Tourism, climate change and the mass media: the representation of the issue in Spain

Abstract

This paper sets out to analyse the information dedicated to climate change and tourism in the Spanish press in the Mediterranean region of the peninsula during the period 1990–2010. Specifically, it seeks to determine the quantitative evolution of media coverage of climate change and tourism and the importance given to this subject. Adequate media attention in both quantitative and qualitative terms could greatly influence public concern and contribute to the social mobilization that will be needed to negotiate/resist the phenomenon in a geographical area in which tourism is a major economic and territorial driver and which is particularly vulnerable to climate change. To construct the corpus, we undertook a systematic analysis of newspaper coverage of tourism and climate change in the media selected; and we carried out content analysis of the 1014 units identified. The results indicate that the coverage is outstanding in quantitative terms. However, the importance given to the subject is quite marginal.

Keywords:

• tourism
• climate change
• adaptation
• communication
• written press
• Spain

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This research was carried out within the ambit of the research project: CSO2011–23404 which is funded as part of the Spanish National R&D&I Plan of the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad.

Notes

1. Archive images used for design purposes or for evaluation of the news story. Typically, they add no information to the text.

2. Images that usually serve an aesthetic function and as the above add no information to the written text. Typically used in reports and newspaper supplements.

3. Images whose objective is to inform. Maintain a direct relationship with the accompanying text. These correspond to the so-called pictures of the day in which the newspapers seek to add significant data to the information already reported. They can be classified as documentary photographs, news photos, symbolic photos or impact photos.

4. Examples of words and expressions that reveal the different tones. Pessimistic tone: destroy, devastate, catastrophic effects, devastating effects, threat, exodus of tourists, the end of the sector, disappearance of paradise, victim, nightmare, hell, debacle, catastrophe, alarm, crisis, impotence, incapacity, difficult, inconvenient, and so on. Optimistic tone: benefits, opportunities, profit, profitability, opportunity, increase, and so on. Neutral tone: challenge, effects, changes, impact, risk, vulnerability, and so on.