Today, the climate crisis has gone beyond being a measurable and observable concept rooted in natural sciences only. Alongside the emergency it created because of its destructive effects on the ecosystem and human lives, we also witness an expansion of meaning as the climate crisis is being discussed within the context of popular culture, politics, economics, and ethics. Media, creating these meanings and being the main source of our knowledge on the climate crisis, has an important role in shaping our attitudes and perceptions, and awareness. On the other hand, there are also numerous discussions claiming that the media do not cover the climate crisis sufficiently and correctly, and commentary and framing of the news thus block social awareness.
The situation in Turkey, which is in a very fragile position because of itsgeographical location, is not so different. It is difficult to say that the climate crisis finds enough media coverage in Turkey. Even if it finds media coverage, it is still far from creating social awareness and staying on the agenda to increase pressure on policymakers. This issue with coverage is also the focus of popular discussions and research, which are quite limited. Growing interdependency between the media, power and capital and systemic problems affecting journalism practices are often ignored in these ongoing discussions.
Under which circumstances is the climate crisis included in the agenda of the media? Which perspectives are represented? What are the frames that create the news patterns? How do these patterns differ according to the editorial stances of newspapers? This study, looking for answers to these questions, aims to suggest solutions to problematic journalism practices affecting news coverage by exploring the political, economic, and structural dynamics shaping the current situation of climate journalism in Turkey.
The findings of this research were obtained by conducting content analysis on 1021 climate crisis news items from 10 newspapers of different editorial stances between 01.07.2021-05.11.2021 and semi-structured interviews with climate journalists are as below: