I. Connecting Agenda Setting and Framing to Climate Change
Agenda setting and framing are tools used by the media to make news consumers think about a topic and then provide contextualization about that topic, respectively. As Kosicki (1993) notes, agenda setting gives us a shell of a topic, but framing gives us the controversies and multiple dimensions through which we can understand a salient topic (112). However, news consumers do not act as blank slates that adopt any frames they come across, and instead, they use these frames to either take in or disregard this information, according to how it fits into their preconceived worldview.
Thus, news consumers are unlikely to be persuaded by media that goes against their values. As news media has become more alarmist to garner more views and grab the consumers’ attention in an increasingly complex and competitive landscape, news consumers become more likely to write off information that does not apply to them. In this new news environment in which people are surrounded by traditional news media, social media, and soft news, there are an exponential number of frames that people can use to understand agendas, and because of the sheer amount of media available nowadays, it has become infinitely easier to exist within the echo chamber of news that closely aligns with a consumer’s views.
This trend can be understood by analyzing conservative news consumers’ views of climate change. Explored below, the liberal media has increasingly relayed that climate change and the degradation of the environment are important issues to consider. However, because of the framing they use to relay the saliency of this topic, in addition to the ability to only engage with media that matches ones’ viewpoints, there can be huge variability in how much people are willing to accept that addressing climate change is an urgent topic.
II. Analyzing Perceptions of Climate Change Relative to Agenda Setting and Framing
Despite the partisanship that has affected how people think of climate change, in recent years, it has become an increasingly salient topic. As noted by the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO), news coverage of climate change has exploded in recent years (Simpkins, 2021). MeCCO also observed that this increase in coverage coincided with a change in language used to describe it; climate change coverage has diversified its framing to use more alarmist terms such as “climate catastrophe” and “climate emergency,” noting that usage of the term “climate catastrophe” doubled in the United States between 2020 and 2021 (Simpkins, 2021). Describing similar changes in climate change coverage, Perloff (2021) also notes that while the media reported climate for years, it did not sway news consumers until influential politicians and experts also began speaking about it publicly. We can see this relative importance in public perception rise by analyzing Global Risk Reports from the World Economic Forum; the 2010 edition of the report scantly mentions climate and environmental risks, whereas the 2024 edition notes climate concerns as increasingly important (World Economic Forum). While these changes in framing and increased attention showcase the urgency of climate change as an agenda, we must question if this change has served to change the minds of climate change detractors, or if it has simply served to feed the echo chamber of climate change believers.
When news agendas are framed, news consumers process that frame according to their personal belief systems. As Perloff (2021) asserts, climate change has been a topic in the media for years, but people typically only care about the issues that affect them personally and/or can be logically understood. This is particularly true of conservatives, who typically value self-enhancement and conservation, as opposed to liberals, who typically value an openness to change and self-transcendence (Bolte et al., 2024). Through this understanding, we would expect that as the science behind climate change became stronger, and climate change events became more prevalent, conservatives should no longer write it off as a minor or unimportant issue.
Yet by and large, this has not happened, and conservatives, while they see climate change within the news agenda, still think of the topic negatively. Despite the evidence that is increasingly difficult to ignore and signaling from the media that it must be addressed, climate change has not “stuck” with conservative news consumers, and this negative perception comes down to the framing of climate change. Bolte et al (2024) argue that this is the case for several reasons: the concept of change is more palatable to liberals; the topic itself is not easy to understand; and it is still often framed as a phenomenon that affects people in the Global South. These frames go against conservatives’ values instead of trying to discuss the issue within a frame that works within their worldviews, making them unlikely to be persuaded by what they interpret as liberal calls to action.
Additionally, the increased framing of climate change as an issue that must be acted on immediately has negatively affected conservatives’ views on the issue and is unlikely to persuade them to the cause. In a recent study by Pew Research, conservative survey participants indicated that they were unlikely to believe traditional media outlets’ framing that climate change is going to destroy the world (Pasquini et al., 2023). The participants indicated that the larger, more alarmist a claim is, the less likely they are to accept it as a relevant claim. This finding is supported by Cassidy’s (2018) claim that the larger an issue and the more people are blamed for playing a role, the more likely they are to dissociate from fixing the problem or double down on their original opinions. Liberal media frames climate change as being caused by anthropogenic activities, such as coal and oil production, subliminally blaming anyone that engages in those activities directly or tangentially as playing a part in the destruction of the world. By making this claim, even unintentionally, liberal media is causing conservatives to double-down on their opinions that climate change is not an urgent issue.
III. Agenda Setting and Framing in the Current Media Landscape
As more communication tools have been accessible to news consumers, there has been less reason for them to engage with viewpoints that differ from their own. Because of the explosion of communication tools from social media as described by Perloff (2021), news consumers can easily exist within their news echo chamber, thus making conservatives unlikely to consume media that discusses climate change as needing urgent attention. Alternatively, they will consume media that is actively derisive of these frames. In an interview with American University, Betsy Fischer Martin (2024) describes a similar effect in which she says that in this new media environment with its deluge of news sources, news consumers can “choose [their] own media adventure when it comes to...having [their] own views regurgitated back to [them].” There are almost too many options for people to get news, thus resulting in news consumers not having to challenge themselves with alternative viewpoints, not having to listen to more objective or bipartisan framings, or unwittingly engaging with false narratives.
This reticence to engage alternative viewpoints makes it increasingly easier for consumers to ignore the news that does not fit their values, thus further siloing liberal and conservative thinking. Barnard (2018) pinpoints this siloing as tribalism, arguing that people are likely to only listen to other members of their same tribe, resulting in what Fischer Martin (2024) refers to as a “hyper-partisan atmosphere.” Because of this hyper-partisan atmosphere and tribalism, conservatives either engage with media that does not view climate change as an agenda worthy of coverage or its coverage frames the issue in such a way that they do not view it as an issue needing action.
IV. Conclusion and Moving Beyond Echo Chambers
Addressing climate change is typically framed as a liberal agenda, and therefore, the idea of climate change as a salient, urgent issue is much more likely to resonate with liberals. Because of these frames and increasingly partisan and siloed media echo chambers that liberal and conservative news consumers exist within, there will be huge variability in the ways that a contentious topic such as climate change will be covered, if it is covered at all.
If climate change activists wish to change this outcome, they must look for ways to break the news echo chamber. Barnard (2018) offers the idea of finding champions within conservative circles who can frame issues around conservative values. By working within these siloed spaces, climate change activists would not have to discern how to get conservatives to listen to different media. Within conservative circles and through these champions, climate change could become a topic worthy of genuine discussion to them, creating more bipartisan support for the issue and ultimately priming them to productively act on it.
Once a more tenable bipartisan unity is reached, climate change activists could use a news flashpoint to frame the issue as a local one. As noted above, conservatives care about issues that personally affect them, and by using a news flashpoint as described by Perloff (2021), such as a major natural disaster that would not ordinarily occur, partisanship on climate change could be bridged. Wiest et al (2015) builds on this, arguing that framing climate change as an issue affecting local areas increases its perception as an urgent issue. Individuals care more about climate change when they can see the impacts of it up close and when it affects their communities, and to create convergence across such a contentious issue in such a complex media environment, we must look to reframe the issue to address the values of both liberals and conservatives.