Media coverage mentioning climate change in relation to Australia's recent bushfire crisis is up tenfold compared to media coverage of the Black Saturday bushfires, Monash University research has found.
As summer 2019/20 comes to a close, an analysis from the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub (MCCCRH) has revealed that 49 per cent of media coverage analysed in the lead up to and throughout the recent bushfire season, or "Black Summer," mentioned climate change.
This is compared to just five per cent back in 2009 in the five days before and after Black Saturday.
Climate change denialism in media reporting around bushfires also decreased, with 21 per cent of the Black Saturday coverage on climate change featuring denialism and just five per cent during Black Summer.
MCCCRH researchers analysed 700 articles that reported on this season's fires and climate change between September 1, 2019 and January 31, 2020.
With 68,000 articles written in this period, this represented a one per cent sample of overall coverage and is the largest that has been open coded on Australian media reporting of climate change and disasters.
It was also found that 16 per cent of the recent sample directly explored the links between climate change and the fires.
Of these, more than half were critical of the Coalition government and just under 12 per cent blamed the government for exacerbating the fires through lack of climate action, lack of leadership or lack of funding to fire services.
In contrast, only seven per cent of overall articles framed Scott Morrison as an effective leader; 58 per cent of which occurred in News Corp publications.
News Corp made up a quarter of the overall accurate and in-depth coverage of climate change during Black Summer, but represented 59 per cent of all denialist discussion of climate change.
Fairfax was the second most frequent publisher across the period, with a third of all coverage and the highest percentage of accurate and in-depth discussion of climate change. Fairfax made up 19 per cent of denialism.
Both reports analysed which narratives, apart from climate change, dominated the media discussion. Four common themes were found across both:
- Triumph of humanity - communities coming together and expressing resilience in overcoming adversity
- Unstoppable power of nature - a narrative frame that highlights the power of nature and outlines how powerless humans are
- Failure of planning - failures of government policy or leadership
- Human deviance - the misdeeds of humans are to blame for fires, primarily arson
In 2020, for the first time in Australian media coverage of bushfires, health was a prominently discussed theme following very poor air quality in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra as the bushfires raged.
Biodiversity loss, particularly around koalas, also featured heavily.
MCCCRH Director Dr David Holmes said it was telling that the mentions of climate change had increased in recent times.
"This season, the severity, intensity and length of our most recent crisis has pushed climate change and science to the front of people's minds. Australians are noticing more and more extreme weather and we have reached a tipping point where it's no longer about the cyclical theory where 'we've always had droughts, we've always had fires'," he said.
"Australia had, in 2019, both its driest year on record and its hottest year on record. Climate change unleashed a war on the Australian summer and it is easy for journalists and the public alike to acknowledge what scientists have been talking about for many years."
To access the Black Summer report, click here. For the Black Saturday report, click here.
