Örebro University
Department of Humanities,
Education and Social Sciences
Date: 2012-05-29
MEDIA REPRESENTATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN UGANDA
MA Thesis
Global Journalism
Supervisors: Assoc Prof. Peter Berglez &
Johan Östman
Author: Alice Kiingi
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The journey to pursue formal education is a tough journey to walk. But even tougher when seeking to advance in education, a journey that I would not have walked alone. This is where I would like to first of all extend my sincere gratitude to my late dearest mother and best friend the late Mrs. Harriet Nakazaana Kiingi who from childhood was proud of me and reminded me that am I am bright child even when sometimes I thought that I was not, this gave me confidence to always stand out. I also warmly thank her for instilling in me the virtue of hard work and determination to achieve a desired goal in life. She also taught me to be humble to concede my mistakes and failures a proper way to learn and improve. During her last days of life on earth she told me with a lot of courage to follow my long wished for dream with or without her to pursue advanced education, which I have done so.
I also thank my father Mr. David Kulumba Kiingi who taught me to always choose priorities out of the many desired choices I have, take tough decisions in pressing moments, and to be principled in my life. Daddy also gave me the gift of education by putting me in school right form childhood to the time I have completed my Master studies. This is a precious gift that some children are denied due to lack of financial resources and some parents not upholding on to the importance of education of a girl child in Uganda.
I would also like to thank my uncle Dr. Kibuuka Kiingi that morally encouraged me I quote “Society will only recognize you by how much you are highly learned and not by the material wealth you possess. Poverty of the brain is more painful than the usual poverty”. My paternal uncle, Dr. Sam Lutalo Kiingi, my brother Eric Kiingi, relatives Philip Ssenyonga, Elizabeth Naibhati, Eric Ssemwanje and my friend Katherine Umotoni Nabakooza I also warmly thank for the kind hearted financial support. To my siblings Rosette, Paul, Sam, Esther, Eric, Liz and Sanyu (P.P, Little Bo) for the love, moral and financial support that has seen me through in all my life, I thank you. To Dr. Nassanga Goretti Linda whose rich academic works inspired me to pursue research studies.
But most of all I thank my supervisors Prof. Peter Berglez and Johan Oastman that took over from Peter, without him the thesis project would not have been possible. I thank you so much for
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the untiring hours that you devoted to my thesis and giving me the courage to move on even when I felt I was stuck with my thesis. You were critical and that was a learning process for me and the best thing for me to come up with a better paper. I found my academic interaction with you the most inspiring and enriching.
And most importantly Prof. Leonor Camauër, my examiner that critically pointed out the strengths and weaknesses in my thesis and gave me courage and opportunity to improve my thesis to come up with a better copy, I thank you very much.
I would also like to acknowledge the Uganda journalists covering climate change: Gerald Tenywa (The New Vision), Flavia Lanyero and Mike Ssegawa (The Daily Monitor), Nakkazi Esther (The East African), Peter Wamboga Mugirya (The Science Times magazine), Kyeyune Hamza (The Radio Bilal), Kadoda Craig (The Nation Television Uganda), Musasizi Simon (The Observer), Mwesigwa Nicholas (The Red Pepper), Mubatsi Asinja Habati (The Independent Magazine).
I also do thank Anna Roosvall, Ulrika Olausson for lending me their personal book copies that have enriched my thesis. I also thank all the Global Journalism staff as well as to the HuMUs department especially to Annika Gardhon that recommended me for a media internship with Deutsche Welle radio in Bonn, Germany. To all the Globies of 2010/2012 it is my pleasure meeting you all. It was quite challenging and interesting to learn the various cultures.
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DEDICATION
I dedicate the exhaustive efforts of this work to my parents Mr. David Kulumba Kiingi and the late Mrs. Harriet Nakazaana Kiingi who instilled the gift of education and hard work in me. I also extend a special dedication of my work to my future husband and children, and to my brothers and sisters. Thank you all.
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ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to explore how the Ugandan newspapers, The New Vision and The Daily Monitor frame climate change to become a familiar concept or topic that can be well understood by the public. The term framing in this context does not refer to the ideology of the frame analysis theory but rather defined in simple terms to put a concept into words that convey meaning. The study also examined how journalists present climate change during an interview that was conducted.
The study answered the following research questions: (1.) How is the issue of climate change presented in the Ugandan press? (2.) How are the mechanisms of anchoring and objectification used in news reporting of climate change? (3.) How is domestication achieved in the news about climate change? (4.) How do the environment journalists represent the climate issue to become meaningful to the audience? (5.) What challenges do journalists face in reporting climate change?
The thesis conducted the theory of social representations to help me understand how news about climate change is constructed in the press and by the journalists. The theory posits two communication mechanisms anchoring and objectification which were shown in the news texts and in the accounts provided by the environment journalists interviewed. The communication mechanisms in this study used representations to turn the abstract and complicated concept of climate change by either placing it in earlier representations or attaching it (climate change) to a concrete or visible object to become familiar. Domestication as a concept in media studies was employed to analyse how the media present climate change news into a local perspective.
The study conducted a qualitative analysis in the Uganda elite English newspapers The New Vision and The Daily Monitor which are also confirmed to have the highest readership and the largest circulation.
The study employed a methodological approach known as the lexical choices or style one of the linguistic tools of Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the hidden meaning in texts. The method was used together with the theory of social representations in particular anchoring and objectification mechanisms that turn abstract, unfamiliar ideas and concepts familiar.
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The second qualitative method employed in the study were the in-depth interviews that analyzed how the mechanisms of anchoring and objectification were visible in the reasoning provided by the environment journalists in presenting climate change. In other words, how is climate change presented by the journalists to become a meaningful topic or concept for public perception?
The media represented climate change in a way which evoked emotions because it is argued that emotions ‘push’ an individual to react towards a situation. Climate change was represented in emotions of fear, threat, anger, helplessness, blame, worry, defiance, grief, compassion, hope and nostalgia, as well as in distinctions, metaphors and objectification through personification focusing in particular on the people facing the risks of climate change.
The results of this study have shown that media depiction of climate change in Uganda was linked to the ordinary people facing the risks of climate change, in comparison to the previous studies carried out in the European media, the perception of climate change was linked to the elite and well known people such as celebrities, key political figures that have been used as spokes persons for understanding climate change.
Climate change as a global event was presented into a local perspective through local voices of the ordinary people and domestic sources, nationalisation, national interests, the anchoring in distinctions of ‘Us’ (the developing, non industrialised countries) ‘suffering’ the impacts of climate change against the ‘Them’ (the developed and industrialised nations causing global pollution and hesitant to reduce the green house emissions). Anchoring in distinctions of the ‘Us’ against ‘Them’ the media showed that developed countries are largely responsible for the cause of climate change.
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DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS
Anchoring: This is a communication mechanism of the theory of social representations whereby
the abstract, complex, unfamiliar things, ideas and concepts are made familiar by integrating them in already existing or well known social representations that we may compare and interpret.
Objectification: This is a communication mechanism of the theory of social representations
whereby the unfamiliar, abstract or strange things, ideas are attached to concrete or physical objects to become familiar and recognizable.
Domestication: Is to report global issues by placing them into a local perspective to fit the local
audience’s comprehension of global issues.
Global journalism: Reporting a global event at a local level and explaining how its effects are
interconnected in other places in the world to justify a global village.
News style: A form of journalistic news writing
Global outlook: A news angle that explains events that happen at a local level relating them to a
global level.
National outlook: A news angle that concentrates on the nation-state whereby global issues are
shaped into a local perspective.
Social representation theory: A theory that employs the communicative mechanisms of
anchoring and objectification to turn unfamiliar ideas or things familiar.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ... i
Dedication ... iii
Abstract ... iv
Definition of Key Terms ... vi
1. INTRODUCTION ...
11.1 Background ... 2
1.2 Statement of the Scientific Problem ... 3
1.3 Aim of the Study... 4
1.4 Research Questions... 4
1.5 Scope of the Thesis ... 5
1.6 Outline of the Thesis ... 5
2. PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORK ...
72.1 Climate Change and Journalistic Norms ... 7
2.2 Climate Change and News Values ... 8
2.3 Representation of Climate Change in the Media ……… 9
2.4 Domestication of Global Events ………. 10
2.4.1 Global Climate Summits ……….. 10
2.4.1.2 Global Wars ……….. 11
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2.4.3 Summary ……….. 12
2.5 Theoretical Framework ……… 13
2.5.1Origin of the Theory of Social Representations ... 13
2.5.2 Why the Theory of Social Representations in Media Research ……... 14
2.5.3 The theory of Social Representations ………... 14
2.5.4 Communication Mechanisms of Social Representations ………. 15
2.5.4.1 Anchoring ……….. 15
2.5.4.2 Objectification ... 16
2.6 The Globalization and Global Journalism ……….. 17
3 MATERIAL AND METHODS
...19
3.1 Material and Sampling of Articles... 19
3.2 Limitation of the sampling procedure ... 20
3.3 Sample Selection-Journalists... 21
3.4 Lexical Choice ... 21
3.5 In-depth Interviews ... 22
3.6 Critical Evaluation of Methods ……… 24
3.6.1 Methodological Problems ………. 25
3.6.2 Validity, Reliability and Generalisabilty ... 25
4 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS ...
274.1 Anchoring in Emotions ……… 27
4.1.1 Climate Change Anchored as Threat ……… 27
4.1.2 Depiction of threat, malaria cases higher than HIVAIDS …………... 29
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4.1.4 Helplessness in depicting climate change ………. 30
4.1.5 Anger in portraying climate change ………. 31
4.1.6 Hope to cope with Climate Change impacts in Uganda ……….. 31
4.1.7 Compassion in photographic illustration ………. 32
4.2 Anchoring in Distinctions ……… 32
4.3 Anchoring in Metaphors ……….. 33
4.4 Objectification of Climate News ………. 33
4.5 Domestication of Climate Change in News ……… 36
4.5.1 Local Voices in Global News ……….. 36
4.5.2 Nationalization of Global Events ………. 37
4.5.3 National Interests at Global Summits ………... 38
4.6 Global Outlook in Climate News ……… 39
4.7 In-depth Interviews ... 39
4.7.1 Representation of Climate Change ... 40
4.7.1.1 Using the Human Face to Climate News Stories ... 40
4.7.1.2 Examples of Objectification in Climate News ... 41
4.7.1.3 Language used in Climate Change Stories ... 42
4.7.1.4 Journalistic Creativity in Climate News Stories ... 43
4.7.2 Domestication of the Climate issue in the News ……….. 43
4.7.3 Global Outlook in Climate Change News ……… 45
4.7.4 Challenges in reporting Climate Change ... 46
5 CONCLUSIONS ………...
485.1 Discussion of the findings ………... 48
5.2 Recommendations ……… 52
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REFERENCES ...
54APPENDIX 1 ...
63APPENDIX 2
... 64APPENDIX 3
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65APPENDIX 4
... 66APPENDIX 5
... 68APPENDIX 6
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1 INTRODUCTION
The process of globalisation has brought the world into a single global village that is interconnected, interdependent and communication linked in the flows of information and cultural products (Cottle, 2009). However, the dark side of globalisation has also connected us to global crises such as climate change, global war and terrorism, and humanitarian disasters (ibid.).
This study will focus on climate change, which as pointed out by (Cottle, 2011) is a gobal crisis that interconnects people in different parts of the world. The climate change is an important topic of research because it is the leading serious global risk at present (Olausson, 2011). For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) of the United Nations projected the impacts of climate change in the near and long term in different regions of the world:
By 2020, between 75 and 250 million of people are projected to be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change. By 2020, in some countries, yields from rainfed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50%. Agricultural production, including access to food, in many African countries is projected to be severely compromised. This would further adversely affect food security and exacerbate malnutrition. (IPPC, 2007, p.50)
This means that a large portion of African countries are highly dependent on agriculture yet the region lacks financial and technological resources to adapt to the variations in climate (Corner, 2011).
My study is focused on how the issue of climate change is depicted in the media to make sense to the public given the fact that it is a complex issue to grasp (Olausson, 2011). Previous studies focusing on European media have shown how the “media socially construct climate change for public perception” (Höijer, 2010, p.718). For instance, Höijer found that media evoked emotions to represent climate change in visual and verbal representations. In other words emotions attached to visual and verbal representations are used to interprete and break down the complexity of climate change for the public (Hall, 1997). In light of the above, there is no such study in Africa or even Uganda that depicts how media evokes emotions to represent climate change. Therefore the public perception of climate change in Uganda should be traced back on
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how climate change is presented by the media. Thompson (1995) noted that media are channels of communication by which the public acquire information and engage in public discussions on matters acrued from their perception of issues. This also means that people’s perception of issues in the media depends upon the way the media present the issues. Therefore it is relevant to analyse how the media presents climate change.
The theoretical approach applied in the study, the social representations theory (Moscovici, 2000; 2001) is relevant for media and communication studies to facilitate in understanding how the issue of climate change is presented in the news to be conceptually understood by the audience. This was enabled by the theory’s communicative mechanisms of anchoring and objectification in analysing how these communcative mechanisms were visible in the news texts.
The in-depth interviews were relevant to the study to analyse if the journalists that report climate change are conversant with the subject because their perception of climate change largely influences how they represent the issue to the audience.
1.1 Background
A report compiled by the Global Humanitarian Forum (2009) cited Africa as the most vulnerable region in the world exposed to the effects of climate change. The report went on to cite particular countries including Uganda as the most vulnerable country in the Sub-Sahara Africa experiencing the impacts of climate change, for example, weather related disasters such as floods that destroy crops, rising global temperatures, decreased rainfall patterns resulting in water shortages, longer droughts having negative effects on agriculture and thus resulting into food insecurity. In Uganda still, the increased global temperatures by 2 degrees is wiping out coffee yields Uganda’s main cashcrop that fetches the country hundreds of million dollars a year and upon which about five million people survive (Magrath, 2008, pp.1, 16).
The negative impacts of climate change on Uganda and the Sub-Saharan region as a whole have shown that climate change is one of the most serious global risks yet it is communicated as an abstract scientific problem in Africa resulting into a slow public and political response to the
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climate crisis (BBC World Service Trust, 2010). It is suprising that even when Africa or Uganda have been labelled the most vulnerable to climate change (Global Humanitarian Forum, 2009) the issue of climate change seems to remain an abstract concept in this part of the world. The BBC World Service report (2010) attributes this to shortage of information especially in the rural areas due to insufficient intensive media coverage and public awareness campaigns. Another study carried out specifically in Uganda by the BBC World Service Trust (2009) has shown that Ugandans seem not to understand well enough the concepts of climate change and global warming as many perceive climate change to mean changes in the weather or seasons. If the issue of climate change is not well understood by the public this tells us that the media have a critical responsiblity in representation of scientfic knowledge such as the climate change to influence public perception as well assess the responsiblity of the government and that of the public responding towards climate change (Carvalho, 2007)
1.2 Statement of the Scientific Problem
Previous studies have shown that research on mass media coverage of climate change has largely focused on industrialised countries with limited attention to how media present climate change in non industrialised countries that are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change (Takahashi, 2011).
Most of the studies carried out on media coverage of climate change have focused on the journalistic news values (Boykoff & Boykoff, 2007) and domestication of climate change in the national news (Berglez, Höijer, and Olausson, 2009; Roosvall, 2010; Eide & Kunelius, 2010). In non industrialised countries research on the coverage of climate change focuses on the challenges environment reporters face in reporting climate change (Shanahan, 2009; BBC World Service Trust, 2009; 2010; Corner, 2011). These previous studies have shown that there is a big gap as regards to how the media in the developing countries reports climate change in particular how the media depicts climate change to the public.
For instance, in Africa research has shown that there is limited public understanding of climate change. Most often its people attribute the variations in climate to local environment degradation
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than to the global causes of climate change (BBC World Service Trust, 2010). Another study carried out by the BBC World Service Trust (2009) in Uganda found that climate change is not well understood, often relating it to spiritual beliefs.
While Höijer (2010) provide a European perspective on media’s social construction of climate change into a meaningful concept for public perception facilitated by the theory of social representations, the present study contributes a non European perspective. This study explores how climate issues are covered in Ugandan media within the framework of the social representations theory to analyse how news about climate change can be conceptually understood in the news texts and in the accounts provided by the journalists during the interviews.
1.3 Aim of the Study
The overarching aim of the study is to analyse samples of texts in the media coverage of climate change in two Ugandan papers, The New Vision and The Daily Monitor as well as to interview journalists to establish if they are conversant with the subject because their perception of climate change influneces how climate change is represented in the news.
1.4 Research Questions
1. How is the issue of climate change presented in the Ugandan press?
2. How are the mechanisms of anchoring and objectification used in news reporting of climate change?
3. How is domestication achieved in the news about climate change?
4. How do the environment journalists represent the climate issue to make it relevant to the audience?
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1.5 Scope of the Thesis
The thesis analyses how two Ugandan newspapers construct climate change and uses the framework of the social representations theory in particular to analyse how the anchoring and objectification of climate issues are developed in the news. News items between 1August 2011 to 31 March 2012 will be analysed. In-depth interviews shall establish how the journalists present climate change as well as to explore factors affecting journalists in reporting climate change. The study also analyses the domestication of climate change in the news stories. It is worth noting that the thesis does not examine readers’ interpretations of reports on climate change.
1.6 Outline of the Thesis
The thesis is made up of five chapters. The first chapter accounts for background to the study, statement of the scientific problem, the aim of the study, research questions, and scope and outline of the thesis.
The second chapter spells out the previous research and theoretical frame work. It critically analyses the previous research relating it to my study. This section is organised in sub-themes to guide the reader. The section gives the theoretical framework of social representations that guides the analysis.
Chapter three addresses material and method. Under this section I give an account of how the data was collected and sampled. The section gives an overview of lexical choices and in-depth interviews as the methods of study.
The fourth chapter presents results and analysis. It starts with a brief introduction of what I intend to study and ends with a summary of the findings of the research. In this secton, I present, discuss and analyse the data collected from the field relating it to the research questions, supporting my results and arguments with the existing literature. This chapter presents the results thematically to avoid including all the news articles at once to avoid congestion in the chapter.
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The fifth chapter gives the conclusion that includes the discussion of the findings, recommendations and further studies.
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2 PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This chapter accounts for the theory of social representations (Moscovici, 2000; 2001; Philogène and Deux, 2001; Höijer, 2010; 2011; Olausson, 2011), a theoretical approach that will help us understand how news about climate change can be conceptually understood. The social representations theory is applicable in social research to transform abstract issues or things into something familiar and relevant enabled by the theory’s communicative mechanisms of anchoring and objectification. The chapter also examines the concept of domestication (Cohen, Levy, Roeh and Gurevitch, 1996; Clausen, 2004; Berglez, 2008; Reese, 2008; Berglez, Höijer and Olausson, 2009; Eide and Ytterstad, 2011) to establish how the media shapes climate change into a national perspective.2.1 Climate Change and Journalistic Norms
Climate change is an abstract concept (Olausson, 2011) to understand. Several global science experts have attempted to define climate change. Take for instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), define climate change “to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity” (IPCC, 2003, p.3). The global impacts of climate change are a wakeup call that climate change is a global issue whose impacts are indiscriminative and are a threat to us all (Global Human report, 2009).
The mass media are responsible in identification and interpretation of environmental issues (Schoenfeld et al., 1979; Spector and Kitsuse, 1977, cited in, Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004):
The way media cover the issue and various factors that work to shape this coverage has important consequences for how people understand climate change and how society deals with it. Inaccurate understanding may lead to reactions that are inconsistent with the science and reality of the situation. (Williams, 2009, p.29)
There is plenty of research in the area of media coverage of climate change. The previous studies have shown that the mass media coverage of climate change have largely focused on journalitic
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norms of personalization, dramatization, novelty and balance (Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004; 2007). The scientific problem of both studies was to examine how journalistic norms of balanced reporting shape the media coverage of climate change and global warming in the US media (Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004; 2007). This area has been extensively researched for the most part in the developed countries. For example, Boykoff and Boykoff (2004) explored how the journalistic norm of balance has been applied to the coverage of anthropogenic climate change. The study that employed quantitative methods found that the US prestige press, namely The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal adhered to the journalistic norms of balanced reporting hence showing both sides of the story in the coverage of global warming. The study went on to describe that the informationally biased coverage of global warming has given a platform for the US government to delay action regarding global warming “…balanced reporting is actually problematic in practice when discussing the human contribution to global warming and resulting calls for action to combat it” (Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004, p.134). Journalistic norms have given a rise to debates and controversy in climate news creating dramatic eye catching headlines (Butler & Pidgeon, 2009).
2.2 Climate Change and News Values
Olausson (2010) observes that a number of studies have concluded that the news media frequently focus on the “dramatic angle” when reporting environmental risks ignoring the scientific aspect. In support of this view, Cox (2006, p.164) pointed out that the limited news space puts pressure on journalists to drammatise the coverage of environmental issues to get their stories published. This means that dramatic nature of environmental stories is determined by the traditional news values as a criteria for selection of news stories. These news values are also applied to the media coverage of science topics as determinants for the selection of science news (Friedman et al., 1986; Einsiedel and Coughlan, 1993; Hansen, 1994, cited in Carvalho 2007, p.224).
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2.3 Representation of Climate Change in the Media
Research on media coverage of climate change also analysed how climate change is represented using the framework of social representations theory (Höijer, 2010; Olausson, 2010). This is an area that has not been researched in Sub-Saharan Africa or Uganda.
Höijer (2010, pp.719, 721) conducted a qualitative study using a method of analysis based on the theory of social representations (Moscovici, 2000; 2001) in particular using the theory’s communicative mechanisms of anchoring and objectification that examined how Swedish media’s largest tabloid press, Aftonbladet and a public service news television programme Rapport with the highest viewership “socially construct or represent global climate change” evoking emotions of fear, hope, guilt, compassion and nostalgia in the verbal and visual representations of climate change. The research questions formulated in the study were “How is climate change named in the item? Which metaphors are used and how? Are ideological themata (e.g., nationalism or individualism) addressed and if so how?” (p. 720).
However, Moser (2007, p.64) argues that in attempt to “inform the seriousness of the threat, the media have resorted to make climate change scarier appealing to people’s emotions so as to make the people understand the urgency to act or demand more action on climate change and global warming”. The author found that media coverage of climate change evokes emotions of fear, guilt, anger, hope, defiance, a desire to blame someone, powerlessness and despair. Moser (2007, p.69) raises a contentious serious issue that “if scientific findings about serious environmental risks presented ‘sweetly and patiently’ cannot capture public attention or political audiences then what would move someone to act”. In this sense Moser suggests evoking emotions of fear as a means of communicating climate change in the media is relevant especially as the problem grows more urgent and serious.
But even then public remains hesitant to respond to the media scarier messages hence ignoring the issue of climate change (ibid.). This gives the explanation that the individual has the power to decide what “they make of what they see, hear and read regardless of the intentions of the media” (Williams, 2003,p.90).
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Olausson (2010) conducted a similar study using the qualitative discourse analysis as a method and a theoretical approach of the theory of social representations (Moscovici,2000; 2001) in the Swedish media, Aftonbladet (AB) and a public service news television programme Rapport with the highest viewership examined the construction of the European identity in the news reporting of climate change through the mechanisms of anchoring and objectification.
2.4 Domestication of Global Events
The concept of domestication of news first entered into the media arena during the European study of international news (Gurevitch et al., 1991, in Clausen, 2004, p.29). The notion of domestication was developed by media researchers in trying to understand and explain the process of news production. According to Cohen, Levy, Roeh and Gurevitch (1996) the concept of domestication is categorised into two forms. First it deals with the encoding whereby news stories are shaped to suit the interests and expectations of the audience. Secondly, it goes on to deal with the location from where reporters or correspondents reporting from either abroad or at home report events they witness as if ‘through the eyes’ of the local audience situated in their country. Take an example of ‘parachute journalism’ where reporters ‘drop’ into conflict zones without prior knowldge of the place (Carruthers, 2011).
It is worth noting that media scholars have studied media coverage of global events or global crises focusing on how the media domesticate global events for the national or domestic audiences of their home countries. The previous studies have shown that domestication of global events in media coverage has taken different forms, for example in the media coverage of climate change (Eide and Ytterstad, 2011; Roosvall, 2010) and media coverage of war (Nohrstedt and Ottosen, 2005). These studies shall be seen in the following paragraphs.
2.4.1 Global Climate Summits
It is worth stating that domestication usually takes the form of nationalisation especially when national media report global issues by putting the nation state at the center of their reporting (Berglez, 2008). This discussion is further taken up by Eide and Ytterstad (2011) that emphasise
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that nationalising global news can also be seen in light of political actors during global summits when a nation puts forward its concerns and suggestions and the reporter from the same nation is expected to report in the same way implying that the reporter angles the news story in the voice of his or her country’s domestic news source during the global summit. In their study, Eide and Ytterstad (2011), The Tainted Hero: Frames of Domestication in Norwegian Press Representation of the Bali Climate Summit in the Norwegian newspapers, the Aftenposten and Verdens Gang further explain that global summits are a special ground for political struggle where global issues are domesticated by a particular nations’ political source, and a particular country forwarding its nations’ interest or concerns during the global discussion. A similar study in Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter, Swedish media concluded that during the Bali climate summit news was domesticated slanting towards the national political domestic sources (Roosvall, 2010).
2.4.1.2 Global Wars
Scholars such as Norhrsted and Ottosen ( 2005) in the study Global War - local views : media images of the Iraq war observed that during war media reports global events angling them towards a traditional national outlook. This observation is supported by Hafez (2011, p.486) who reasons that the media system of a country constructs events according to the national preference. Hafez cites an example the of the war in Iraq in 2003. This was a global event given the fact that Iraq is an international supplier of oil on the world market and because of the war the fluctuating oil prices on the world market had a significant effect on many countries around the world. Hafez explains that the coverage of the Iraq war (a global event) was given different news coverage depending on a country’s media system. The United States media coverage was different from that of the Arab media. “As a rule: the less involved a country is in a war or international conflict, the bigger the chance that the conflict is treated in a neutral and fair manner...” (ibid.,p.487). In otherwords i would argue here that the media concetrated on reporting the Iraq war giving it a local perspective of the ‘Us’ vs ‘Them’ to suit their audiences’ interests which also echoes domestication of a global issue as away of understanding a global event.
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2.4.2 Domestication of News Content
I would argue here that domestication of news content or global issues will continue to take ‘center stage’ even though the influence of globalisation has penetrated the national barriers for the reason that, globalization does not imply the ‘end of the nation state’ because the nation state is still seen to control the media institutions and the environment in which the media operates through legislation, regulation and provision of subsidies (Curran & Park, 2000). Therefore this means that media events will continuously be domesticated with the flagship of the nation-state. This view is emphasized by Billig (1995, p.8, 37) that “nationhood is still being reproduced: it can still call for ultimate sacrifices…national identity is not only something which is thought natural to possess but also something natural to remember”. Further research (Berglez, Höijer and Olausson, 2009) showed that the national state cannot survive without nationalism. Media focusing climate change reporting on the national aspect is a prominent example of nationalism as Billig’s ( 1995) study on banal nationalism shows that nationalism is a force on which nation states are established and an ideology that sustains the nation states and shapes one’s way of thinking. This means that the national identity always comes into play when anchoring climate change in the media to make the ‘phenomenon’ familar to the individual (Olausson, 2010). In the same line of thinking, Eide and Kunelius ( 2010) found that daily news reporting is focused on immediacy, assigned to local languages, culture. This is a driving force to domesticating of global events.
2.4.3 Summary
In summary the research on mass media coverage of climate largely centers on journalistic norms of objectivity, news values and domestication of global news content or events. These studies conducted quantitative methods that employed the content analysis mostly in the newspapers. Similarly, another study examined how news about climate change is reported. The study employed the social representations and qualitative discourse analysis. Previous studies have shown media representation of climate change focusing on the European media. This study will contribute to the research field in examining how the Ugandan media construct climate change into an issue that can be understood by the public.
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2.5 Theoretical Framework
In order to understand climate change the analysis of this study is based on the theory of social representations (Moscovici, 2000; 2001) to help in understanding how the issue of climate change is constructed by the media. In other words the theory will enable us to understand how meaning is constructed surrounding the issue of climate change in the media. This theory is a meaning-making approach for understanding the representation of abstract phenomenon, unfamiliar ideas, things, for instance climate change as a concept that is existent in social reality or everyday life or ‘common sense’ knowledge (Olausson, 2011).
According to Moscovici (2001, p.10), the founder of the theory in 1961 states that the theory helps in knowing how scientific knowledge tranforms into “common knowledge” that society is familiar with. Philogène and Deux (2001) elaborate Moscovici’s view stating that individuals’ thoughts are not formed in isolation but on the basis of representing concrete objects that fix images on their mind to influence their beliefs, attitudes, opinions to perceive an idea that is unfamiliar.
2.5.1
Origin of the Theory of Social Representations
Moscovici developed the social phychological theory of social represetations basing on Durkheim’s concept of collective representations (Duveen, 2000, p.6). Durkheim differentiated between individual representations and collective representations. He shows that the former is grounded in psychology while the latter is rooted in sociology. He avoids mixing up sociology with psychology choosing to define his concept on the basis of sociology (Duveen, 2000). In other words collective representations or social representations are a similar theory one developing out of the other although Durkheim focused on sociology whereas Moscovici combined sociology with psychology thus the name social psychological theory (Moscovici, 2000).
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2.5.2 Why the Theory of Social Representations in Media Research
Basing on the previous research conducted by Höijer (2011) and Olausson (2010; 2011) on the media representation of climate change in the Swedish media using the theory of social representations i would firmly argue here that this is an appropriate theoretical approach that a media scholar should use to examine how media constructs meaning to unfamiliar things. Take for example, climate change is a topic grounded in science that is complex to understand by a lay person or even to communicate (Chess & Johnson, 2007). Therefore, in this study, this is an appropriate theoretical approach to meaning-making of climate change (Olausson, 2010; 2011).The theoretical framework of social representations is relevant in examining how anchoring and objectification are applied in the news texts. The theory will work besides the lexical choices, a tool of the Critical Discourse Analysis, to analyse the hidden meanings in texts (see van Dijk, 1988).
2.5.3 The theory of Social Representations
The concept of social representations can be defined in various ways. However, its founder Moscovici brings it up in different contexts to explain how it functions. Moscovici (2001, p.20) explains that social representations are created to make familiar what is “strange, disturbing, and uncanny”. Moscovici also points out that social representations will exist in a communication between two individuals or groups of people to understand each other or make unfamiliar ideas familiar (Moscovici, 2000).
Various researchers have attempted to define the concept of social representations. For instance, Philogène and Deux (2001, p.5) refer to social representations as objects that influence an individuals’ “beliefs, attitudes, opinions”, so as to make meaning of things that help us to constitute reality.
Joffe (2002, p.560) puts it that social representations is concerned with the transfer of scientific knowledge into ‘lay thinking or common sense’. This brings to our understanding the way in which the theory of social representations operates and this is to say that in reality or physical world there are two aspects something known and the unknown. The known is defined as that which is already existing or the familiar context and the unknown which is the abstract, strange
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thing or idea (Moscovici, 2000). This means that the unknown take for example the scientific knowledge that is usually abstract can be transfered into lay thinking or ‘common sense’only when it is attached to the known inform of representations that the individual is already familiar with in daily life (Höijer, 2011). This also means that social representations cannot function without the existance of representations because it is from them that people derive ‘common sense’ as a result of their existance in daily life (Bauer & Gaskell, 1999).
Bauer and Gaskell (1999) explain that in daily life science presents a challenge to understand especially for people that do not have a background knowledge in science subjects on how best they can understand the complex scientific knowledge and appreciate it as meaningful. Social representations of science bridge the gap between the science world and the daily life by transforming the expert knowledge into ‘common sense’ achieved through using metaphors, images as concrete objects in the media (ibid. pp.165-166).
Moscovici ( 1984, as cited in Voelklein and Howarth, 2007, p.7) reason that human beings construct social representations in order to concretise strange events, things by placing them into a familiar context. Once established these representations influence human behaviour and they become part of our “collective consciousness” once they are grounded in tradition. Similarly, Potter and Edwards (1999, p.448) state that representations help people to make sense of the world (issues). In the same breath Hall (1997) states that representations can take the form of language to make sense of abstract things in which meaning is constructed.
It is argued that social representations are especially revealed in the times when society is vulnerable to a risk, images and expressions become meaningful and the individuals are motivated to understand deeply something unfamiliar and abstract (Moscovici, 2000).
2.5.4 Communication Mechanisms of Social Representations
2.5.4.1 Anchoring
The theory of social representations posits two communication mechanismsknown as anchoring and objectification (Moscovici, 2000). The first mechanism, anchoring, according to Moscovici
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(2000) is a process where by extraordinary ideas, are located into a familiar context. According to Joffe (2002) anchoring is to simply attach earlier representations on the new event to become comprehensible.
Moscovici (2000,p.48) points out that classification and naming as methods of anchoring facilitate in making something foreign and disturbing familiar. In so naming something foreign “we extricate it from a disturbing anonymity to endow it with a genealogy and to include it in a complex of specific words, to locate it, in fact, in the identity matrix of our culture” (ibid., p. 46). In other words Moscovici tells us that a name carries meaning that people can identify with implying that a name is symbol of something. Media naming of climate change usually appears in the headlines and leads (Höijer, 2010). Take an example in the Swedish media the Aftonbladet named climate change "climate threat", "weather", "weather alarm", or "the catastrophe" (Höijer, 2011, pp.7-8).
Anchoring can also be used in form of metaphors as observed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980 cited in Christidou, Dimopoulos and Koulaidis, 2004, p.348) “metaphors facilitate thought by providing an experiential framework within which abstract thoughts can be accommodated. The metaphoric schema grounds the conceptual structures of an abstract domain (target) to a physical one (source)”. That is to say metaphors are an important tool of representation as they act as illustrative mechanisms within which an abstract thought is made comprehensible. For example Höijer’s (2010) study notes that commonly used metaphors in reporting climate change are serious ‘illness’ and ‘death’. Metaphors are significant in creating social representations because they integrate abstract ideas and images into those that are already familiar (Moscovici, 2001, p.20).
2.5.4.2 Objectification
The second communication mechanism objectification, means to turn an abstract idea into something almost concrete that becomes existent in the physical world (Philogène & Deux, 2001, p.6). The unfamiliar object becomes concretised when people talk about it and through
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communication the object becomes meaningful that makes it naturally fixed onto people’s minds. Take for example a country’s flag symbolises a nation, race in terms of skin colour.
Moscovici (2000, p.49) clearly states that objectification brings out reality. He further elaborates that at first it is perceived in a purely intellectual, remote universe, it then appears before our eyes, physical and accessible. In this sense the abstract, and disturbing concept, such as climate change is reproduced in a concrete image to become meaningful. Höijer (2011) explains that objectification is clearly presented in the media when scientific concepts are turned into pictures. For example, when the Swedish media turned climate change into pictures of heat waves and floods that became an objectification of climate change. In other words the objects turned climate change into a visible concept.
2.6 The Globalization and Global Journalism
Some globalisation theorists and some social scientists argue that the world is best understood through the process of global transformation interconnecting and interrelating people politically, socially, economically and culturally into a ‘single place’(Robertson, 1994 cited in Berglez, 2008; Hjarvard, 2003). The opponents of globalisation argue that even though the world is better understood through global transformations, the role of media and communication remains unspecified (Rantanen, 2005, p.4). Take for example, Giddens (1990 cited in Rantanen, 2005, p.6) defined globalisation as the “intensification of world-wide social relations, which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa”. However, Giddens does not explain how local happenings are shaped by events abroad or in distant places. My argument here is that in the era of globalization the role of media has to be defined explicitly in how it reports global issues or events. In this sense when reporting global events, the media have to explain how a local event occurring in a particular country will have an impact in other locations of the world. In simple terms this kind of reportage is known as global journalism (Berglez, 2008). For example, a journalist reporting climate change should be able to explain how the effects of climate change in a particular country are similar in another country or countries. In the era of globalization there should exist a kind of journalism that reports how events in different parts of the world are interconnected to
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form a global village. Global journalism will exist for as long as the process of globalization is ongoing (Berglez, 2008; Reese 2008).
In his study, What is global journalism?, Berglez (2008) explained that the functioning of global journalism is based upon on the global news style that spells out the (1.) global space, (2) global powers and (3) global identities. I will not go into the details of explaining the global powers and global identities but I will rather focus my explanation onto the global space that my study is concerned with since I am dealing with climate change, a global event or issue. The global space is manifested in the news when journalists report events employing a global news style that represents the world as a ‘single village’ in which an event in one location or country could have similar effects in various locations across the world at the same time (Berglez, 2008). This means that global crises such as climate change transcend the boarders of the nation states (Cottle, 2011). In this sense it is upon the journalist to use the global outlook as a global journalism news style to explicitly explain the simultaneity, and similarity of the effects of a global event such as the climate change (Berglez, 2008).
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3 MATERIAL AND METHODS
There are various methods used to study texts. This study uses one of the central linguistic instruments of Critical Discourse Analysis, the lexical choices, as an analytic tool to interprete hidden meanings (see van Dijk, 1988).
The study also employs in-depth interviews to examine the reasoning behind environment journalists’ presentation of climate change in the news. The methods have been used in various media studies. Take for instance, Olausson (2009) used, among other tools, the lexical choices (choice of words chosen in preference to others) in her Critical Discourse Analysis to study the construction of climate change in three Swedish newspapers.
Höijer (2010) employed the theory of social representations in her qualitative study of how the Swedish media socially construct climate change into everyday ‘common sense’. While Berglez (2011) employed the qualitative in-depth interviews to study how Swedish journalists from various news media reflect about their own reporting of climate change.
3.1 Material and Sampling of Articles
The empirical evidence in this study is drawn from a systematic reading of online newspaper articles archived in a PDF format as the units of analysis selected from two elite centered English language major national daily Ugandan newspapers namely The New Vision and The Daily Monitor with a combined circulation figures of about 70,000 copies a day (Corner, 2011). The New Vision (www.newvision.co.ug) is a partly government owned news paper and The Daily Monitor (www.monitor.co.ug) is an independent ‘voice’ that is critical of the government. The choice of these two dailies is thus justified by their high readership, largest circulation, and influence.
The sample consists of news stories from August, 2011 to March 2012. I selected 2011 as the starting point for my analysis for the following reasons: First, in 2011 the global climate change summit was held also known as the COP 17/CMP7 United Nations Climate Change Conference 2011 in Durban South Africa (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,
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2012); second, during global summits media researchers have an opportunity to examine how national media report global events (Eide & Ytterstad, 2011); third reason during upcoming major events such as this one I assumed that the media organisations would give more space to climate stories compared to the ordinary days. This assumption is based upon a study done by Shanahan (2009) on Media Coverage of Climate Change in Non Industrialised Countries that concluded climate change is still a marginalized topic in the media industry of non industrialized countries because the editors do not regard climate change news worthy. This could also mean that few stories would be published. The fourth reason I considered the first quarter of 2012 to analyze if there were follow up stories of the global climate summit in South Africa.
The samples were compiled using the search term ‘climate change’ in The New Vision and The Daily Monitor archive database system. The sample excluded letters to the editor, guest letters, opinion and editorial. It is worth mentioning that gaining access to the archive database system of The New Vision and The Daily Monitor newspapers that used to be freely accessed by the public, researchers now have to financially subscribe to access the old electronic copies of the news articles that are archived in PDF format. I was financially constrained to subscribe to the archive data system. The news articles that were analyzed for this study were retrieved by The New Vision editor and The Daily Monitor journalist.
A total of 60 online news articles were collected from August 2011 to March 2012 from The New Vision and The Daily Monitor newspapers. The online newspaper articles are similar to the print version of the newspaper. The 60 news articles retrieved by The New Vision editor and The Daily Monitor journalist were classified by the librarians in the category of science and these included environment, farming, and climate change. I systematically read all the 60 news articles to select only those that carried the theme climate change and only 23 news items were selected for analysis.
3.2 Limitation of the sampling procedure
However, the limitation to the study there is a possibility that some newspaper articles might not have been included in the search period of study from August 2011 to March 2012 because the
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newspaper articles were searched and retrieved by The New Vision editor and The Daily Monitor journalist because the researcher was financially constrained to subscribe to the archive database system from which the researcher could carry out an individual search of the news items.
3.3 Sample Selection-Journalists
I sampled journalists relevant for this study. Two criteria were met in the selection of the journalists for the in-depth interviews. I looked at the following to consider when selecting journalists for the interview. The type of media that includes government and commercial media, age, gender, experience (how long one has worked as environment journalist), academic level.
To begin with I selected one journalist from different news media that specialise in reporting climate change in Uganda namely the daily newspapers The New Vision, a partially government owned medium, The Daily Monitor, an independent voice and commercial newspaper, Other commercial media include The Red Pepper, The East African,a weekly newspaper, The Nation Television, The Radio Bilal, The Observer newspaper, a weekly newspaper, The Independent , a weekly magazine, Science Times Magazine, a quartely edition. Except for The Daily Monitor newpaper i selected two environment journalists handling different beats of climate change.
The journalists were aged between 23-41 years. Selection of age is important because it shows how well the journalists are conversant with the subject. In this sense the older journalists are regarded to be more experienced than the young journalists. Out of the ten journalists eight were male and only two females. The population was a mixture of full-time journalists and freelancers. The journalists were selected to examine their reasoning and presentation of climate change in the news.
3.4 Lexical Choice
The study employs lexical choice, one of the analytical tools of Critical Discourse Analysis. Lexical choice is an eminent aspect of news discourse in which hidden opinions or ideologies
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may surface. For example, the reporter may choose to use specific words to bring out meaning ( van Dijk, 1988, p.177). The lexical choices will harmonize well with the social representations theory. In this way the lexical style is relevant in assessing anchoring and objectification (communication mechanisms) by analysing words that the media choose in constructing climate change to bring out meaning. Choosing the right words that portray meaning enables the audience in understanding a complicated subject such as climate change.
Lexical choices will also assess how the media choose synonmous words to portray meaning in communicating to the audience. However, “previous studies have shown that people may associate different meanings with the same word” (Nunberg 1978, cited in Reiter & Sripada, 2002, p.546). This means that the same word may convey different meaning to different people (ibid.). In this study this means that readers will interpret these words different because the audience consists of different kinds of people.
The role of lexical choices in analyzing domestication in the news texts enables the audience to interpret foreign concepts in global events. This study analyses the domestication of global events such as climate change in the news. Therefore in order for the local (domestic) audience to understand global issues such as climate change or even global warming the journalist reports the global issue in a domestic angle that the audience is familiar with by using specific words and examples familiar to the audience to enable the audience to make sense of the foreign issue. The lexical choices are relevant in examining the specific words used by the media in the coverage of climate change and how these words and sentences are fitted into the concept of domestication of news.
3.5 In-depth Interviews
According to Bryman (2012) semi structured interviews, unstructured interviews are collectively referred to as in-depth interviews or qualitative interviews. The interviews are designed to answer the research questions how journalists present climate change into a concept that can be understood. The questionnaires were administered via email by simply attaching them to the personal emails of the respondents (journalists). This mode of sending an email questionnaire
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was preferred because with my experience as a journalist I observed that journalists work under severe newsroom deadline pressures therefore my aim was to give them some time to respond to the questions.
The in-depth interviews were chosen to ask open ended questions to the interviewees so as to retrieve detailed answers (Bryman, 2012). Weaver (2008, p.109) noted that these types of questions allow interviewees “to respond to the why or how questions that cannot be answered well with closed ended questions” moreover these questions also provide rich direct quotations. The method is appropriate because the respondents are flexible in responding to the questions however they wish (Bryman, 2012).
The interviews were conducted from March to April, 2012. The major method used to retrieve answers from journalists is through in-depth interviewing this is made possible through email that we shall also call email interviewing because the questions and in-depth responses are retrieved through email. The popular kind of interviews applied by researchers today are face to face interviews, however, to date interviews mediated by communication technologies such as the internet and email are also becoming popular amongst researchers (Deacon, Pickering, Golding and Murdock, 2007). The authors further explain that internet and email interviews have been mainly applied in qualitative interviews that aim at asking structured questions. This study employs email interviewing whereby the interviewer dispatches questions to respondents in this case the journalists allowing enough time for the interviewees to provide detailed rich answers (Deacon et al., 2007).
For Kvale and Brinkmann (2009) the advantage of email interviews also known as computer assisted interviews is that they are self transcribing in the sense that the interview is not recorded therefore the interviewer does not have to transcribe the interview because the text is basically ready for analysis the minute it has been typed. However the drawbacks of computer assisted interviews is that if both interviewer and interviewee are not skilled in written communication the interview might not generate detailed rich answers (ibid.)
The initial preparation of the interview begun with writing an email to the respondents informing them of the purpose of the interview. The next step was to come up with an interview guide
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defined as a list of questions employed in semi structured interviewing to guide the course of the interview (Bryman, 2012; Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009)
The interview guide was designed for questions that are relevant to my study focusing on how the media represent climate change mainly focusing on how anchoring and objectification communication mechanisms are achieved in making sense to climate change. I also considered questions relevant in analysing domestication of global issues in the national media.
Since my study is about media coverage of climate change I though it relevant to include other questions regarding the challenges that the journalists face in reporting climate change. All the questions were sent to the 10 journalists that report climate change and environmental issues in Uganda.
The questions were designed in a format that i started with the simple questions to set the mood of the journalist and the questions that followed were detailed allowing journalists to take a reasonable amount of time to provide detailed answers. According to Bryman (2012) the interview guide used the following format of questioning. 1) Making a follow up on questions in this way asking the respondent to elaborate on an issue. 2) Asking specific questions meant to answer the why and how questions. 3) Asking specific and direct questions that appeared at the end of the interview.
I designed two interview guides with similar questions because for some questions the journalists provided unclear answers. Secondly the aim of designing two interview guides was to make a follow up on answers of the first interview guide. The interview guide was dispatched to the email addresses of the journalists.
3.6 Critical Evaluation of Methods
Qualitative research interviews give an opportunity to the interviewee to express their views in their own words (Kvale & Brinkman, 2009). According to Bryman (2012) qualitative interviews give rich detailed answers.
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3.6.1 Methodological Problems
Qualitative research is “too impressionistic and subjective” in the sense that qualitative findings rely too much on the researcher’s often unsystematic views about what is significant and important” (Bryman, 2012, p. 405). Another problem with qualitative interviews is that the researcher tends to be biased because of the personal relationship with the interviewees (ibid.). This is true because the journalists were personally known to me.
Bryman (2012) also notes that it is often hard to generalize findings in qualitative interviews especially when a small sample of interviewees is considered that have not been selected through probability sampling or even quota sampling. In this case the findings of my study will not generalize the coverage of climate change in Uganda because I selected a small sample of environment journalists and two newspapers to explain how climate change is presented in Uganda.
3.6.2 Validity, Reliability and Generalisabilty
Realibility and validity have largely been used by quantitative researchers to assess the quality of research. However, realibility and validity are also used by qualitative researchers in establishing the quality of research (Bryman, 2012). External validity which refers to the degree to which research findings are generalised is a problem for qualitative researchers because they employ case studies and small samples (Bryman, 2012).
Also reliability is difficult to assess in qualitative research. However, some researchers have discerned reliability and validity as a criteria for evaluating qualitative research saying that qualitative studies should be evaluated according to different principles from those employed by quantitative researchers (ibid.). Lincoln and Guba (1985, cited in Bryman, 2012, pp.390, 392-393) suggest two primary criteria for assessing a qualitative study that provide an alternative to realibility and validity namely trustworthiness and authenticity. Trustworthiness is composed of “credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Authenticty is made up of fairness, ontological authenticity, educative authenticity, catalytic authenticity, tactical authenticity”. For instance, transferability, a criteria or trustworthiness is relevant for my findings because it is applicable to the intensive study of a small sample or group. I will conduct
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a small population of ten journalists and two national English newspapers out of the many newsmedia. The small population of English newspapers sample and its findings cannot generalise a full picture of the coverage of climate change in Uganda media because the textual analysis was based upon the major national press and not the entire media. In otherwords I would say that the study will give the qualitative findings of how the major national daily press with the highest readership, read by policy makers covers climate change in Uganda. These findings are important because it is upon these two newspapers that policy makers derive policies on climate change.
