Media Research on Climate Change : Where Have We Been and Where Are We Heading?

Research on media coverage of climate change, as a particular subfield of environmental communication research, has proliferated over the past decade. This book sets out to consider what conclusions can be drawn in light of the existing body of work, what lessons can be learnt, what are the challenges to be met, and what are the directions to be taken in order to further develop media research on climate change. The mixture of articles in this volume serve well to illustrate the range of empirical, theoretical, and methodological approaches subsumed under the broad heading of "media studies on climate change." Some contributions focus on the past―how the subfield has developed and what we can learn from that―and some look toward the future. Either way, all the authors share the ambition to suggest important avenues of research, be they centered on media, context, applicability of results, or theoretical advancement. As such they make a valuable contribution to identifying important directions for future research on the role of the media in communicating climate change. This book was previously published as a special issue of Environmental Communication.

Ulrika Olausson Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Jönköping University, Sweden, has been involved in research on media representations of the environment since 2005. She has published in journals such as Public Understanding of Science, European Journal of Communication, and Environmental Communication.

Peter Berglez Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Jönköping University, Sweden, has done research on environmental communication since 2007, primarily through his development of the concept of global journalism. He has published in journals such as Media Culture & Society, Journalism Studies and Environmental Communication.