Abstract
This talk is situated in the space of environmental risk communication. News media communicate risk and inform public understanding, making it essential to examine the messages they transmit, especially on topics of global concern.
A wide variety of research has looked at the development of the climate change discourse in newspapers around the world, however, less attention has been paid to news coverage of climate change adaptation and mitigation measures. Transitioning to environmentally sustainable food production and consumption practices, such as plant-based, organic and local foods, can play a significant role in adapting to and mitigating climate change. Part of my work examines the representation of plant-based, climate-friendly food practices in newspapers of record in Australia and United States of America. I will discuss results from a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative frame analysis that examine the coverage of plant-based food practices in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The New York Times and The Washington Post .
The analysis reveals new frames and pertinent country comparisons in the communication of sustainable practices related to climate change. Using complex discourses, newspapers occasionally construct actionable, empowering frames, but mainly generate oppositional, distanced discourses around food and environmental sustainability in the context of climate change. The two U.S.-based newspapers position the impacts of food production and consumption on climate change more accurately than do Australian newspapers. Plant-based food practices are poorly presented, statistically, as well as through uninspiring frames.
The findings suggest a need for journalism to re-visit the environmental beat. Accurate news reporting and comprehensive coverage are required to operationalize sustainable food as an environmental imperative. Richer narratives can situate food in the context of climate change and engage with the intersecting intricacies of socio-political, economic, ecological, cultural and humanitarian issues.
Bio
Dr. Radhika Mittal is a media sociologist with a particular research focus on mediated public perceptions of climate change and related adaptation-mitigation measures. Her work examines how risk, particularly environmental risk, is framed and discussed in mainstream media, at the interface of science, public policy and the public sphere. Her recent work has looked at climate change coverage in Indian print media and sustainable, climate-friendly food practices in Australian and North American newspapers.
Dr. Mittal is currently a fellow at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, India. She also teaches Climate Change Communication and Strategic Communication for Public Policy at Jamia Millia Islamia and TERI University, New Delhi, India. She has recently authored coursework as a resource for media educators on Journalism and Sustainable Development for UNESCO's specialised series on journalism education.
Dr. Mittal was awarded an Innovative Universities of the European Union and a Macquarie University Research Excellence scholarship towards her PhD at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, examining media narratives on food and climate change. Earlier, as an Erasmus Mundus scholar, sponsored by the European Commission, she has studied media and globalization from a consortium of top-ranked European universities (Aarhus, Amsterdam and Hamburg). Before academia, she worked widely in the Indian media industry, across print, television and advertising sectors. She has also held academic and speaking assignments with the UN Foundation, UNESCO, European Climate Foundation and TERI, among others.