Harrison Sarah, Macmillan Alexandra, Rudd Chris
Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand.
Department of Politics, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand.
Health Promot Int. 2020 Dec 1;35(6):1320-1330. doi: 10.1093/heapro/daz130.
Climate change is a major threat to public health worldwide. Conversely, well-designed action to mitigate climate change offers numerous opportunities to improve health and equity. Despite this, comprehensive climate action has not been forthcoming within New Zealand. The media plays an important role in shaping public opinion and support for policy change. Previous literature has suggested that certain types of framing may be more effective than others at encouraging support for climate action and policy. This includes positive, personally relevant framing, as well as key journalistic tools which appear counter-intuitive, such as an increase in human interest stories and 'sensationalist' framing. We undertook a qualitative thematic analysis of climate change and health media coverage in two online New Zealand news outlets to understand how the issue was framed, and how it may be framed more effectively to encourage climate action. We compared the framing used by journalists in mainstream media outlet the New Zealand Herald Online (NZHO) with that of contributors to independent news repository site Scoop. Content in both outlets emphasized the threat unchecked climate change poses to health, which overshadowed the positive health opportunities of climate action. The NZHO was more prone to negative framing, and more likely to favour stories which could be sensationalized and were international in scope. We considered the possible effectiveness of the framing we found for attracting greater media attention and encouraging support for climate action and policy.
气候变化是全球公共卫生面临的重大威胁。相反，精心设计的缓解气候变化行动提供了众多改善健康和公平性的机会。尽管如此，新西兰国内尚未出台全面的气候行动。媒体在塑造公众舆论和支持政策变革方面发挥着重要作用。以往的文献表明，某些类型的框架在鼓励对气候行动和政策的支持方面可能比其他框架更有效。这包括积极的、与个人相关的框架，以及一些看似违反直觉的关键新闻工具，如增加人情味故事和“耸人听闻”的框架。我们对新西兰两个在线新闻媒体关于气候变化与健康的媒体报道进行了定性主题分析，以了解该问题是如何被构建框架的，以及如何能更有效地构建框架以鼓励气候行动。我们将主流媒体《新西兰先驱报在线》（NZHO）记者所使用的框架与独立新闻库网站Scoop的投稿者所使用的框架进行了比较。两个媒体的内容都强调了不受控制的气候变化对健康构成的威胁，这掩盖了气候行动带来的积极健康机遇。NZHO更倾向于负面框架，并且更倾向于报道那些可以被炒作且范围涉及国际的故事。我们考虑了我们所发现的框架对于吸引更多媒体关注以及鼓励对气候行动和政策的支持可能产生的效果。
