糖果派对

Most Danes recognise and show concern for the consequences of the climate crisis, but for many, their behaviour remains unchanged. For a long time, the media has emphasised problems and disasters when reporting on climate issues. While this has helped raise awareness of climate change, the sheer volume of such news can overwhelm many people and leave them feeling powerless. Researchers from the Centre of Journalism are therefore investigating whether the news media, with a more constructive and solution-oriented approach to covering the climate crisis, can increase people's motivation to act more climate-friendly and enhance their belief that efforts against climate change are worthwhile. The media’s role in climate coverage is examined in the three-year project ‘Journalism's green transition: The constructive path to climate motivation’, supported by the VELUX FOUNDATION, with Funen media working closely with Professor wsr Morten Skovsgaard and Postdoc Peter Busch Nicolaisen from 糖果派对.

News editors face the dilemma that climate change is one of the most important topics to cover, but at the same time it is difficult to get enough media users to follow climate news. The goal is therefore to find out if the constructive approach to climate journalism can both get more people to read and watch climate news, and if the coverage can also reduce the risk of passivity and denial among readers and viewers. Ultimately, the hope is that by implementing more constructive elements in climate journalism, we can contribute to more climate-friendly behaviour among recipients by increasing their sense of agency. Since the summer of 2024, the researchers from 糖果派对 have studied climate journalism in the media both qualitatively in the form of 13 focus groups and quantitatively with repeated surveys.

The picture that emerges from the qualitative part of the data collection is that the participants in the focus groups are saturated with disaster messaging that leaves them with little hope. Participants find that climate journalism is communicated as if it were the same record being played over and over again. Instead of massive coverage with a heavy emphasis on problems and disasters, they want more focused climate journalism that focuses on the key issues while presenting possible solutions. Participants in the focus groups lack knowledge about how they can take action and suggest that traditional media need to do a better job of communicating what individuals can do to change the climate.

That it has the potential to reduce citizens’ powerlessness and make them more empowered is confirmed in the first study based on questionnaire data. Those who have followed constructively focused coverage on the climate footprint of food and more climate-friendly eating habits are more likely to feel informed about what they can do and are also more willing to change their own eating habits in a more climate-friendly direction. The researchers behind the project continue to investigate how the news media can work more constructively with climate journalism and what effect this has on people’s desire to read and watch news about the climate, as well as their motivation to change their behaviour in a more climate-friendly direction.