Conservative think tanks shape public opinion about climate change

By Wendy Worrall Redal

In the Winter 2006 edition of CEJ News/Views we ran a story on a new interdisciplinary course at the University of Colorado called Environment, Media and Culture, offered during the 2006 spring semester to students in journalism, media studies and environmental studies. The class explored the social and cultural factors that shape the way environmental issues are covered by the media and understood by the public.

As a final project, students submitted a research paper investigating an angle or case study of how environmental discourse is socially constructed. The students' research brought interesting observations to bear on the relationship between forces of influence in the public sphere and media coverage of environmental issues. An exemplary project was Scott Heiser's study of the role of conservative think tanks on public opinion about climate change.

He began with this dilemma:

"A broad scientific consensus has existed for many years about the existence of a warming planet due to carbon dioxide emissions and that this is such a grave problem that it demands a policy response from government. Despite this consensus and despite this urgency, nothing resembling a comprehensive and appropriate public policy has been implemented. Why?"

His research offers an answer:

"In a significant way, institutions marked by their allegiance to the American conservative political movement have forestalled any realization of an adequate public policy addressing climate change…What is evident after some study is that a well-funded, well-organized 'movement' has been successful in preventing U.S. action on global warming."

A central part of that effort has been the use of rhetorical techniques and issue-framing that has prevented meaningful action on the issue. Heiser's paper identifies the key role of such communication strategies in the concerted political battle over climate change.

The Center for Environmental Journalism recognizes the value of such scholarship in unpacking the complex matrix of influences that affect how environmental stories are told. If journalists can benefit from the light media scholars can shed on their practices, they can pursue and report stories more self-consciously. Likewise, news audiences, attuned to the myriad efforts to shape the content they ultimately get, can be more cautious and critical information consumers.

Toward that end, we are pleased to present Heiser's work. While an academic term paper is outside this newsletter's regular format, it nonetheless makes for a riveting read. For the full text of Heiser's study, see Fear and Loathing on Planet Earth: Partisan War in an Age of Environmental Crisis. Heiser will be a senior media studies major in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at CU next year.