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ABSTRACT
In many countries worldwide, unconventional hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking) is considered a natural steppingstone toward the use of renewable energies against the backdrop of climate change. Although commercial drilling for shale gas has not yet begun in Germany, the public discourse appears to be creating more controversy than in other European countries. Based on the theoretical concept of “framing,” we conducted a quantitative empirical study from January 2013 to December 2014 analyzing the coverage of fracking in three highly influential newspapers and political magazines in Germany. The results of this study provide the first insights into the discussion of fracking in the German news media and allow comparisons to the debate in other European countries. We found that fracking is mainly discussed in the economic context of securing the future energy supply while the potential risks of the technique are mostly ignored. We discuss our findings and try to explain the unbalanced reporting.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Hydraulic fracturing is defined as a method used to increase the flowrate of oil and gas wells (Wang et al., Citation2014, p. 5). Here, a large amount of water mixed with various chemicals (e.g. lubricants) is injected under high pressure into deep layers of the earth to break up the gas or oil-containing rock.