Mass-media coverage, its influence on public awareness of climate-change issues, and implications for Japan’s national campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

We analyse Japanese newspaper coverage of global warming from January 1998 to July 2007 and how public opinion during parts of that period were influenced by newspaper coverage. We show that a dramatic increase in newspaper coverage of global warming from January 2007 correlated with an increase in public concern for the issue. Before January 2007, we find that coverage of global warming had an immediate but short-term influence on public concern. With such transitory high levels of media coverage we suggest that for more effective communication of climate change, strategies aimed at maintaining mass-media coverage of global warming are required.