Framing climate change in Belgian and British newspapers: A comparative framing analysis.

Abstract

In this study, a cross-cultural framing analysis was conducted based on 24 news articles about extreme weather events in two different newspapers; 12 articles from Belgian newspaper De Morgen and 12 articles from British newspaper The Guardian. All articles were analyzed by means of a three-step plan. Framing devices were identified followed by the determination of reasoning devices, which eventually led to the identification of core frames. It was found that the denial frame was dominating in De Morgen, whereas the human interest frame was prevailing in The Guardian. Some contextual factors were useful to explain the different framings in the newspapers, such as the position of the two countries in the ranking of the Climate Change Performance Index. For example, a lot of articles in De Morgen did not include any sort of solutions to combat climate change. This can be in line with the low position of Belgium in the ranking.