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Northumbria Research Link Citation: Ruiu, Maria Laura (2019) Moral panics and newspaper reporting in Britain: between sceptical and realistic discourses of climate change. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University. This version was downloaded from Northumbria Research Link: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/42051/ Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University’s research output. Copyright © and moral rights for items on NRL are retained by the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. Single copies of full items can be reproduced, displayed or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given, as well as a hyperlink and/or URL to the original metadata page. The content must not be changed in any way. Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holder. The full policy is available online: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/pol i cies.html MORAL PANICS AND NEWSPAPER REPORTING IN BRITAIN: BETWEEN SCEPTICAL AND REALISTIC DISCOURSES OF CLIMATE CHANGE Volume 1 of 2 M L Ruiu PhD 2019 MORAL PANICS AND NEWSPAPER REPORTING IN BRITAIN: BETWEEN SCEPTICAL AND REALISTIC DISCOURSES OF CLIMATE CHANGE Volume 1 of 2 Maria Laura Ruiu A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Northumbria at Newcastle for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Research undertaken in the Faculty of Arts, Design & Social Sciences July 2019 Abstract This thesis provides the first attempt to empirically apply the moral panic framework to study British newspaper reporting on climate change by drawing upon a unique dataset of 958 news articles over three decades (1988-2016). It is original in the sense that it illuminates the "missing link" between media reporting on climate change and think tanks' denial strategies. By adopting mixed approaches, this work explores both news articles and think tanks' documents and shows how moral panics can help explore rival discourses, and the strategies adopted by powerful actors to "defend" their interests by inflaming confusion. The main implications can be identified in the use of moral panics as a valuable tool for exploring conflicts in which powerful interests are involved, and in better understanding how the "denial machine" works. I argue that in the British context, the politicisation of newspapers' narratives around climate change causes a fracture between two groups characterised by specific dominant traits, which in turn correspond to moral panic attributes. However, even in the context of "conflicted moral panics", one direction prevails, which in this case is the more conservative narrative. This can only be understood by simultaneously observing the processes of construction of each single narrative and their comparison. Therefore, simultaneously considering the two narratives, the overall "confusing image" resulting from both conflicted panics ("centre-left vs centre-right"), and the multidimensionality within the same politicised narrative, might favour a "status quo instance", which reflects the economic, political and social status quo. The interconnections between conservative think tanks and the oil industry, and in turn their influence on dictating the sceptical "story line", suggest that the media "voluntarily" reflect elite power conflicts. These results inform on those elements that inflame hostility and resistance to climate change acceptance. Policy-making that aims to promote "intervention-oriented" approaches should take into account these results, especially in relation to the dialectics between the forces at play. i ii iii Contents Volume one Abstract ................................................................................................................................................i Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................ix Declaration .........................................................................................................................................xi Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 Definition of climate change .............................................................................................. 5 1. Defining climate change ............................................................................................................. 5 2. Dealing with uncertainty in climate change communication ...................................................... 9 3. Between "Belief" and "Scepticism" .......................................................................................... 11 4. The Origin of the Denial Industry ............................................................................................. 14 Chapter 2 Moral Panic and Climate Change: a controversial debate ................................................ 19 1. Between Moral panic and Moral Regulation ............................................................................ 19 1.1. Between Moral Panic and Social Scare in the environmental discourse around climate change .......................................................................................................................................... 24 2. Media and political economy of climate change....................................................................... 26 3. Framing the climate .................................................................................................................. 32 Chapter 3 Media Communication of Climate-Change: a literature review through the lens of Moral Panic .................................................................................................................................................. 37 1. Literature Review method ......................................................................................................... 37 2. Main approaches in literature to the communication of climate change ................................... 38 3. Interlocutors .............................................................................................................................. 41 4. Content of Media Communication ............................................................................................ 42 4.1. Media Polarisation between sceptics and advocates ......................................................... 42 4.2. Between underestimation and fear of apocalyptic consequences of climate change ........ 45 4.3. Climate as a political and economic issue......................................................................... 47 5. Framing Climate Change .......................................................................................................... 50 6. Traces of Moral Panic in Climate Change Media Communication .......................................... 52 Chapter 4 Research Frame, Questions and Case Study selection ..................................................... 57 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 57 2. Newspapers' analysis method ................................................................................................... 58 2.1. Framework Analysis ......................................................................................................... 61 2.1.1. Sample criteria .............................................................................................................. 69 2.2. Corpus Assisted Discourse Analysis ................................................................................. 70 3. Analysis of documents produced by sceptical think tanks ........................................................ 72 Chapter 5 Characteristics of Moral Panics into Media Reporting .................................................... 75 1. Overview ................................................................................................................................... 75 v 2. The Media Inventory Component. Sources of information, general prevailing framework, and general consensus ............................................................................................................................. 76 2.1. Claim-makers frame ......................................................................................................... 76 2.2. Problem definition frame .................................................................................................. 78 2.3. General consensus frame .................................................................................................. 79 3. The Media Inventory Component. Exaggeration, Distortion and Symbolisation .................... 81 3.1. Balance frame ................................................................................................................... 82 3.2. Dramatization frame ......................................................................................................... 84 3.3. Symbolisation frame ......................................................................................................... 88 3.4. The Media Inventory Component: some