Climate Change in the Media and Public Perceptions of it: Investigating the differences between Tabloid and Broadsheet Newspapers.

Abstract

Climate change is a big issue in today’s world and holds a potential risk to society, it
is therefore important to gauge what the publics understanding of the issue is.
The focus of this study is to try and understand what the public think about climate
change being reported in the media and if newspapers influence people’s opinions and
attitudes towards climate change.
The research carried out consisted of examining several examples of newspaper
headlines about climate change from tabloid and broadsheet newspapers and also
conducting a questionnaire in the North West of England to find out people’s attitudes
and knowledge about climate change in the media and the influence tabloids and
broadsheets it could have on them.
The study found that most participants thought they had a good understanding of the
climate change issue and the most commonly acknowledged sources of this
knowledge were school and newspapers. There were some differences between the
opinions of broadsheet and tabloid readers; broadsheet readers tended to think that
newspaper information was not entirely trustworthy and were aware that newspapers
can be very persuasive, whereas tabloid readers appeared more inclined to believe
what they read.