‘‘We’re the Ones to Blame’’: Citizens’

Representations of Climate Change
and the Role of the Media
Ulrika Olausson

In the discussion on how to meet the challenges of climate change the important role
of news reporting is often emphasized; the media are considered to have significant
influence on citizens’ understandings of the issue. However, studies that empirically
explore the media’s role in shaping these understandings are rather scarce compared
with analyses of media content alone. While fully acknowledging the fruitfulness of the
study of media material, this article argues that there are tendencies in these studies
to, in a somewhat ‘‘media-centric’’ fashion, reduce the complexity of the relationship
between media content and audience reception. The article, which reports on findings
from a focus-group study containing 53 Swedish citizens, starts from the premise that this
relationship must be subjected to empirical analysis rather than axiomatically asserted,
and aims to contribute empirically based knowledge on the connection between media
staging of climate change and citizens’ representations of this global risk.

Keywords: News Media; Media Effects; Media Audience; Public; Social Representation
Theory; Climate Change

Introduction
Climate change is perhaps the foremost global environmental risk of today; there is
no longer much doubt that the changing climate is one of the most serious challenges
to a sustainable society, and that mitigation activities must be undertaken on global,
national, local and*central to this article*individual levels (Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2007). As stated by Beck (2010), ‘‘Without a
majority of very different groups of people, who not only talk about but act and

Ulrika Olausson is an Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies at Örebro University, Sweden.
She is currently involved in a research project about the news media and climate change. Correspondence to:
Ulrika Olausson, Media and Communications Department, Örebro University, HumES, SE-701 82 Örebro,
Sweden. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 1752-4032 (print)/ISSN 1752-4040 (online) # 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/17524032.2011.585026
282 U. Olausson

vote for the politics of climate change . . . climate politics is doomed’’ (p. 255). In
the process of empowering citizens in their involvement in various (individual
and/or collective) activities for the mitigation of climate change, the news media are
considered to hold a pivotal position (see Carvalho, 2010; Moser, 2007).
The attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors of citizens in relation to climate change
have attracted scholarly attention over the years (see Cabecinhas, Lázaro, & Carvalho,
2008; Eurobarometer, 2009; Leiserowitz, 2005; Lorenzoni & Hulme, 2009; Lowe et al.,
2006; Ryghaug, Sorensen, & Naess, 2010; Stamm, Clark, & Reynolds Eblacas, 2000;
Whitmarsh, 2009; Zhao, 2009), and the results of these studies have been discussed
in relation to the media reporting on the topic, in some cases more systematically
than in others. However, the inclination to empirically expand our knowledge about
the media’s role in shaping how citizens understand climate change has not been
very pronounced compared with the interest in ‘‘merely’’ exploring news reporting.
A great deal of research has been carried out to chart, compare, and evaluate climate
reporting, focusing on various topics such as the news media’s construction of
scientific certainty/uncertainty (Boykoff, 2008; Olausson, 2009; Weingart, Engels, &
Pansegrau, 2000; Zehr, 2000), the impact of newspapers’ political leanings (Carvalho,
2007; Carvalho & Burgess, 2005), and the cycle-dependent nature of climate
reporting (Brossard, Shanahan, & McComas, 2004).
While fully acknowledging the fruitfulness and importance of studying media
content, this article argues that there are tendencies in this type of research to simplify
and reduce the complexity of the relationship between media content and audience
reception. Starting with the seminal work of Morley (1980), audience research has
repeatedly produced evidence of a rather complex reception process, in which media
information constitutes only one of several meaning-making resources. Much current
research on climate reporting makes use of the argument that the media play a central
role in shaping citizens’ understandings of environmental risks to justify studying
media. However, these kinds of statements in media research are made rather hastily
and self-evidently, and are rarely verified with reference to empirical studies on the
relationship between media output and audience reception. Unfortunately, this
(unintentional?) neglect to empirically support the relationship between climate
reporting and citizens’ understanding of climate change results in something that is
best described as ‘‘media-centrism.’’ This article, which reports on findings from a
focus-group study in which 53 Swedish citizens participated, starts from the premise
that the relationship between mass media information and citizens’ meaning-making
activities must be subjected to empirical analyses rather than axiomatically asserted,
and aims to contribute empirically supported knowledge on the connection between
media staging of climate change and citizens’ representations of this global risk.
First, the article accounts for the analytic framework encompassing social
representation theory, and the method for data collection and analysis. Following
this, the results from the focus-group interviews are presented as well as put in relation
to and compared with previous research on Swedish news media’s reporting on
climate change. Finally, the results are discussed and conclusions are presented as
 Citizens’ Representations of Climate Change 283

suggestions for journalists trying to improve climate reporting, and for social scien-
tists dealing with climate change and the media.

Analytic Framework and Materials

Social representation theory (SR theory) is the tool by which this article attempts to
overcome any ‘‘media-centric’’ approach to meaning-making on climate change, while
keeping the media at the very center of analytical attention. SR theory was deve-
loped by social psychologist Moscovici (2000), and emphasizes collective dimensions
of our everyday cognitions of the world that help us organize and familiarize our
perceptions, and how new or transformed forms of collective thinking evolve. What
makes the theory especially relevant for this study is its focus on how scientific
knowledge is remolded and transformed into social representations, i.e., mundane
understandings which are commonsensical in character.
According to the theory, modernity is saturated by scientific thinking; quite a few
of the concepts and images which ‘‘fill our minds and our conversations, our mass
media, popular books, and political discourses’’ are scientific in origin (Moscovici,
1984a, p. 953). Climate change is a topical example of a cognitive and discursive
process where the originally strictly scientific discourse gradually transforms, assumes
mundane characteristics*as in expressions such as ‘‘carbon footprints’’ and ‘‘climate
friendly’’*and becomes integrated into everyday cognition and discourse as social
representations.
Social representations circulate freely in every segment of society. They are, as
noted by Christidou, Dimopoulos and Koulaidis (2004), (re)produced ‘‘within and
among various discursive sites’’ (p. 349) among which the media, regarded as
interconnecting links between the citizens and the institutions of society, hold a
key position (Moscovici, 2000). The relationship between media discourse and the
meaning-making activities of the public is complex, as will be shown, and there is
a need to probe more deeply into the role of the media.
Qualitative methods can yield valuable knowledge about the comprehensiveness
and cultural embeddings of social representations (Whitmarsh, 2009). As Moscovici
(2000) argues, ‘‘material from samples of conversations gives access to the social
representations’’ (p. 62), and therefore the method of focus-group interviews was
used in the present study. The focus-group interview also possesses several
advantages over the individual interview. The conversation within a focus group
usually runs smoothly, and the interview situation is not characterized by questions
from the interviewer followed by answers from the respondents. Instead the
discussion often spontaneously covers what the interviewer wants to know, and
there is room for follow-up questions and elaborations on various, sometimes
unforeseen, topics.
The selection of focus groups followed what Lindlof and Taylor (2002) call
‘‘maximum variation sampling’’ to cover a diversity of social experiences deemed
relevant for the phenomenon studied (p. 123). In this case, gender, phase of life,
284 U. Olausson

occupation, and ethnicity were expected to possibly influence the social representa-
tions of climate change. It should be stressed, though, that the analysis of the focus-
group interviews did not primarily examine the variety and pluralistic character
of respondents’ representations of climate change. Instead, analytical attention was
directed towards those issues and perspectives where respondents’ representations
coincided in the absence of conflicting views, despite the diversity of their social
experiences. Social representations, as pointed out by Moscovici (2000), build to a
large extent on consensus and are reproduced collectively in a commonsensical
manner.
There are diverging opinions about the ideal size of a focus group, but a general
rule of thumb is to avoid oversized groups (Wibeck, 2000). Dunbar (1997) argues
that a focus group should not include more than four people in order to allow
every respondent to be heard. If the group is larger than this, subgroups are likely to
form and attention could easily be diverted from the topic of the interview. Other
authors (Kreuger & Casey, 2000; Morgan, 1998) favor larger groups to enable a
diversity of opinions to emerge. Based on personal experience of the method and the
ideal size of a focus group for all respondents to be heard, at least in the Swedish
context (Olausson, 2005; Olausson & Höijer, 2003, Olausson & Höijer, 2010;
cf. Brandth, 1996), the focus groups were designed to include between three and
five respondents. The respondents knew each other beforehand*the interview being
in this regard similar to a ‘‘natural’’ communicative situation (Kitzinger, 1994)*and
the conversations ran smoothly, which meant that the role of the interviewer was
slight. However, at one of the interview sessions (group B) only two respondents
showed up, which had the effect of making the role of the interviewer slightly more
pronounced.
Also, in order to facilitate communication in the interviews, the groups were
organized in a homogeneous manner with respect to the aforementioned categories
of age, gender, ethnicity, and occupation. People who share experiences and interests
are, according to Jarrett (1993), more disposed to express their views and find
it easier to speak their minds. The groups were then recruited through the use
of contacts, i.e. people who suggested possible respondents for the different focus
groups (Wibeck, 2000). These potential respondents were approached and asked
to form a group according to certain criteria, for instance occupation and gender.
Table 1 shows the composition of the focus groups, which together encompassed
53 respondents.
The interviews were conducted during the period FebruaryNovember 2009, and
comprised a number of related themes. The first was to encourage respondents to
spontaneously ‘‘talk’’ about climate change. Thereafter the conversation was directed
to information sources and personal opinions about climate change. The final theme
centered on the respondents’ views on the news reporting on the topic.
With regard to validity it should be said that it is very likely that respondents
sometimes expressed what they thought was expected of them, rather than their
‘‘real’’ views on the climate issue. In relation to climate change there are, in all
probability, certain ways of expressing oneself that are more ‘‘politically correct’’ than
 Citizens’ Representations of Climate Change 285

Table 1 Focus groups.

A: Male truck drivers (three respondents).
B: Female truck drivers (two respondents).
C: Male students, social sciences/humanities (three respondents).
D: Female students, social sciences/humanities (three respondents).
E: Male nurses (three respondents).
F: Female nurses (three respondents).
G: Male senior citizens (five respondents).
H: Female senior citizens (four respondents).
I: Female students, natural sciences (three respondents).
J: Male students, natural sciences (four respondents).
K: Women with Latin-American backgrounds (three respondents).
L: Men with Latin-American backgrounds (four respondents).
M: Women with African backgrounds (four respondents).
N: Environmentally committed women (five respondents).
O: Environmentally committed men (four respondents).

others. This is a problem that the current study shares with most other studies of
the public, quantitative or qualitative. However, in the light of SR theory and the
research interest in collective meaning-making, this kind of ‘‘doctored’’ discourse is
a highly relevant object of study; this is the way collective meaning is formed,
naturalized, and reproduced. One has to be careful, though, not to infer any direct
relation between this discourse and actual behavior.
According to SR theory, in order for an emerging understanding, such as
about climate change, to become implemented in everyday cognition, it needs to
be discursively anchored in a familiar interpretative framework (Moscovici, 2000). In
this process the media, as one of the key (re)producers of social representations, have
an essential, albeit not exclusive, role in supplying citizens with concrete and familiar
instruments for understanding complex and abstract phenomena. Anchoring and
objectification are the mechanisms through which new or abstract ideas, phenomena,
or processes become integrated in an already established and well-known context.
All anchoring and objectification mechanisms aim to ‘‘make something unfamiliar
. . . familiar’’ (Moscovici, 1984b, p. 24), i.e., to liberate the phenomenon from
anonymity. This is the case when, for instance, an abstract phenomenon, such as
climate change, is assigned physical characteristics and becomes an object that exists
in the material world.
The following anchoring and objectification mechanisms were analyzed in the
interview-material (cf. Höijer, 2010; Moscovici, 2000; Olausson, 2010).

“ Distinctions: One important way of transforming that which is unfamiliar into

a familiar interpretative framework is to organize the construction of meaning
around well-known opposites or distinctions, such as certainty/uncertainty. In
what ways do the respondents anchor climate change through distinctions?
“ Naming: Another common technique for anchoring something not very familiar is
to name the phenomenon in question, i.e., to locate the phenomenon within a
well-known sphere of life and culture in order to make the new phenomenon
286 U. Olausson

comprehensible. In what ways do the respondents anchor climate change through

naming?
“ Ontologization: In this process of materialization, the abstract phenomenon is
ascribed physical characteristics so as to make it comprehensible and tangible.
Floods and storms might, as a case in point, illustrate the intangible phenomenon
of climate change. Affective images (Leiserowitz, 2005) of objects, applicable to
the new phenomenon, that exist in the material world are of particular importance
in this process (Höijer, 2010; Smith & Joffe, 2009). In what ways do the
respondents ontologize climate change through images*providing the phenom-
enon with physical (and emotionally charged) characteristics?

The selected quotations from the interviews, presented in the next section,
are intended to increase the transparency of the connection between the empirical
material and argumentation. They function illustratively only and are typical examples
from a larger body of empirical material. The focus-group interviews have also
been used in another study (Berglez & Olausson, 2010), where they are analyzed
within a different theoretical framework.

Results
Below, the results from the focus-group study will be reported under three main
thematic headings:

“ Respondents’ representations of causes and consequences of climate change.

“ Respondents’ representations of responsibility for solutions to climate change.
“ Respondents’ views on the news media reporting on climate change.

The results will continuously be compared with and discussed in relation to previous
research on the climate reporting of Swedish news media (Berglez, Höijer, &
Olausson, 2009; Höijer, 2010; Olausson, 2009; Olausson, 2010).

Causes and Consequences

Previous research on the climate reporting in Swedish news media has shown that
climate change is depicted as surrounded by scientific certainty*both with regard
to the anthropogenic feature of its causes and its already present consequences
(Olausson, 2009). When scientific uncertainty is addressed in the climate reporting,
in modest attempts to create ‘‘balanced’’ reporting, it is discursively managed in
a fashion that in all essentials reduces its salience. As demonstrated below, the
respondents’ representations of both causes and consequences of climate change
are strikingly similar to the news reporting.

Causes. Certainty regarding the anthropogenic causes of climate change is a promi-

nent feature of the respondents’ representations of climate change. The distinction
between certainty and uncertainty is to a considerable extent dissolved and
 Citizens’ Representations of Climate Change 287

‘‘believing’’ in human-induced climate change has become a common-sense under-

standing. The scientific conclusion about man-made climate change has been
naturalized and implemented in everyday cognition and discourse. Statements such
as ‘‘We humans have destroyed the planet,’’ ‘‘Climate change is a consequence of
human behavior,’’ and ‘‘We’re the ones to blame’’ appear frequently in the interviews
(see also Berglez & Olausson, 2010).
A: I think it’s awful, how the ice-cap is melting, and polar bears and animals and
wilderness are dying . . . I think it’s terrible how we’ve destroyed . . . or we
human beings have destroyed and affected what is so far away, what should be so
clean. I think that’s terrible . . .
B: I agree! It’s the same here . . .
(Two women, group F)

C: Of course I believe we have an effect, in many different ways . . .. I come from a

country where, for example, people don’t think about where they throw away
garbage . . . I mean sort garbage. And of course I think that affects the whole
system.
A: I believe that human beings play an important role.
(Two men, group L)

The excerpts above, which illustrate the dominant representation of certainty

regarding human-induced climate change, are all responses to the initial question in
which the interviewer encourages the respondents to spontaneously talk about climate
change. However, when prompted by a direct question about scientific certainty/
uncertainty, a greater recognition of the uncertainty dimension is immediately evident
in the focus-group discussions.
I: . . . Do you think there is any sort of uncertainty surrounding the knowledge
about climate change. . .?
A: Of course there is. . .
B: . . . a certain degree of uncertainty. I think so. Because if you look at history,
I mean, the climate has been changing all along from the ice age to what it is now.
(Two women, group B)

I: . . . Is the knowledge uncertain or do people know what the problem is? Or is it

uncertain?
D: I believe it’s very uncertain.
C: I believe it’s uncertain.
A: There are probably different opinions, I think, about what is really dangerous.
I don’t think anyone has a really comprehensive picture of it anyway. At least
I’ve never actually heard that . . . some kind of ranking of what’s most dangerous
and least dangerous. I don’t think so, instead it’s probably pretty vague.
(Three women, group H)

Whitmarsh (2009) has already argued that qualitative methods are advantageous
when exploring citizens’ understanding of climate change in terms of enhanced
possibilities for contextually anchored analyses. In addition to this, as is shown
here, qualitative research also has the potential to expose the ambiguous nature
of representations held by citizens; there can be significant discrepancies between
288 U. Olausson

spontaneous statements and answers prompted by a direct question, and

validity problems are likely to occur if this ambiguity is overlooked by the
researcher.
The tension in the distinction certainty/uncertainty leads to some objections to,
or at least negotiations of, the idea about the anthropogenic causes of climate
change. However, once the possibility of other causes (and the possibility that climate
change does not exist at all) has been negotiated, the line of reasoning again ends
up in the ‘‘anthropogenic corner.’’
C: And there are those who claim the opposite as well, that there is no climate
change. They also make good points that show that there isn’t a change taking
place. But, when you see pictures from Los Angeles, the smog there that’s like a
dome, well there’s something wrong anyhow.
(Man, group A)

D: I’m thinking about what you’re saying, that there are . . . changes and that it’s
human beings who are influencing it. I see it as something natural, the climate is
supposed to change . . . But in any case human beings have gone against nature,
consumed more than we should have access to and that’s why we have . . .
problems now . . . in that certain animals and . . . well, the eco system has been
destroyed.
(Woman, group M)
Even in the one focus group where climate skepticism was explicit*primarily from
respondent B in the excerpt below*the discussion ends up arriving at the conclusion
‘‘of course it (the use of fossil fuels) causes problems.’’
B: I think we’d all agree that the last few decades have been milder than it was
during the first decades of our lives. But how we should interpret it, that’s
another issue. . . .
E: But it goes in cycles I think. Still you can’t deny that air pollution has been
increasing the whole time. After all we use fossil fuels and all that and of course
it causes problems.
(Two men, group G)
Several studies of the public’s understanding of climate change (Bell, 1994; Kempton,
1997; Leiserowitz, 2006; Whitmarsh, 2009) have demonstrated that climate change
often is conflated with other environmental issues, particularly the separate problem
of ozone depletion. The current study gives further support to this common
conclusion.
A: Well . . . it even has to do with hairspray. I think about it every time I spray my
hair. You have it in here [points at her head], yes you do. Sometimes I check
when I buy hairspray. Yep, good for the ozone, or whatever it usually says.
(Woman, group B)

A: But all those sprays and things people use, that they say have an effect, sure one
thinks about how they. . .
B: I’ve thrown them all away!
(Two women, group H)
 Citizens’ Representations of Climate Change 289

While some scholars (see Bell, 1994) have considered this misunderstanding to be
a problem and have accused the media of failing to inform its audience correctly
about the causes of climate change, I would argue that we need to acknowledge this
generic understanding of environmental issues as a prerequisite for the ancho-
ring of the climate issue among citizens (see Berglez & Olausson, 2010). As put
forth by Whitmarsh (2009), ‘‘we can distinguish between ‘understanding’ in the
restrictive sense of knowledge (or recognition) of abstract scientific ‘facts’; and
‘understanding’ in the fullest sense which includes how individuals apply scientific
facts and principles to particular situations and express them in their understanding
of the world’’ (p. 415).

Consequences. Analogous to how the anthropogenic causes of climate change are

embedded in an atmosphere of certainty, already existing consequences are described
with great certainty. In establishing the dominance of certainty over uncertainty
when making sense of the consequences of climate change, it is evident that the
respondents’ own experiences are of utmost importance. Experiences of changing
seasons and curious weather give evidence of a presently changing climate.
I: If you were to spontaneously say something about climate change, what would it
be?
A: You just have to look out the window.
B: It’s warmer. No winters any more. Warmer and wetter. That’s how I notice it
anyhow.
I: So you mean it’s something you notice?
B: The way the weather shifts. One day it’s 27 below. It seems pretty strange when
it’s five degrees above zero and then it goes so fast depending on the wind.
A: And the way it can shift 20, sometimes almost 30 degrees in just one day. That’s a
bit odd.
(Two men, group A)

A: I remember my grandmother, when I was small, the wells were always full. But
today there’s no well. You have to walk several hundred meters to fetch water. The
nearest neighbor, the closest accessible water in the area where she lives now, it’s
like 400500 meters to fetch water. . . . So they’re aware [in Africa] of the
problem, have been aware of the problem for a long time.
(Woman, group M)
In the process of anchoring climate change in a familiar interpretative framework, the
respondents make use of everyday experiences of the weather as shown above, something
which has been demonstrated by several previous studies (Kempton, 1997; Lorenzoni &
Hulme, 2009; Ryghaug et al., 2010; Whitmarsh, 2009). The respondents claim that
‘‘strange things are happening with the weather,’’ that they experience ‘‘weather
transitions,’’ and that the ‘‘weather shifts rapidly.’’ When naming the phenomenon of
climate change ‘‘weather’’*and consequently also confusing climate and weather*the
abstract and intangible risk acquires familiar and comprehensible characteristics.
The certainty about already existing consequences of climate change that
characterizes the respondents’ representations of climate change is underpinned by
290 U. Olausson

the ontologization mechanism, which means that the phenomenon is provided

physical characteristics and turned into something that actually exists in the material
world. The often emotionally charged visual representations*pictures in newspapers,
and film sequences in broadcast news*are of particular importance in this process of
materialization (Smith & Joffe, 2009). The respondents spontaneously recall imagery
of suffering polar bears and flooded areas, prominent features not
only of the Swedish reporting but of the Western climate reporting in general (see
Beck, 2010; Höijer, 2010; Olausson, 2009; Smith & Joffe, 2009), and these images
function as material evidence of the changing climate.
I: Do any images in particular come to mind when you hear ‘‘climate change’’?
A: That poor polar bear alone on an ice floe.
C: Yes, that’s a real classic. Everyone’s seen that.
A: Yes, But that’s what’s actually happening. The polar bears either freeze or sweat
. . . . Poor polar bear alone on an ice floe.
C: Yeah.
(Two women, group D)

D: Yes, the polar bears are definitely the first thing I think of. It’s like I said before, I
think of those polar bears. . . I don’t know why I think about them in particular.
I think about how they are floating around on their little ice floe and the cub
falls in the water and then uh oh. Save the polar bears.. . .
(Man, group J)
As suggested by previous media research (Nohrstedt, 2005; Olausson, 2010;
Smith & Joffe, 2009), the elements of uncertainty and reflexivity that sometimes
exist in the texts or speech of the news reporting are removed from the images.
Consequently, the ontologization of climate change through emotionally loaded
images underpins the sense of certainty about already existing consequences of
climate change.
Responsibility for Solutions
Previous studies of the Swedish climate reporting over the years have demonstr-
ated that the news media to a large extent have viewed the responsibility for
mitigating climate change as being at the global level. Through an extensive focus on
international climate summits, the climate issue has been constructed as a problem
for international politics to solve (Olausson, 2009). There has been widespread
criticism of this focus among media researchers, who claim that this disconnection
between the local and global scales turns the climate issue into something which
does not concern everyday life and obscures the responsibility of each individual
(see Carvalho, 2010). However, recent studies of the Swedish climate reporting have
indicated a gradual shift of focus in the news media towards national and individual
responsibility attributions concerning the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions
(Berglez et al., 2009; Olausson, 2010).
This ambiguity in the distinction between individual and institutional responsi-
bility is also reflected in the focus-group interviews. Ideas about universal personal
responsibility are intertwined with arguments about the necessity of political
 Citizens’ Representations of Climate Change 291

agreements and action on a global scale (see Berglez & Olausson, 2010). Since people
by nature are ‘‘lazy’’ and self-centered, environmentally friendly behavior should
be enforced through policy interventions rather than being a voluntary choice, the
argument goes (cf. Darier & Schüle, 1999; Whitmarsh, 2009).
C. But it’s individuals themselves, everyone, the whole planet. . .
B. Yes, exactly. I believe that it’s up till each and every person to take responsibility.
But that people are rather lazy by nature and if you don’t make laws about
certain things . . . if you don’t make it a bit uncomfortable to live in disharmony
with the environment, then I believe many people are too lazy to change. That
we need both political, that politicians have to be environmentally orientated, at
the same time as we must also take personal responsibility.

(Two men, group E)

C: I think it’s at all levels. We need them all, regardless of whether we’re active in the
Society for Nature Conservation or as private persons or as politicians . . . yes*
everyone who can must help out one way or another and do his or her part, it
feels like.
(Man, group O)
The respondents’ inclusion of both dimensions in the distinction between personal
and institutional responsibility is shown above. When the role of the individual
in taking responsibility for the mitigation of climate change is emphasized,
the individual is located in a global framework of ‘‘humanity’’ (cf. Darier & Schüle,
1999).
I: . . . Well, who is it that is responsible for this [dealing with climate change]?
B: All human beings are responsible.
C: All of us.
(Two women, group I)

I: . . . Who is it that is responsible for this [dealing with climate change]?

C: We are! Humanity!
...
D: The personal level. It’s at the personal level.
C: Each and every one.
(Two women, group M)
This tendency of Swedish citizens to attribute responsibility for solving the problem
of climate change to the individual is confirmed by a poll in 2009, which shows that
83% of the Swedish population has taken some kind of measure to mitigate their own
negative influence on the climate (Naturvårdsverket, 2009; cf. Eurobarometer, 2009).

The News-Media Reporting on Climate Change

Three Problems with the Climate Reporting. The analysis above demonstrates striking
similarities in the overall framework of the media reporting on climate change
concerning causes, consequences, and responsibility for solutions, and the repre-
sentations of the respondents. Hence, an easy way of concluding this study would
be to simply point to strong media effects and a climate reporting that clearly has
the potential of promoting public engagement in tackling the problems of climate
292 U. Olausson

change. However, the interviews also display at least three elements of the climate
reporting to which the respondents react negatively, and that most likely hamper
rather than encourage active participation:
(1) Emotional reporting: The climate reporting in Swedish news media, as in several
other countries, is permeated by various emotional appeals among which the emotion
of fear is prominent (Höijer, 2010; cf. Hulme, 2008). These emotionally charged media
messages seem, at least initially, to affect the respondents. Statements such as ‘‘of
course you are affected’’ are common and the respondents claim to feel the urge to ‘‘do
something’’ when witnessing the polar bear cub drifting alone on an ice floe. This
response to the polar bear imagery in the media has been found also in previous
studies on climate change and the public (Leiserowitz, 2005; O’Neill & Hulme, 2009;
O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009). However, as previous audience research has already
concluded several times (Olausson, 2005; Dahlgren & Höijer, 1997; O’Neill & Hulme,
2009; O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009), this engagement tends to fade dramatically
and be replaced by emotional fatigue*you simply cannot deal with more misery.
B: I try to think like this: the thoughts are there, the images are there. But you
don’t want to . . . it becomes a burden if you carry the whole world on your
shoulders.
(Man, group C)

C: I’m something of an animal lover, so it makes me sad. Unfortunately I don’t

think that we can do much, because these changes . . . Looking at these pictures
doesn’t make me go out and do more. I don’t do more for the environment than
I would have done otherwise, instead it makes me sad.
(Woman, group D)
(2) The business of news: Besides the obvious fatigue that arises when the reporting
gets overly emotional in character, there is another reason for the widespread criticism
of the emotional and alarmist feature of the climate reporting. The respondents are
highly critical of the commercial conditions of the news media that generate this type
of journalism, and this leads to an explicit lack of confidence in the climate reporting
(cf. Ryghaug et al., 2010; Whitmarsh, 2009).
B: The news, I’m very skeptical towards it. . . .
A: You have to be ‘‘sensacionalista’’ for the sake of sales, so that’s why. . . You don’t
know if they just want to boost sales or if it’s true.
(Two women, group K)

A: Well, I’m very critical of the media, of how media handles this. Of course there
are many reports about miserable situations, but I think that media to a great
extent contribute to this passivity. Because they don’t give people any hope of
being able to change things. As soon as you want to do something it gets stuck
somewhere in a system that wasn’t designed to handle these problems. So all
human beings, everyone in charge, all organizations should assume that we have
ten years maybe. What’s our roll then? Media doesn’t start from this assumption,
instead media is about making money.
(Man, group O)
 Citizens’ Representations of Climate Change 293

(3) Lack of continuity and integration: It is not only emotional fatigue and skepti-
cism generated by the commercial agenda of the news media that seem to
affect respondents’ engagement and interest negatively. The lack of continuity and
integration of various sorts of news also appears to curb the initial engagement (cf.
Stamm et al., 2000). When the newspaper page is turned and another quite
different topic presents itself, readers’ attention is quickly diverted from the climate
issue.
I. You feel some kind of engagement in any case?
A: Sure, oh yeah, I want to read this . . . But there’s a risk that afterwards you just
turn the page and then you read something else and. . .
B: . . . then it’s kind of gone.
A: Yes.
B: I suppose it’s still sloshing around somewhere in the back of your mind but it’s
nothing that you’re like ‘‘Oh yeah,’’ must deal with this now.
(Two women, group B)

A: You forget quickly. I mean the image disappears pretty fast. It doesn’t get
permanently etched into you, instead you forget. And it’s almost as if
environmental issues are perishables. When one of the accidents happens or
there’s a tsunami, yeah then it’s big news . . . and then X number of days pass
and it’s forgotten. And then something new has to come along. It’s all so
temporary somehow. Like there’s no long-term thought behind it.
(Man, group E)
In fact, some respondents, above all the environmentally committed groups (N
and O), even explicitly call for a more integral and continuous reporting on the
environment in general and climate change in particular.
A: I wish these questions were brought up when they talk about the stock market
and other issues too, because the solution lies in . . . even in economics,
transportation, and everything we’ve been talking about. The solution lies in our
entire way of life. And so it has to be included in all issues.
(Woman, group N)

D: But apart from that I’ve been really aware of*what n.n. was talking about*
the mixed signals, not least in the media where they might first have a story
about . . . a new climate report that says this and that, and things are serious.
And then maybe the very next story is about an airport that’s being built and
they interview someone about what it can lead to and it can cause travel to
increase by 30%. And there’s no one who does an analysis, no reporter who in
any way problematizes the whole thing, but instead you just sit there as a
listener or reader and are supposed to believe the one has nothing to do with
the other.
(Man, group O)
It is evident that citizens are quite capable of critically reflecting on media fare
and there are thus convincing reasons not to be overly simplistic when dealing with
the relationship between media information and audience reception. One should
keep in mind, however, that issues of confidence are hard to empirically capture;
294 U. Olausson

explicit media criticism could be interpreted as a ‘‘socially correct’’ way of talking

about the media, which is not necessarily the same thing as rejecting media content
at the moment of reception. Nonetheless, the results presented here show a reflexivity
and ability to negotiate media content among the audience which has not been
properly acknowledged in the majority of media studies on climate change.
Media as Agenda-Setter. Arguably, a great deal of the respondents’ climate knowledge
originates from the media; in all the interviews the media were mentioned as the
main source of information about the climate issue. These findings are consistent
with those of Whitmarsh (2009), who concludes in a British study that the mass
media (television, newspapers and radio) by far were the most common information
sources (cf. Hargreaves, Lewis, & Speers, 2003; Zhao, 2009). However, this knowledge
then seems to be negotiated and remolded in conversations and discussions with
other people.
A: It [the media] is the foundation. But then it’s obviously the case that it’s built up
from there. It’s the schools, it’s mass media, it’s your work. And you’ve also got
your own eyes to see with when you, well . . . You can see for yourself and draw
your own conclusions about certain things.
(Woman, group F)

D: I suppose you change your opinion, you probably already have an opinion from
the media. Through the discussions you develop your opinion.
B: Yes.
D: I still believe that media are the gateway to the discussion arising at all.
(Two men, group J)
Thus, the interviews display more complexity in the process of making sense of
climate change than could be explained by mere media effects. An empirically robust
conclusion would then be that the media establish the overall framework for how
to make sense of climate change, but that this framework is then gradually filled
with various elements, including personal and collectively deliberated experiences.
As suggested by Stamm et al. (2000), the role of the media in shaping citizens’
representations of climate change could best be described as that of ‘‘agenda-setter’’
(McCombs & Shaw, 1972).

Concluding Discussion
Suggestions for Social Research
As social scientists it is vital that we remind ourselves that media discourse is not
adopted straight off by the media audience. We need to acknowledge to a greater
extent the power of people’s own experiences in the process of making sense of the
world. Previous audience research has time and again demonstrated that if media
discourse is inconsistent with people’s experiences, values, and opinions, it is likely
to be transformed to resemble already established and familiar social representations,
or even to be rejected to avoid any cognitive or emotional dissonance (Olausson,
2007; Lorenzoni & Hulme, 2009; Whitmarsh, 2009). Citizens’ meaning-making
 Citizens’ Representations of Climate Change 295

about climate change (as with other issues) is a complex blend of their own
experiences, mass communication in which the news media have a pivotal role, and
various dialogic forms of communication (Olausson, 2005; cf. Carvalho, 2010). In the
words of Jasanoff (2010) meaning is co-produced and ‘‘emerge(s) from embedded
experience’’ (p. 233).
Thus, negotiation of and opposition to media content are likely to take place, and
the results presented here show that the media’s primary role in relation to climate
change is best described as that of agenda-setter (McCombs & Shaw, 1972; Stamm
et al., 2000). But it is also evident that although explicit media criticism is prevalent
among the respondents, the media staging of climate change has had a considerable
impact on the overall interpretative framework of climate change among the citizens.
The media, for instance, have undoubtedly provided the means for effectively
objectifying climate change, i.e., making the abstract phenomenon materialize in
physical and concrete forms through affective images of suffering polar bears, flooded
areas, and desiccated territories (cf. Leiserowitz, 2006; O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole,
2009). Hence, the agenda-setting role should not be understood as confined to
‘‘making people talk about climate change’’ in a general sense, but as also implying
setting the limits for viable ways of talking about this global risk in terms of causes,
consequences, and responsibility for solutions. The production of meaning is thus an
open and unpredictable process that operates within the limits of a hegemonic
interpretative framework provided by the media and other powerful institutions
(Hall, 1973/2009).
To sum up, it is vital to properly acknowledge the news media as the primary
intermediary between science, politics, and the citizens, as well as their agenda-setting
role for citizens’ meaning-making on climate change. This must, however, be done
without neglecting people’s ability to negotiate and oppose media information and
thereby (unintentionally) yield to assumptions long since discarded within audience
research about the media’s power to ‘‘inject’’ citizens with messages.

Suggestions for the News Media

As argued by Berglez (2008), if news media are to ensure their continuing democratic
function in late-modern society with its pluralistic and transboundary character, it is
imperative that they make an effort to break free from traditional, and in many
respects obsolete, news structures and media logic. Climate change hardly allows
itself to be captured within mutually exclusive categories such as domestic/foreign,
economy/science etc. Instead of separating issues, objects and people there is a need
for bridging the gaps, and making visible the many relations that provide climate
change*its causes, consequences and possible solutions*with contextually an-
chored meaning (Olausson, 2007). As shown, people swiftly shift from empathetic
and caring engagement in climate change to indifference often as soon as they have
turned to the next page of the newspaper. Considering the short attention span of the
audience, an integral environmental reporting which is not confined to one or
two pages, but saturates and interconnects various sections of the newspapers, seems
296 U. Olausson

essential (Cottle, 2009). Some of the respondents even explicitly call for a journalism
that interweaves environmental issues with, for instance, the consumer affairs or
entertainment sections. Admittedly, the breaking up of traditional news structures
firmly integrated within journalistic practices is a long-term project, but nevertheless
it is an important one. A dialogic connection between the various parts of the
newspaper as well as a reflexive news evaluation, in which the emotional and alarmist
discourse is handled with greater care, will better provide citizens with contextually
anchored and integral resources for sustainable meaning-making on the climate issue.
Especially important is a shift from the episodic nature of the climate reporting
to a continuity that includes long-term perspectives. The problems associated with
the event-dependent nature of environmental reporting have long been acknowl-
edged in media research. The reactive nature of news reporting*the tendency to
cover only what has already happened*leads to ignorance of the gradually evolving
processes, which ultimately result in dramatic events (Dunwoody & Griffin, 1993;
Einsiedel & Coughland, 1993; Miller & Parnell Riechert, 2000; Singer & Endreny,
1993). The quotation below, originating from a self-critical journalist, illustrates the
problem well.
By swarming to events we correspondents miss the developments which are the
basic factors of change. We were there when the Iron Curtain cracked, but few of us
noticed how quickly it was rusting away. (Rosenblum, 1993, p. 23)
The results make clear that the public’s understanding of climate change to a
considerable extent hinges on their own experience of current weather situations
and that the media exposure of climate change has ‘‘given people a framework into
which they can fit their own observations’, as stated by Kempton (1997, p. 17).
Obviously, extreme weather does fulfill the requirements of newsworthiness, as
noted by Smith and Joffe (2009), but when the media conflate weather and climate,
already short-term understandings of climate change among the audience are
amplified. Admittedly, firmly established understandings of the concept of ‘‘news’’ are
difficult to alter; however, considering the media’s role as the main source of
information on climate change, it is vital that they maintain their climate reporting
even at times when no dramatic weather events are at hand. Together with other
communicative resources, such as communication campaigns and education, they
need to keep the climate issue on the agenda and provide relevant context for
understanding it.
It has been argued that the climate issue has reached the point of becoming
ideology in Sweden in the sense of developing into a taken-for-granted interpretative
framework beyond rational questioning (Berglez & Olausson, 2010). The fact that
95% of the Swedes in 2009 were convinced that climate change is real is one
manifestation of this (Naturvårdsverket, 2009). But the question is: what will happen
in the next phase, when the climate issue must fight to retain its position on agendas
of media, politics, and not least the citizens? Considering the unusually cold winter
of 20092010 and events such as ‘‘Climategate’’ in November 2009, it would not
be very surprising if the gratifying figures of 2009 have now dropped. Perhaps the
 Citizens’ Representations of Climate Change 297

results presented in this article would also turn out a bit differently if the focus-group
study were to be conducted today. Thus, this next ‘‘climate phase’’ could be even
more of a challenge for the news media than the ‘‘mere’’ establishment of the climate
issue on the public agenda.

Acknowledgements
This study was carried out with funding from Formas, the Swedish Research Council
for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning.

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