The framing of climate change issues in Kenyan print media: a comparative analysis of the Daily nation and the People daily newspapers

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish the framing devices used by both the Daily Nation and People Daily newspaper to communicate Climate Change information and do a comparative analysis of each newspaper’s treatment of the topic. The target population for this study consisted of all newspaper articles in the two local dailies ranging from January, 2012 to June 2012.Systematic random sampling was used to select stories for analysis from the population, where a total of 127 stories on climate change-related issues were analyzed. The researcher used content analysis, where, a code sheet was developed and utilized in data collection. The findings of this study seem to suggest that there are two most common frames used by both the Daily Nation and People Daily newspapers to communicate climate change. These two frames were the “effects” and “mitigation” frames. Comparatively speaking, the leading frame in the Daily Nation newspaper was the “effects” frame, with 45.6% of the sampled cases using this frame to communicate climate change information. The second most commonly used frame in the Daily Nation newspaper was the “mitigation” frame with a volume of 21.6% stories sampled employing this frame. On the other hand, the leading frame in the People Daily newspaper was the “mitigation” frame, which posted a volume of 41.4% of the sampled cases. The “effects frame was second here, with 27.1% of the sampled stories reporting climate change issues in this manner. It is recommended that the print media editors should liaise with climate change scientists in order to bridge the gap between available information on climate change issues and audience’s perceptions of the same. Again, editorial boards should consider having special supplementary sections in their newspapers dedicated to increasing level of awareness. Finally, print media firms should train reporters on science journalism so as to increase interest in this topic and build on the reporters’ capacity to apply the correct frames that would demystify climate change.