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Home , Block Island Wind Farm, Cape Wind, The Boston Globe

Framing Media on Offshore Wind: A Comparative Contact Analysis of and Rachael Roberts-Toler1, Rebecca Sokoloski2, and Ezra Markowitz2 University of Boston1, University of Massachusetts Amherst2

Abstract Offshore wind made a controversial impression in the United States in 2001 through the contentious battle over Cape Wind, a wind farm proposed to be built in federal waters off of the coast of , Massachusetts. While the Research Questions Cape Wind debate was marked by controversy and organized opposition, a smaller wind farm off of the coast (), • How is discourse surrounding Cape Wind and the Block was proposed without debilitating resistance from the community. It is Island Wind Farm framed in regional and local media? estimated to be completed in late 2016. We are interested I n understanding the differences in public discourse for these two projects through a content • Is there a difference between how media is framed in analysis of elite media. How offshore wind projects are framed in major news news and in opinion/editorial articles? outlets can have an impact on public understanding and can potentially influence the direction of the debate surrounding the project. Using the qualitative analysis software Nvivo, news articles from The Globe, The , , and The Block Island Times will be coded to comparatively analyze the framing patterns in discourse for each project. Framing Adapted Risk and Benefit Framing Framing media content is commonly used to Overview of Wind Farms understand different facets of public discourse. Risk The article associates the wind farm with Not only is framing helpful for understanding a risk or cost • Cape Wind, originally proposed in 2001, is a support and opposition, but also indicates how tentatively rejected project 5 miles off of the the public understands the views of their Ex. “Wind farm harms local wildlife” coast of on the Horseshoe Shoal. community, making an especially The proposed wind farm is for 130 turbines. influential tool for shaping the direction of Benefit The article associates the wind farm with public debates. The frames we chose to a positive impact

• Block Island Wind Farm is a successful include in the codebook are adapted from Ex. “Cape Wind to create over 50 jobs” offshore wind proposal for 5 turbines. The previous studies in addition to deriving from our wind farm will be commissioned this summer own initial analysis of the sources. Risk and approximately 3 miles off of the coast of Block Benefit framing comprises a large portion of Balance Most commonly found in news articles Island in Rhode Island. the code, which was adapted from (Luhman, rather than opinion pieces, the article 1989). We added “balance” and “neutrality” includes both sides of a contentious topic Methods frames to this model to better reflect our sources. These frames are understood in Using articles from four elite media sources, economic, political, health and safety, Neutral The article generally maintains an we took a sample of 1153 articles total. This environmental, aesthetic and cultural, and objective attitude towards the wind farm, included 20% of articles about Cape Wind in technical contexts. In addition we adapted citing neither risk nor benefits. Most and Cape Cod Times and frameworks for coding actors and certainty commonly found in news updates 100% of the articles mentioning the Block levels found in (Djerf-Pierre, 2015). summarizing construction milestones Island Wind Farm from the Providence Journal and Block Island Times. Articles were separated by type (News and Op-Ed) We then developed a codebook using frames, Conducting a Content Analysis or concepts acting as a contextual framework for an article, originating both from previous studies and my own preliminary observations from the articles.

Using the qualitative analysis software Nvivo Implement metrics of Identify sources and Develop concepts to Analyze sources using reliability to ensure 11, we created a codebook and analyzed each code for validated code sample validity of code article individually to identify framing

Future Work Acknowledgments

After we complete coding the remaining Thank you to Nicole Hill from George Washington articles in Nvivo, we will implement the final University for participating in this project as a round of reliability metrics. A second coder second coder for the metrics of reliability code 15% of the total sample in order to ensure the validity of the codebook. We will run References a coding comparison query and the software will generate a kappa score as a reflection of Djerf-Pierre, M., Cokely, J., & Kuchel L. J., ( validity. We will then analyze the results of the 2015). “Framing : A final coding which will be detailed and Comparative Study of in discussed in a paper and will be submitted to a Austrailia and Sweden.” Environmental peer reviewed journal. Communication (2015): 1-22 A visualization of the codebook Luhmann, N. (1989). Ecological communication.

Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press

This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation under NSF award number 1460461.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation.