Climate change in the British press: the role of the visual

Abstract

The present investigation identifies the key images that British newspapers use to represent climate change risks. In doing so, it widens the scope of the burgeoning literature analysing textual content of climate change media information. This is particularly important given visual information's ability to arouse emotion, and the risk perception literature's increasing focus on the importance of affect in shaping risk perception. From a thematic analysis of newspaper images, three broad themes emerged: the impact of climate change, personification of climate change and representation of climate change in graphical form. In particular, the depiction of climate change as an issue affecting domestic populations rather than just other areas of the world brings the threat closer to home. Challenging the perception that climate change is still a long‐term and future‐orientated threat, visual images concretise the risk by providing viewers with tangible examples of climate change's impact.

Keywords:

• British
• newspaper
• imagery
• climate change
• thematic analysis