Image matters: Climate change imagery in US, UK and Australian newspapers

- Content and frame analysis of visual imagery in Australian, UK and US newspapers.
- Broad patterns exist in the images used to accompany climate articles.
- A relationship exists between newspaper ownership and climate images portrayed.
- Two visual frames are evident, a 'contested' frame and a 'distancing' frame.
- Visual frames actively shape the cultural politics of climate change.

Images act to draw in audiences through vivid and emotive portrayals, and in doing so, they facilitate both cognitive and affective processing. Yet images are not neutral - they can portray highly ideological messages, and act as normative statements portraying a particular way of viewing the world. Whilst climate imagery proliferates, media analysis of climate to date has focused almost exclusively on textual representations. Here, a two-part study was designed to explore climate change imagery in newspapers. First, a content analysis of visual images attached to online articles about climate change during 2010 from 13 US, UK and Australian newspapers, was undertaken. Analysis of the image concourse (n = 1603) shows broad patterns across all newspapers in the visualization of climate change, and sheds light on how multinational media ownership influences climate imagery portrayals. Second, a frame analysis was undertaken, by examining the composition and tone of particularly salient images in their cultural and political contexts. Together, these analyses indicate that two visual frames are prominent, a 'contested' visual frame and a 'distancing' visual frame; with Australian newspapers particularly relying on the 'contested' visual frame. These visual framings support particular interactions with the issue of climate change whilst marginalizing others, actively shaping the cultural politics of climate change in important ways.