Climate Change and the Heatwave: Searching for the link in the British Press

ABSTRACT

The summer heatwave of 2018 was the longest heatwave in the UK in recent years and scientists connected it to global climate change and heatwaves noted internationally. As one of the few existing studies looking at if and how the media make the link between extreme weather phenomena and climate change, this research examines whether and to what extent British broadsheets and tabloids made the connection between the heatwave and global climate change in their heatwave related texts and how climate change was framed in those texts, using both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The findings reveal that, in terms of agenda setting, climate change was almost absent, especially in the widely read tabloids; in relation to the framing of climate change, the media studied did not frame climate change as the underlying cause behind the heatwave.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• heatwave
• British press
• agenda setting
• framing
• extreme weather‌

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).