Communicating climate change in regional news media

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate regional variations in the international news coverage of climate change by comparing news reporting in two regional media systems. Design/methodology/approach - A case study of how COP14 and a European union (EU) summit on climate change are covered by three Middle Eastern and one Danish newspaper. Findings - The paper shows significant regional differences in the media coverage of climate change both in terms of quantity (numbers of news articles) and quality (editorial variations, sources, framing, use of graphics). Overall, the study suggests that regional differences in climate change coverage can be traced back to the financial resources, institutional practices and journalistic fields of different regional media systems. Research limitations/implications - The paper is a pilot project designed to test the analytical significance of regional variations in international media coverage of climate change. Originality/value - Whereas global variations in climate change coverage have mostly been documented by (quantitative) content analysis, less research has been devoted to qualitative differences on how the media approach and frame climate change. Numerical analysis only tells half the story as qualitative differences, such as editorial priorities, or journalistic practices, can either increase or decrease the significance of quantitative variations. By acknowledging the importance of regional differences in international news reporting, this paper emphasises the role and function of regional media systems in conditioning media coverage of climate change.