Award Date

12-1-2015

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Journalism and Media Studies

First Committee Member

Lawrence J. Mullen

Second Committee Member

Julian Kilker

Third Committee Member

Stephen Bates

Fourth Committee Member

David Dickens

Number of Pages

106

Abstract

This research explored the visual framing of climate control in The New York Times through three cycles of media history. Although no peer-reviewed study has explored this specific topic, a wealth of prior communication articles on both the visual and textual aspects of climate change and geoengineering in the media was mined in order to discover the frames present. Once the visual frames of climate control (war, fix, people, and impacts) were revealed a content analysis was conducted in order to see which frame elements were most and least frequent considering the images of climate control. When combining all three cycles the frame with the highest overall mean was the fix frame (M=1.7517, SD=1.34128) indicating that it is the most occurring climate control frame per image. The frame with the lowest overall mean was the war frame (M=.5137, SD=1.02544). Frame frequency from cycle to cycle was relatively constant since only the impacts frame had a significant mean difference between cycle one and cycle two (M= .72453, p= .042). This initial analysis did not provide support for Downs issue-attention cycle theory. Although when the frame element frequencies were graphed three spikes were separated by three valleys considering climate control imagery in The New York Times through about one and half centuries. This information can go towards making correlations with: events, exposure to certain stimuli, and judging effectiveness of communication strategies over time. The discussion considered whether currently the war and fix frames could be too small in order to produce effective communication with a distrustful public. Also the recent people frame increase correlates with non-acceptance regarding climate change considering Republicans.

Keywords

Climate Science; Framing; Geoengineering; Global Warming; Visual; Weather Warfare

Disciplines

American Literature | Climate | Environmental Sciences

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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