Climate change in American newspapers : The re-framing of climate change and global warming in the American Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post

This dissertation utilises coding to extract frame packages via the method of framing analysis. 40articles from The Wall Street Journal and 40 articles from The Washington Post were analysedwith the intent of examining how the framing of climate change has changed over time in terms oflanguage and intent, and to what extent any findings can be connected to political leaning. For amore modern and zoomed in perspective, for each newspaper 10 articles will originate from thefirst three months of the last four American presidencies; Obama 2013, Trump 2017, Biden 2021,and Trump 2025. The right leaning The Wall Street Journal more often framed climate change asa probable or outright hoax with vague evidence backing it up, or as an exaggerated phenomenonblown out of reasonable proportion, especially at the expense of economic gain. The left leaningThe Washington Post solidified climate change as a true, progressing environmental phenomenonof human origin, using considerably more emotionally influencing language that could swayreaders than The Wall Street Journal did. These framing differences reflects the typical politicalleanings associated with the respective newspapers, and the President currently in office at thetime determined presentation. The Washinton Post sought to present climate change as fullycompatible with human prosperity and that sacrifices in that pursuit would pay off long-term, whileThe Wall Street Journal downplayed the relevancy of climate change and instead focused oneconomic gain and stability as the key to human prosperity. The true reason for these differencescould be an excellent follow-up for further study.