Journal Article

Noninformation and Nationalism: Coverage of Climate Change in Newspapers From the Five Largest Carbon-Emitting Nations

Kenix, Linda Jean

2025

Overview

Portions of the public remain confused as to the cause, effect and responsible agent of climate change. Researchers have noted that ‘misinformation’ appears responsible for this confusion, but there continues to be a scarcity of research exploring this issue and what constitutes that ‘misinformation’. This research aims to explore information about climate change coverage in news from the top carbon-emitting countries: China, the United States, India, Russia, and Japan. A random sampling of 3,716 news articles from these five countries, were examined to determine if there was a cause of climate change that is connected to any of the top five sectors that actually create greenhouse gasses; if effects of climate change were stated; and if any responsible agents of climate change were mentioned. This study also explores if content varied when discussing climate change within the ‘home’ country or within any of the other countries sampled. Most coverage in this sample did not mention a cause of climate change, the effects of climate change or the responsibility for climate change. This ‘noninformation’ in coverage was also inherently nationalistic in approach, whereby causes and responsibilities for climate change, when found, were based in ‘other’ countries and the effects of climate change were at home. The focus in scholarly research has largely been on the misinformation and disinformation divide, but this study argues that this focus does not address news content that simply did not inform readers of fundamental climate change information. Plain language summary In 2020, the countries in the world with the largest amount of carbon emissions were China, the United States, India, Russia, and Japan. The top five sectors that create the greenhouse gasses, which increase the rate of climate change, were electricity and heat, transport, manufacturing and construction, buildings, and industry. All five of these sectors were the most prevalent emitting sectors across these five countries. This research examined 3,716 news articles from these five countries over five years to determine if there was a cause of climate change that is connected to any of these five sectors; if effects of climate change were stated; and if any responsible agents of climate change were mentioned. This study also examined if content varied when discussing climate change within one country about that country or about any other country in this sample. Most coverage did not mention a cause of climate change, the effects of climate change or the responsibility for climate change. This ‘noninformation’ in coverage was also inherently nationalistic in approach, whereby causes and responsibilities for climate change, when found, were based in ‘other’ countries and the effects of climate change were at home. This study is important as approximately half of the population on Earth cannot enact change if they do not have fundamental information. The focus in scholarly research has largely been on the misinformation and disinformation divide, but that misses a very large component of news content that simply does not inform readers.

• Publisher: SAGE Publications,SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC,SAGE Publishing
• Subject: Carbon / Change agents / Climate / Climate change / Confusion / Electricity / False information / Information / Language shift / Manufacturing / Misinformation / Nationalism / News media / Random sampling / Sampling / Scarcity