MONASH CLIMATE CHANGE COMMUNICATION RESEARCH HUB Newspaper reporting of the September 2016 South Australian mid-latitude cyclone Published by the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub Authors: David C Holmes, Tahnee Burgess Please cite this report as: Holmes D, Burgess T (2017) Newspaper reporting of the September 2016 South Australian mid-latitude cyclone, Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub, Monash University, Melbourne, pp 32. URL for this report is: https://www.monash.edu/mcccrh/research/newspaper-reporting-south- australian-mid-latitude-cyclone Acknowledgements: This work was carried out with financial support from Monash University, Faculty of Arts and assistance from the Monash Professional Pathways Program. The Hub is also grateful for assistance from Suchismita Chowdhury and Brooke Garas. Australian copyright law applies. For permission to reproduce any part of this report, please contact the corresponding author: Dr. David Holmes, Director, Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub at
[email protected] Cover Design: Tahnee Burgess Table of Contents 1. Executive Summary 2. Introduction Ø Australian attitudes to Climate Change Ø Media impacts on attitudes Ø The South Australian Mid-Latitude Cyclone (SAMLC) • Conditions that shaped the SAMLC • Attribution and Detection Studies • Political Context of the Reporting of the SAMLC 3. Methodology 4. Description of Categories 5. Tables and Findings 6. References 1. Executive Summary • Of the 591 articles analysed, the most dominant narrative was about ‘power outages’ with 51% of all articles falling into this category. • The next highest was primarily about renewables (38%). 12% of all articles had a strong overlap between these first two categories. • The third singular category was made up of commentary by journalists that the issue of the cyclone and the blackouts had become politicised and therefore was about politics itself (20%).