Abstract

BALBE, Alice Dutra  and  LOOSE, Eloisa Beling. Journalism, fear and climate change: possible articulations to think about tackling climate risks. OBS* [online]. 2020, vol.14, n.2, pp.38-55. ISSN 1646-5954.  https://doi.org/10.15847/obsOBS14220201609.

Climate change communication plays an important role in mediating scientific discourse and is crucial to the perception, understanding, and tackling with climate issues. Therefore, this interdisciplinary review article discusses aspects related to fear in journalistic coverage and what's the possible consequence for mobilizing people against climate risks. The media's spectacularized, alarmist or catastrophic climate change approach worries researchers about what public's reactions to the amplification of the problem (e.g. O'Neill and Nicholson-Cole, 2009; Carvalho et al., 2011). However, there is still no consensus whether the negative framing of the news, linked mainly to its risks, would be able to generate a reaction, by the readers, towards facing the situation or, conversely, inertia due to a feeling of being of reversing the global scale situation. Although catastrophic language arouses more attention, fear and anguish do not necessarily serve to motivate people (Giddens, 2010) or may have lost their "productive" role (Pulcini, 2013), not generating social change. In addition, this perspective does not contribute to preventive coverage or considers solutions to minimize or adapt to the effects of climate risks, generally focusing only on destructive aspects. Based on bibliographical research, it is sought to score what has already been investigated about fear and climate change in journalist coverage, in order to contribute to a more assertive framework for the dissemination of information that helps to transform people's attitudes. It is noted that there is still a shortage of literature on fear, tackling and climate change coverage, and that more empirical investigations must be made to confirm the theoretical hypotheses and actually contribute to the effectiveness of the process.

Keywords : climate change; fear; journalism; catastrophic approach; tackling.

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