Chapter 5: Climate change scepticism in front-page Czech newspaper coverage: a one man show
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Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus on the existence and serious impacts of anthropogenic climate change, diverse societal actors strive to undermine both its scientific basis and derived policy responses. Mass media constitute a key discursive space where such actors attempt to influence public understanding and thereby particular policy (non)responses. This research focuses on media communication strategies of climate sceptics in the Czech Republic. It uses discourse network analysis to examine a corpus compiled from four major national newspapers between 2009 and 2018. The results show a crucial role for former President Klaus, who was the most represented actor on the issue. Sceptics mostly resorted to a counter-framing strategy based on questioning the integrity and motivations of climate scientists and climate protection supporters. This research provides supportive evidence that the Anglo-American model of climate scepticism has been successfully adopted in the context of post-communist Europe.

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