Representations of Youth Climate Anxiety: A Framing Analysis of Emotional Responses to the Climate Crisis in International News Media

Reports of children feeling distressed, anxious, or angry about the impacts of climate change have appeared in the international news media with increasing frequency since 2019. There is international evidence that young people are increasingly worried about climate change, and such distress negatively affects their daily lives. The ways that such distress is framed in public discourse vary widely. We conducted a framing analysis of 274 articles from the international news media (published between 2019 and 2021) to explore how the media frames young peoples' emotional reactions to the climate crisis. Our findings revealed three key frames: (1) Climate distress as inevitable “teen angst” fueled by activists and the media. (2) Climate distress as an appropriate response to a genuine threat, and (3) Climate distress as embodied social suffering caused by societal inaction on climate change. These framings of negative emotional responses to climate change have implications for public health responses to youth mental health in a changing climate. Framing distress in terms of social suffering brings about productive possibilities for social change. This framing avoids pathologizing widely felt experiences, builds empathy between generations, and situates young people's mental distress in the context of their present and unfolding social milieu.