PLAYING THE MEDIA GAME The relative (in)visibility of coal industry interests in media reporting of coal as a climate change issue in Australia

The coal industry is a high-profile and significant sector of the Australian economy that is coming under increasing criticism as a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. This paper offers a Bourdieusian field analysis of major Australian newspaper coverage of the coal industry in relation to economic, political and environmental issues. Theoretically, it extends Bourdieu's field model to embrace the issue of visibility and invisibility of agents and their positions in the field, using the work of Goffman, Giddens and Ericson. Empirically it finds that both journalists and their sources actively engage with factors of invisibility and visibility in contesting the representation of coal industry interests in media coverage. Overall there is a common journalistic endorsement and visibility across all newspapers of the national and regional economic benefits of the coal mining and power generation industries, but marked differences among individual newspapers in how they position themselves and their sources with respect to climate change impacts and issues. A key factor in the contestation over the journalistic coverage is the production of visibility and invisibility for specific information and activity.