Extra Media Influences on the Issue-Attention Cycle:

A Content Analysis of Global Warming Coverage in

the People’s Daily and The New York Times, 1998-2007

A thesis presented to

the faculty of

the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Master of Science

Xiaofang Ma

August 2008
 This thesis titled

Extra Media Influences on the Issue-Attention Cycle:

A Content Analysis of Global Warming Coverage in

the People’s Daily and The New York Times, 1998-2007

by

XIAOFANG MA

has been approved for

the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism

and the Scripps College of Communication by

Hong Cheng

Associate Professor of Journalism

Gregory J. Shepherd

Dean, Scripps College of Communication

ii
 ABSTRACT

XIAOFANG MA, M.S., August 2008, Journalism

Extra Media Influences on the Issue-Attention Cycle: A Content Analysis of Global

Warming Coverage in the People’s Daily and The New York Times, 1998-2007 (77 pp.)

Director of Thesis: Hong Cheng

The issue-attention cycle model proposed by Downs (1972) was used in previous

studies to explain the fluctuation of media attention to environmental issues. Most of

those studies concentrated on U.S. media. This thesis examined the change of amount of

the global warming coverage in the People’s Daily and The New York Times from 1998

through 2007, aiming at finding out if the media coverage of environmental issues in

China would follow Downs’ (1972) model. It also content analyzed the frames and

sources used in the global warming coverage in the two newspapers, in order to

investigate into the extra-media influences on the issue-attention cycle. Results showed

that while the coverage in The New York Times displayed a cyclical pattern during the 10

years under study, the coverage in the People’s Daily did not show such a pattern at all.

What is more, the use of frames and sources in the two newspapers were also found

different. Possible reasons for the differences between the two newspapers’ coverage

were deliberated; implications of the differences were discussed in the thesis.

Approved: _____________________________________________________________

Hong Cheng

Associate Professor of Journalism

iii
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank all my committee members for their support and

suggestions. Many thanks to Dr. Hong Cheng, my committee chair, for his great help

through my writing process as well as his warm encouragement, especially for the time

he took to help me conceptualize and revise my thesis. Thanks to Dr. Cooper-Chen for

leading me into the field of international media studies and helping me develop the idea

of my thesis. Thanks to Dr. Bernt for teaching me content analysis and giving me

constructive comments on my work.

Special thanks go to my parents, for their love, care, and support throughout my

life, especially during this year.

Thank Dan Xie, my dearest friend, for all the e-mails, phone calls, and talks,

which accompanied me through this year. Also, thanks a million to all my friends here in

Athens and back in China. I am most fortunate to have them as my friends.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................... iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iv

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ vii

LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1

Purpose............................................................................................................................ 4

Global Warming Issue in China...................................................................................... 5

Global Warming Issue in the United States .................................................................... 7

CHAPTER 2: RELATED STUDIES.................................................................................. 9

The Issue-Attention Cycle .............................................................................................. 9

Extra-media Influence................................................................................................... 11

Framing ......................................................................................................................... 14

Sourcing ........................................................................................................................ 16

Studies of Global Warming .......................................................................................... 19

Research Questions and Hypotheses ............................................................................ 21

CHAPTER 3: METHOD .................................................................................................. 24

Why Content Analysis .................................................................................................. 24

Why China and the United States ................................................................................. 24

Why the People’s Daily and The New York Times ....................................................... 25

Time Frame ................................................................................................................... 28

Screening Procedures .................................................................................................... 28

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 Coding Protocol ............................................................................................................ 29

Prominence of the Global Warming Reports ............................................................ 29

The Frames of the Global Warming Reports ............................................................ 29

The Sources of the Global Warming Report............................................................. 30

Coding Procedure ......................................................................................................... 30

Inter-coder Reliability ................................................................................................... 31

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS .................................................................................................. 32

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS ................................................... 47

Issue-Attention Cycle ................................................................................................... 48

Extra-media Influences ................................................................................................. 52

Limitations .................................................................................................................... 55

Future Studies ............................................................................................................... 56

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 57

APPENDIX A: CODING BOOK ..................................................................................... 62

APPENDIX B: CODING SHEET .................................................................................... 68

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 LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 1: Frequencies of global warming stories in the People’s Daily and The New York
Times, 1998-2007............................................................................................................34

Table 2: Placements of global warming stories in the People’s Daily and The New York
Times, 1998-2007............................................................................................................34

Table 3: Frame frequencies in the global warming coverage of the People’s Daily and
The New York Times, 1998-2007 ....................................................................................36

Table 4: Frame changes in the global warming coverage of the People’s Daily and The
New York Times, 1998-2007 ...........................................................................................39

Table 5: Source frequencies in the global warming coverage of the People’s Daily and
The New York Times, 1998-2007 ....................................................................................41

Table 6: Source changes in the global warming coverage of the People’s Daily and The
New York Times, 1998-2007 ...........................................................................................44

vii
 LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 1: Frequency changes in global warming stories in the People’s Daily and The
New York Times, 1998-2007 ...........................................................................................46

viii
 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

In July 2008, the G-8 Summit was held in Toyako, Japan. Global warming and

the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions was a focal point of this summit. The leaders

of major industrialized nations in the world, including U.S. President Bush, finally agreed

to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2050 (Briefing, 2008). Undoubtedly,

global warming has become one of the most pressing issues for our world today.

In the earth’s history, the global climate has warmed and cooled several times

naturally, but the warming of the climate in the 20th century is said to be beyond the

natural peaks of the last 11,000 years (Revkin, 2006). That phenomenon arouses people’s

concern over global warming, which is “the increase in the average temperature of the

Earth’s near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation”

(IPCC Glossary, 2008, p. 5). It is also called climate change, since some scientists argues

that warming is not the only change to the climate cause by human activities (IPCC

Glossary, 2008).

In 1896, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius discovered that changes in the levels

of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could substantially alter the surface temperature

because of the greenhouse effect. But not until the 1980s, when the energy crisis

worldwide turned people’s attention to carbon dioxide emission, did the issue of global

warming enter the public agenda (Mazur & Lee, 1993).

The greatest concern over global warming is that it will harm the agriculture

system on which human civilization is based (Easterbrook, 2006). Moreover, the rising

sea level caused by global warming may affect the lives of tens of thousands people in

coastal cities. Warming of the climate will not only change people’s way of life, but also
threaten the lives of all the living creatures on the earth (Climate Change Fact Sheets,

2007). However, it is also said that the warming of the global climate might bring benefit

to high-altitude countries, since the weather will be milder there (Easterbrook, 2006).

There are debates about whether global warming is due to human activities and

whether global warming will seriously affect human beings. The debates even go beyond

the field of science. Its close relationship with energy consumption has pushed it onto the

world political arena in recent years (Easterbook, 2006; McComas & Shanahan, 1999;

Trumbo, 1996).

The United Nations (UN) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (IPCC) in 1988 to investigate and analyze the global warming issue. In 1990,

IPCC published its first assessment report about climate change. From then on, the UN

began multi-national discussion on this issue. In June 1992, the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a multi-national treaty aiming at

protecting the climate system opened up for signatures at the UN Conference on

Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The UNFCCC was established

in 1994 after the 50 requisite countries had ratified it. Today, 186 countries have ratified

the UNFCCC (UNFCCC Web site, 2008).

In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol, which set binding targets for 37 industrialized

countries to reduce greenhouse gas emission, was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, and

became effictive in 2005. The Kyoto protocol places a heavier burden on developed

countries since those countries are thought to be responsible for the current high levels of

greenhouse gas emissions, which is a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity.

At present, 180 countries have ratified the Kyoto protocol (UNFCCC Web site, 2008).

2
 However, it is hard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in today’s highly

industrialized world. The driving force behind any country’s rising GDP is increased

energy consumption, and either reducing the emissions or developing new clean energy

will result in great economic costs. The UNFCCC report pointed out that “the emissions

of highly industrialized countries are at an unsustainable level and the emissions from

economies in transition have picked up again after years of decline” (UNFCCC fact

sheets, 2007, p. 5).

Various countries take different stances on the global warming issue. The United

States, currently the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, withdrew from the

Kyoto Protocol in 2001. The U.S. Senate passed a resolution requiring that the U.S. not

sign any protocol that failed to include binding targets and timetables for both developing

and industrialized nations, arguing that without such a requirement, serious harm to the

U.S. economy will result (Schreurs, 2004). On the other side, the EU countries, such as

the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, which took the global warming problem

seriously, signed the Kyoto Protocol and launched their own European Climate Change

Programme (ECCP) (EU Web site, 2008). In the meantime, developing countries, such as

those in the G-77 (an intergovernmental organization of 130 developing countries), argue

that they are the most vulnerable to the damages brought by climate change but have less

responsibility reducing greenhouse gas emissions (UNFCCC fact sheet, 2007). Although

some rising economies in the developing world have been criticized for their fast-

growing greenhouse gas emissions, they insist that the developed countries should take

the most responsibilities.

3
 Purpose

Global warming appeared on the media’s agenda in the late 1980s, and now it is

one of the most covered topics. Considerable research has focused on explaining the

variations in global warming coverage, and various findings and theories about global

warming coverage have been offered (Brossard, McComas, & Shanahan, 2004; Downs,

1972; McComas & Shanahan, 1999; Trumbo, 1996; Ungar, 1992 ). Among those

theories, the issue-attention cycle model proposed by Downs (1972), which divided the

amount of attention paid to environmental issues into five stages, has had the most

influence. However, most studies based on this model have merely examined the changes

in the amount of media coverage and focused on the phenomenon itself; few studies have

examined possible influences on the news coverage and analyzed how the cycle formed

and developed. What is more, most of the research about the issue-attention cycle has

focused on the U.S. media, which leaves a question unanswered—Is the issue-attention

cycle applicable to media in other countries?

A cross-national comparison of media coverage of global warming is, therefore,

conducted to examine the impact of other influences, such as those from the government,

industries, and interest groups, on the media attention cycle. Such a comparison will be

helpful in exploring the development of the cyclical patterns in media coverage of

environmental issues as well as to deepen the understanding of the influences of external

factors on media coverage.

As an initial effort toward this end, the global warming coverage in two leading

newspapers—the People’s Daily in China and The New York Times in the United

States—was content analyzed. In Merrill’s (1968) elite press pyramid, both newspapers

4
belong to the “primary elites,” which are regarded as “the outstanding members of the

world system of elite communication” (p. 45). Because China and the United States have

quite different social and economic structures, as well as different stances and policies on

the global warming issue, this study examined the global warming coverage in the

People’s Daily showed a cyclical pattern, and explored the possible extra-media

influences on the global warming coverage in both newspapers. The New York Times was

also analyzed here for comparative purposes because most prior studies using the issue-

attention cycle, as mentioned earlier in this thesis, were focused on U.S. media coverage.

Global Warming Issue in China

With an average GDP growth rate at 9.6 % in the past 25 years (“China declared,”

2006), China’s prosperous economy has raised the standard of living for millions of its

citizens. This economic success came at, however, a great environmental cost. China has

followed a pattern similar to that of many developed countries, whereby the process of

industrialization is often linked to deteriorating environmental quality and rarely turned

around until the standard of living is increased (Lewis, 2007). In 2006, the China

Environment Bureau received 2,003 complaints about environmental problems (Xi,

2007). Qin Dahe, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Science and former director

of China Meteorology Administration, acknowledged that global warming is one of the

most serious environmental problems in China (Liu, 2007).

The Chinese government feels both external and internal pressures to solve global

warming problems. On the one hand, the developed countries are urging developing

countries with large populations and huge amounts of carbon dioxide emissions, such as

China, Brazil, and India, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (Wan, 2007). On the

5
other hand, to prevent the environmental conditions from further deteriorating should be

a priority (Wan, 2007). According to the Scheme of China’s Global Warming Polices

(2007), the glacier in the northwestern China has shrunk by 50% in the past 50 years, and

the frozen earth in Tibet is four to five meters thinner than before.

However, the global warming problem seems difficult for China to solve. As a

developing country, China still requires more energy to sustain its high-speed

development. In the Scheme of China’s Global Warming Polices (2007), the Chinese

government acknowledged that the consumption of energy and emission of carbon

dioxide would inevitably increase in the future. In addition, China relies on coal, a major

source of carbon dioxide emissions, for more than two-thirds of its energy needs (Lewis,

2007). Experts pointed out that China is overtaking the United States as the world’s

largest contributor to global warming. A new study showed that the growth rate of

greenhouse gas emissions in China is 11% per year. According to the study, the increase

in China’s emissions between 2000 and 2010 would be more than five times greater than

all the reductions expected from the entire world under the Kyoto Protocol (Carey, 2008).

As a member of the G-77, China emphasizes the historical responsibility that the

industrialized world should take and the disparity between the per capita greenhouse gas

emissions that exists between the developed and developing countries (Lewis, 2007).

Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi insisted that developed countries take the lead in

reducing emissions after the Kyoto Protocol ending in 2012 (“Yang said,” 2007).

Nevertheless, China has also promised to reduce its per GDP energy consumption by

20% by 2010 and maintain its greenhouse gas emission at the same level as in 2005

(China National Plan, 2007).

6
 Global Warming Issue in the United States

In 1988, the United States saw the worst drought in 50 years. The heat wave

caused major crop losses in the Midwest, leaving dry lands and arid riverbeds. The

drought received wide news coverage, arousing great concern and fear among the public.

From then on, people began to speculate if the greenhouse effect was responsible for the

extreme weather (Mazur & Lee, 1993).

The United States is currently the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world,

accounting for approximately one-third of CO2 emissions of the developed countries and

a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions (Schreurs, 2004). Experts have

predicted that the rate of greenhouse gas emissions in this country would accelerate in the

future (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007). However, the U.S. government was

reluctant to admit that global warming is due to human activities until 2005, when

Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, provided research evidence

that there was a substantial human impact on the increasing global temperature

(Easterbrook, 2006).

Although the United States is one of the countries that first ratified the UNFCCC

and attended the Kyoto Protocol negotiation, it withdrew from the protocol in 2001. U.S.

president George Bush announced that he opposed the Kyoto Protocol in a letter

addressed to four conservative senators immediately after he took office in 2000. Within

several days, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Whitman

announced that the United States would withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. She said the

protocol was dead as far as the administration was concerned (Pianin, 2001).

7
 The White House considers the Kyoto Protocol as an unworkable treaty since it is

hard to force every country to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in today’s

industrialized world. Moreover, it argues that the Kyoto Protocol will only impose huge

costs on the U.S. economy and even hinder its economic development, while developing

countries can be exempted from that obligation (Pianin, 2001). The U.S. government

proposes its own solutions to the global warming problem, arguing that the best way to

deal with global warming is to invest in scientific research on that issue as well as to

develop new clean energies to replace coal and oil (Pianin, 2001). Rejecting the idea of

forcefully reducing greenhouse gas emissions suggested by the Kyoto Protocol, the U.S.

government instead advocates what it calls “a voluntary, science-based approach”

(Pianin, 2001) to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

8
 CHAPTER 2: RELATED STUDIES

In this chapter, theories and related previous studies are reviewed to explore the

cyclical pattern of media coverage of the global warming issue and the factors that may

have influences on it. The review includes Downs’ (1972) issue-attention cycle model

and other theories on how an issues attain people’s attention, the extra-media influences

on media coverage, framing theory, the relationship between source and reporter, and

previous research about media coverage of global warming.

The Issue-Attention Cycle

Formulated by Downs (1972), the issue-attention cycle is a model used to explain

the variations in the amount of news coverage of environmental issues throughout time.

The model suggests five stages in the life cycle of environmental issues:

In the first stage, also called the pre-problem stage, only some experts or interest

groups can recognize the issue, which has not captured much public attention yet. The

second stage is the “alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm” stage (Downs, 1972, p.

39). In this stage, the public is aware of the dangers of the issue or problem as the result

of some dramatic series of events that occurred. A mood of euphoric enthusiasm on how

to solve this problem pervades the society. The public pays considerable attention to the

issue. Then, in the third stage, the policy-makers and the public begin to learn that the

costs of solving the problem may be high. They also note that the issue may bring

benefits to some groups in the society. Gradually, the public interest in the issue declines

and the cycle enters the fourth stage. People may feel discouraged, threatened, or bored.

At last, in the fifth stage, the post-problem stage, the issue “moves into a prolonged

limbo” (Downs, 1972, p. 40). However, because of the intense attention given to the issue

9
in the previous stages, it can still raise public attention, although with less intensity than

earlier. Downs (1972) argued that the coverage of environmental issues in mass media

tend to follow the pattern of this cycle.

Downs’ (1972) theory is supported by some studies on environmental issues from

different perspectives. One study about the narrative types of the global warming reports

in The New York Times and The Washington Post from 1980 to 1995 found that the

coverage had a cyclical pattern exactly as Downs had proposed (McComas & Shanahan,

1999). Another study focused on the frames and issue-attention cycle of the coverage of

global warming in five major U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times, the

Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor and the Wall

Street Journal, revealed the same cyclical pattern (Trumbo, 1996).

However, other researchers challenged Downs’ (1972) theory by emphasizing the

significant effects that critical events or social institutions have on public attention.

Hilgartner and Bosk (1988) criticized the linear characteristic of Downs’ issue-attention

cycle, saying that it was a natural history model, which could not reflect the dynamic

social reality. They proposed a public arenas model in which various issues were

competing with one another to gain public attention, to remain in public arenas, and to

obtain social resources. The public arenas included such institutions as government,

industries, and social groups. Those institutions selected issues in terms of their dramatic

degree, cultural and political significance, and the institutions’ own carrying capacity.

Social problems could exist simultaneously in many stages of development, and the

various arenas were the decisive factors that influence the ebb and flow of public

attention to a certain issue.

10
 Another view of how environmental issues emerge and then fade away is that

real-world events are the decisive factors in determining the life of an environmental

issue (Ungar, 1995). Through his analyses of several U.S. newspapers, journals, and TV

networks during the 1980s, Ungar (1995) noted that although scientists had found

evidence of global warming in the early 1970s, only when the 1988 summer draught

broke did the media and public pay great attention to global warming. However, the

attention declined as no more new events happened in the following years to sustain

people’s sense of crisis. Gradually, other events occurred and distracted people’s

attention from the global warming issue. He suggested that if no further extreme events

occurred, the global warming issue could not retain the same amount of attention as it

received in 1988 (Ungar, 1995).

Culture and journalistic practices may also exert influences on the issue-attention

cycle. A comparative study of U.S. and French media coverage of global warming

showed that while the U.S. media coverage reflected the cyclical pattern, its French

counterpart did not (Brossard, McComas, & Shanahan, 2004). The authors of the study

suggested that this contrast might be due to the differences between the journalistic

cultures in France and the United States.

Extra-media Influence

Environmental issues are especially susceptible to the issue-attention cycle,

because too few people suffer directly from environmental problems and some people

may even benefit from them (Downs, 1972). What is more, as Downs (1972) argued,

environmental problems have no intrinsically exciting qualities, so they fade out with

time.

11
 As Downs (1972) also suggested, one important reason why environmental issues

display cyclical patterns could be that they intrinsically lack qualities that can open them

up for sustained public attention. Therefore, in spite of national differences, the media

coverage of global warming should show the same cyclical pattern throughout the world.

If that is the case, Downs’ (1972) explanation for why the issue-attention cycle exists can

hold. But if the cyclical pattern only appears in U.S. media coverage, then it can be

argued that the cyclical pattern may have more to do with other external factors, such as

social or economic influences, rather than the environmental issue per se.

Many researchers have investigated how media content is influenced by both

internal and external factors. Shoemaker and Reese (1996) proposed a hierarchical model

of various influences on media coverage. They divided the influences on news content

into five levels: individual, media routines, organization, extra-media, and the ideological

level. The power those influences exert on media content gradually increases from the

individual level through the ideological level.

At the individual level, journalists’ and editors’ past experiences, attitudes, and

personal beliefs can influence their news selection and writing process. Media routines,

such as news writing and interviewing conventions, directly affect the news production

process. The organization level includes the influence of ownership, organizational

structure, and economic constraints. At the extra-medial level, news content is mediated

by many outside forces: government, the marketplace, interest groups, and technology.

Finally, at the ideological level, all the people and institutions involved in the news-

making process are subject to cultural and ideological influences, which are subtle but

profound.

12
 According to the hierarchical model, political and economic factors may exert a

great influence on media coverage and news content. Many previous studies have

confirmed that influence. For example, when the U.S. government shifted its policy

toward China, The New York Times and the Washington Post subsequently increased

their favorable coverage of China and Sino-U.S. relations (Chang, 1989).

The same observation is also made regarding environmental coverage. Hansen

(1991) suggested that when media reported environmental issues, their reporting was

affected by various dynamic and interactive factors, which also were ordered

hierarchically. He contended that “there can be little doubt that the forum of formal

political activity is near the top of the hierarchy” (p. 443). Not only the content, but also

the attention paid to environmental issues, is related to politics. Wilkins and Patterson

(1991) reported that global warming eventually faded out from the media’s agenda

because no clear political symbol was attached to it.

The influences of business and marketplace on environmental reporting is less

distinct but remarkable. Researchers have found that in global warming reports, a small

number of scientists whose views coincided with the views of people from the oil, coal,

automobile, and petrochemical industries were repeatedly interviewed and quoted by

many newspapers. Those scientists, who claimed to be skeptical about global warming,

were said to be funded by an organization of some 50 fossil fuel industries and trade

associations, a group calling itself the Global Climate Coalition (Trumbo & Shanahan,

2000).

13
 Framing

Framing is one of the most important tools with which to analyze news content.

As Gitlin (1980) asserted, when analyzing any mass-mediated content, one must ask,

“What is the frame here? Why this frame and not another? What patterns are shared by

the frames clamped over this event and the frames clamped over that one, by frames in

different media in different places at different moments?” (p. 7)

The word frame suggests an active process and a result (Reese, 2001), as does

framing. It is acknowledged that sociologist Erving Goffman (1974) is the first person

who introduced the concept of framing. He adopted a social-psychological approach

toward the concept, arguing that every issue is actually portrayed or fabricated within a

frame, which may have a great impact on people’s perceptions of reality. Frames are

“organizing principles that are socially shared and persistent over time, that work

symbolically to meaningfully structure the social world” (Reese, 2001, p. 11).

Because facts and events have no intrinsic meaning, people need to construct

certain frames to view those facts and events (Gamson, 1992). From the perspective of

news production, framing is “the process by which a communication source, such as a

news organization, defines and constructs a political issue or public controversy”

(Nelson, Clawson & Oxley, 1997, p. 567).

Entman (1993) offered his definition of the functions media frames performed to

help an audience develop its own individual frames. He argued that there were four

functions of frames: defining problems by distinguishing costs and benefits measured by

common cultural values; diagnosing causes through identification of forces that created

14
the problem; making moral judgments by evaluating causes and effects; and suggesting

remedies by offering justification for problems and predicting effects.

For different people and different purposes, the functions of frames vary. Norris,

Kern and Just (2003) hold the view that the essence of framing is to “prioritize some

facts, images, or developments over others, thereby unconsciously promoting one

particular interpretation of events” through selecting and packaging news events in a

certain way (p. 11).

For journalists, frames can help them “to process large amounts of information

quickly and routinely, to recognize it as information, to assign it to cognitive categories,

and to package it for efficient relay to their audiences” (Gitlin, 1980, p. 6-7).

How journalists construct frames, however, is a debatable question. On the one

hand, media and media practitioners sometimes create frames and framing devices all by

themselves “in order to summarize concisely the kernel of a story” (Nelson et al., 1997,

p. 568). On the other hand, the sources often have a significant impact on framing—

“Frames are sometimes defined by those in power and then picked up and transmitted by

the news media” (Severin & Tankard, 2002, p. 278).

The frames media use to construct an issue have a strong impact on how the

public perceives and interprets that issue. The emphasis on certain aspects of an issue and

the way the issue is framed are strongly related with public perception of that issue

(McCombs & Shaw, 1993). As Entman (1993) pointed out, “media messages

significantly influence what the public and the elites think, by affecting what they

perceive and think about” (p. 35). He explained that this could be done by choosing and

highlighting certain features of reality while omitting or downplaying others. Sometimes

15
“even a single unillustrated appearance of a notion in an obscure part of the text can be

highly salient, if it comports with the existing schemata in a receiver’s belief systems”

(Entman, 1993, p. 53). This position is supported by Nelson and his collaborators (1997),

who believe that frames can influence people’s attitudes and judgments “by stressing

specific elements or features of the broader controversy, reducing a usually complex

issue down to one or two central aspects” (p. 568).

Sourcing

Specific attention will be given in this thesis to the sources quoted in the global

warming reports, because reporters “can play a larger role in making sense of information

by determining whose voices are heard” (Dunwoody, 1999, p. 61). In other words, the

various sources quoted in a report may significantly influence the public’s interpretation

of the information it provides. Since the global warming issue is full of uncertainty and

controversial, as Dunwoody (1999) pointed out, it “gives journalists the opportunity to

play a major role in constructing the popular understanding of the science in question” (p.

69).

It is difficult for journalists to witness every event and understand everything that

they need to report. Sources are indispensable in their news production process.

Shoemaker and Reese (1996) pointed out that “sources have a tremendous effect on mass

media content” (p. 178).

Gans (1979) defined sources as “the actors whom journalists observe or interview,

including interviewees who appear on the air or who are quoted in … articles, and those

who only supply background information or story suggestions” (p. 80).

16
 Previous studies suggested that sources largely determined the contents of news

reports. “What is seen in the media texts is often the result of many interrelated,

competing principles from contending sources and media professionals” (Reese, Gandy,

& Grant, 2001, p. 14). Shoemaker and Reese (1996) pointed out that sometimes sources

could influence the media content both directly and indirectly. On the one hand, they

could withhold information or lie to the journalists; on the other hand, sources could

provide journalists with easy and “free” information, or prevent journalists from seeking

sources who had alternative views. Nevertheless, sometimes journalists could also distort

sources by partially quoting, selectively quoting, and quoting the sources out of context.

All those practices might lead the readers to a point of view that the sources did not

intend.

The relationship between journalists and their sources is intricate. Gieber (1964)

noted three relationships between journalists and their sources. First, the reporters are

independent of the sources; second, the reporters and the sources share certain mutual

benefits and find areas for collaboration; and third, the reporters are totally dependent on

the sources and are dominated by the sources, or the sources are totally controlled by the

reporters.

A good journalist usually has many valuable sources. Journalists tend to cultivate

a stable of preferred sources that get interviewed frequently (Manning, 2001). Many

factors worked together to cultivate the favored sources of journalists. Those factors

included the prestige and expertise of the source, the articulateness of the source, the

reliability record of the source, and even journalists’ attitudes toward the events and the

sources (Schudson, 1995).

17
 So, journalists’ selection of sources is hardly balanced. Shoemaker and Reese

(1996) contended that sources with economic or political power always had an advantage

in influencing media content because they “understand the rhythms of media coverage

and can time the release of information just before a media deadline” (p. 180), as well as

having the time and resources to “get their side of the story out” (p. 180). Hansen (1991)

suggested that the reason why reporters favored those elite sources, such as officials or

experts, was that “they provide regular, credible information” (p. 475).

Among the sources with great political and economic power, government sources

are most favored by journalists. In a study of the news making process in The New York

Times and The Washington Post, Sigal (1973) found U.S. officials to be the most

dominant source of information in the two newspapers. He pointed out that “officials in

the U.S. government are in a position to exert considerable influence over news content”

(p. 60), and helped shape the news contents in both direct and indirect ways. That

overreliance on government sources may result from those sources being more credible

and more easily available. They are also thought to hold more important information

(Gandy, 1982; Hackett, 1985; Paletz & Entman, 1981; Shoemaker & Reese, 1996).

Another favored source of journalists is the expert. According to Shoemaker and

Reese (1996), journalists rely heavily on experts to put events into context and explain

their meaning (p.181). They also noted that interest groups, which are “composed of

individuals who want to communicate their stance on one or more issues to the public”

(p. 184), are also a great factor in shaping the media content. The interest groups often

conduct public relations campaigns to obtain media attention (Shoemaker & Reese,

1996).

18
 Studies of Global Warming

Global warming has not only received the attention of scientists but also

communication scholars. Several studies have investigated the frames and narrative types

that global warming reports adopted. One major finding is that in environmental reports,

drama is emphasized more than the other factors. “In effect, environmental claims are

most often honored when they can piggyback on dramatic real-world events” (Ungar,

1992, p. 485). In most cases, human drama rather than science played the primary role in

deciding if an environmental story should be given media attention (Mazur & Lee, 1993).

That selection is because media intentionally construct dramatic stories to maintain

public interest (McComas & Shanahan, 1999). McComas and Shanahan (1999) pointed

out that “it is a matter of social, institutional, and communicational choices to construct

issues in exciting ways” (p. 35).

The other finding is that global warming is always closely connected to politics.

Studies have shown that the coverage of global warming from the 1980s to 1990s was

gradually politicized (Wilkins & Patterson, 1991; Trumbo, 1996; McComas & Shanahan,

1999). The politically oriented trend in global warming reports is related to the claim-

makers in those reports. Because politicians, representatives of industries, and interest

groups are increasingly successful in making their claims in the news reports, “they also

brought along their associated frames in a process that influenced the make-up of the

content of the news” (Trumbo, 1996, p. 278).

Another reason why global warming is becoming politically oriented is that the

global warming issue has been closely connected to politics and international relations in

19
recent years. A study revealed that more than 51% of the greenhouse gas stories were

connected with specific political events (Wilkins, 1993). Recently, news reports tended to

emphasize more domestic politics and international relations stories (McComas &

Shanahan, 1999).

Not only have the frames of global warming reports gradually been politicized,

but also the sources. Previous studies have found that there was a tendency to use more

elite sources, especially government officials, in the coverage of global warming

(Hansen, 1990; Mazur & Lee, 1993; Trumbo, 1996). Although it is an environmental

problem that involved complicated scientific research, scientists seem not always the

most important source in global warming reports. A study revealed that in 1987 and

1988, the top source in greenhouse gas stories was scientists. However, in 1989 and 1990,

government officials became the top source. The second most frequently quoted source

was those people who were identified as representing interest groups, while scientists

dropped to the third place (Mazur & Lee, 1993). That result is also the case for the 1990s,

during which scientists, over time, were gradually crowded out by politicians over time

(Trumbo, 1996).

Studies on global warming and environmental coverage in other countries showed

the same trend: the voices of politicians dominated the media. A study of Canadian press

coverage revealed that government officials, scientists, and private industry groups are

the most frequently used sources in environmental coverage (Einsiedel 1988). In the

United Kingdom, political actors had played the most powerful and effective role in

shaping the global warming issue in the public sphere from the 1980s into the 21st

century (Carvalho & Burgess, 2005). The British government’s discourse has a strong

20
and constant effect on the structuring of media discourse about climate change (Carvalho,

2005). In a comparative study of news coverage of environmental issues on British and

Danish television, Hansen (1990) found that 23% of the people interviewed were

representatives of public groups; 21% were from the government; and only 17% of the

interviewees were independent scientists or experts.

In sum, Downs’ (1972) issue-attention cycle provided a basic model for this thesis

to trace and analyze the changes, if any, in the amount of environmental news coverage

of the People’s Daily and The New York Times. To examine if there are any extra media

influences on the cycle, however, this study analyzed the frames and sources employed in

the global warming stories used.

Research Questions and Hypotheses

In order to find out if the cyclical pattern of environmental issues exists in the

media coverage in China, the amount of global warming coverage in the People’s Daily

from 1998 to 2007 was content analyzed. The coverage of The New York Times was also

analyzed, as mentioned earlier in the thesis, for comparative purposes.

RQ1: What were the changes, if any, in the amount of global warming coverage

in the People’s Daily and The New York Times from 1998 through 2007?

Framing is “the process by which a communication sources, such as a news

organization, defines and constructs a political issue or public controversy” (Nelson,

Clawson & Oxley, 1997, p. 567). To find out if any extra-media factors have influenced

the global warming coverage, the frames of the global warming coverage in these two

selected newspapers were examined and analyzed. This study used the six frames that

21
Brossard and McComas (2004) defined—new evidence/research, scientific background,

consequences, economics, domestic politics, and international relations.

RQ2a: What were the dominant frames of the global warming coverage in the

People’s Daily and The New York Times from 1998 through 2007?

RQ2b: What frame changes, if any, were shown in the two newspapers’ coverage

of global warming from 1998 through 2007?

In addition to the frames, sources in the global warming coverage, which were

found to have significant effects on news frames and news contents (Reese, Gandy, &

Grant, 2001; Shoemaker & Reese, 1996), were analyzed in this study to identify extra-

media influences, if any. The source category included domestic scientists, scientists of

foreign countries, scientists of the United Nations and the other intergovernmental

organizations, domestic officials, officials of foreign countries, officials of the United

Nations and the other intergovernmental organizations, environmental groups, industry

groups, ordinary persons, and others.

RQ3a: What were the dominant sources of the global warming coverage in the

People’s Daily and The New York Times from 1998 through 2007?

RQ3b: What source changes, if any, were shown in the two newspapers’

coverage of global warming from 1998 through 2007?

As mentioned earlier in this thesis, the U.S. media coverage of global warming

showed a cyclical pattern first identified by Downs in 1972. Many studies on global

warming coverage in the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s confirmed this

finding. This cycle might continue in U.S. media coverage from 1998 through 2007, the

10 years examined in this thesis. So, H1a and b for this study are formulated as follows:

22
 H1a: The global warming coverage of The New York Times from 1998 through

2007 will show a cyclical pattern.

Downs (1972) suggested that the existence of the issue-attention cycle was

because of the internal qualities of the environmental issues. If that is the case, the

attention paid to the global warming issues in other countries should display the same

cyclical pattern. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis:

H1b: The global warming coverage of the People’s Daily from 1998 through

2007 will show a cyclical pattern.

The issue-attention cycle model was proposed on the basis of U.S. media

coverage, and most previous issue-attention cycle studies were all about the U.S. media.

While those studies found the situation in the United States fit Downs’ (1972) model,

issue-attention cycle studies in other countries reached a different conclusion. For

example, Brossard and McComas (2004) found no cyclical pattern in their analysis of the

global warming stories in Le Monde, a leading French newspaper. Since China, where

social and economic structures are totally different from those in the United States, has its

unique polices and political stances toward global warming, the following hypothesis is

formulated:

H2: The global warming coverage in the People’s Daily will show a less cyclical

pattern than that in The New York Times during this 10-year period.

23
 CHAPTER 3: METHOD

This chapter discusses why content analysis was used in this study, why the

analysis was focused on two newspapers in particular, and how data screening and coding

were conducted.

Why Content Analysis

Content analysis is one of the most important research tools in mass

communication research. As Shoemaker and Reese (1996) pointed out, researching media

content is useful for researchers to understand “what people are exposing themselves to,

using, attending to, thinking about, or being affected by” (p. 69). Content analysis is

defined as “objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of

communication” (Berelson, 1952, p.18). Riffe, Lacy, and Fico (2005) defined content

analysis as “the systematic and replicable examination of symbols of communication,

which have been assigned to numeric values according to valid measurement rules, and

the analysis of relationships involving those values using statistical methods, in order to

describe the communication, draw inferences about its meaning, or infer from

communication to its context, both of production and consumption” (p. 25). They

emphasized that researchers could not understand mass communication without studying

the media content.

Why China and the United States

The United States and China hold the top two places in the world in terms of the

amount of greenhouse gas emissions, with the former producing 21.8 billion tons and the

latter 17.9 billion tons in 2004 (UNFCCC Web site, 2008). While the United States has

refused to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, China is said to be overtaking the United

24
States as the largest emitter. The discussion of global warming in the international

community largely focuses on these two countries. Although they are facing the same

problems, their attitudes toward the global warming issue are totally different. The United

States rejects the international efforts on compulsory reduction of the greenhouse gas

emissions, proposing its own plans to lessen the emissions. China, a rising economy that

is criticized for its fast-growing emissions, insists that its per capita emission is low and

emphasizes the responsibility of developed countries to reduce emissions. Moreover,

because of their different social and economic structures, the industries and interest

groups may exert considerable influence on the U.S. media, which is not the case in

China. Due to these differences, a comparison of the global warming coverage in the

Chinese media with that in the U.S. media will add a cross-cultural perspective to the

studies of the issue-attention cycle and test the applicability of this model in a different

country.

Why the People’s Daily and The New York Times

Newspapers were chosen for this content analysis; they are “regularly published

periodicals produced for a particular town, city or region, reporting on matters of current

interest to those residents” (Eldon & Gibbons, 2000, p.142). Although the circulation of

most newspapers has decreased, the newspaper is recognized as providing a truthful

account of important public events and a reliable interpreter of their meanings (Eldon &

Gibbons, 2000).

In order to compare the global warming coverage in China and the United States,

one newspaper from both countries was selected. As Merrill and Fisher (1980) suggested,

in many countries there existed institutions that could be called the “elite press” that

25
aimed at “a rather cohesive audience, and in general its readers are better educated and

have greater interests in public affairs than the average readers of the mass (or popular)

press” (p. 11). The target audience of the elite press is the “educated citizen who is aware

of, and concerned about, the central issues of his time, and undoubtedly it is read by more

opinion leaders than are other types of newspapers” (Merrill, 1968, p. 11). Compared to

the popular press, the elite press tends to express the “serious, well-seasoned opinion of

the nation concerned” (p. 11) and is usually regarded as “serious, concerned, intelligent,

and articulate” (p. 13).

This study focused on the elite press in the two countries, since it could reflect the

serious opinions about global warming in the countries. Specifically, the People’s Daily

in China and The New York Times in the United States were selected. Both belong to the

“elite press” in the home countries.

The People’s Daily, the official paper of the Chinese government, was selected

for its sizable readership and its ability to reflect the official and mainstream voices in

China. With a circulation around 2,325,500 in 2007 (“Circulation increases …”, 2008), as

Merrill and Fisher (1980) pointed out, “no one can deny its influence and wide prestige in

Communist China where almost everyone who is important in the society reads the

paper” (p. 265).

Another reason for choosing the People’s Daily for this study is that studies

comparing Chinese media with media in the other countries more often than not have this

newspaper as a vital study subject to represent the Chinese elite press. (Chang, 1993; Li,

2006; Luther & Zhou, 2005).

26
 The New York Times, a prestigious newspaper in the United States and even in the

world, has a daily circulation of 763,975 (“Bowker’s News Media Directory,” 2007). It

has been considered as the most influential newspaper regarding U.S. domestic politics.

The influence of The New York Times even goes beyond the national border and into the

international community (Merrill, 1968). Many previous studies on global warming

coverage and environmental communication have chosen it to represent the U.S. elite

press ( McComas & Shanahan, 1999; Mazur & Lee, 1993; Trumbo, 1996; Ungar, 1992).

However, it should be noticed that the media systems, such as media

organizational structures and journalistic routines are different in China and the United

State, which may affect the media content of the two newspapers. While the United

States respect press freedom, Chinese government has always been criticized for its

tightly control over media. Toady, Chinese media is still been looked as the official voice

of the party. They are “for command communication rather than for providing social

information for the people” (Wu, 2000, p.45). The Freedom House gave China an 80

score with 100 being the worst (Freedom House, 2004). Reporters without Borders

(2008) ranked China 163 of all 169 countries in terms of press freedom.

However, in recent years, the Chinese government began to loose its control over

media in some topics that are less sensitive, such as business, sports, entertainment,

and—key to this study—environment (Sun, 2002). The media became a major stage for

the government to inform the public their plans, policies and actions about the

environmental problems, as well as an efficient channel for the public to receive

information and participant in discussion.

27
 Therefore, the differences in media system between China and the United States,

although may exert influences on the media content, do not affect the final outcome of

this study.

Time Frame

The time frame for this study was from January 1, 1998, through December 31,

2007. Choosing 1998 as the starting year of this study was based on the consideration that

the Kyoto Protocol was passed in December 1997. Choosing 2007 as the last year of the

study was intedned to include the latest data available. This 10-year time frame was

thought a sufficient period which would help examine the cyclical pattern of the global

warming coverage, if any, in the two newspapers.

Screening Procedures

Key terms like “global warming,” “climate change,” and “greenhouse effect”

were used to search for relevant articles in the Lexis-Nexis database and People’s Daily

Index. The screening procedures were as follows: First, the unit of analysis was each

news story. In this study, a news story on the global warming issue was defined as as one

that contained “references to global warming or climate change, excluding editorials,

columns, letters to the editor and advertisements” (Trumbo, 1996, p. 269). Second, the

content of the articles analyzed focused on the global warming issue. Stories in which

only the term global warming was mentioned but the story did not provide elaboration on

the issue were excluded from this study. For example, if a story only mentioned global

warming in this way: “… gathering for questions about the issues he considers important:

health care, global warming, poverty, the economy,” it was not included in this study.

28
 Coding Protocol

This study focused on the number of the reports, the prominence, the frames, and

the sources in global warming coverage of the two newspapers. The coding sheet

included 21 variables (see Appendix B)

Prominence of the Global Warming Reports

Prominence of the global warming reports was coded to measure the attention

paid to the global warming issue. Specifically, prominence was coded as 1) whether the

story appeared on the front page or on the other pages of the newspaper, and 2) how

many words or characters the story contained.

The Frames of the Global Warming Reports

The coding sheet defined six frames formulated by Brossard and McComas

(2004): 1) New research/evidence, which could be the announcement of a new

government study, new scientific report or environmental group report, and current

weather reports; 2) Scientific background, which was the general scientific or

technological background information of the global warming issue; 3) Consequences,

which could refer to either the bad or good consequences that global warming brought,

including predictions. 4) Economics, which was about the costs of remedies or solutions

to counter the global warming problem. 5) Domestic politics, which referred to

government laws, policies, and regulations as well as officials’ speeches related to the

global warming issue. 6) International relations, which was the international summits,

forums, and treaties about the global warming issue. A frame was coded as 1 if presented

in a story, and 0 if not. Multiple frames were coded for a story.

29
 The Sources of the Global Warming Report

The category of sources generally followed the source categories Trumbo (1996)

created for his study on U.S. climate change coverage, in conjunction with Brossard and

McComas’s (2004) source category of global warming reports to make it more suitable

for this two-country study. A source was coded as: 1) domestic scientist; 2) scientist from

other countries; 3) scientist from the United Nations and other intergovernmental

organizations; 4) domestic government officials; 5) officials from other countries; 6)

officials from the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations; 7)

environmental interest group; 8) business interest group; 9) oridnary person; and 10)

others.

For the People’s Daily, a Chinese version of the coding sheet was also used to

code the news stories.

Coding Procedure

The steps taken in the coding process were as follows:

(1) Using key words “global warming,” “greenhouse effect,” and “climate

change” to search for appropriate news stories. Stories in The New York Times were

searched in Lexis-Nexis Academic database, and the reports in the People’s Daily were

searched in the newspaper’s own database. All reports were read to determine whether

they were appropriate for this study or not.

(2) The date (year/month/day) of a news story was coded.

(3) The placement and words of each news story was coded.

(4) The frame in a news story was coded as 1 if presented, and 0 if not.

30
 (5) Each source in a news report was coded and counted. The same source that

appeared twice or more times in a story was counted only once, as recommended in

previous studies (Brossard & McComas, 2004; Trumbo, 1996).

Inter-coder Reliability

To test the inter-coder reliability, 5% of the global warming stories from the

People’s Daily and The New York Times were selected at random. All three coders

(including the author of this thesis) are Chinese—two were journalism graduate students

and the third was a computer science student.

For the global warming stories in the People’s Daily, the percentage of

agreements ranged from a low of 88.2% for categories 7.2 and 7.4 to a high of 100% for

categories 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7.1, 8.1, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5, 8.6, 8.7, 8.9 and 8.10. The overall intercoder

reliability for coding of the People’s Daily for the study was 96.75%, which were all

regarded as satisfactory for a content analysis (Riffe et al., 2005).

For the global warming stories in The New York Times, The percentage of

agreements ranged from a low of 83.7% for categories 7.2, 7.3, 7.4 and 8.7 to a high of

100% for categories 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7.1, 8.3 and 8.9. The overall intercoder reliability for

coding of The New York Times for the study was 91.67%, which were also regarded as

satisfactory (Riffe et al., 2005).

31
 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS

This study examined whether there were extra-media influences on the issue-

attention cycle, and whether the issue-attention cycle model was applicable to the press in

China. It recorded the number of global warming stories in the People’s Daily and The

New York Times from 1998 through 2007, as well as the frames and sources each story

used.

The number of global warming stories in The New York Times was nearly twice

that in the People’s Daily. From 1998 through 2007, the former published a total of 207

stories, whereas the latter published 122. There were 21 global warming stories appearing

on the front page of The New York Times, but none appeared on the front page of the

People’s Daily. While global warming stories in The New York Times showed more or

less a cyclical pattern, the stories in the People’s Daily did not. The number of global

warming stories in the People’s Daily gradually increased as time passed.

In both newspapers, the most frequently used frame was new evidence/research.

However, in the People’s Daily, the frames of consequences and international relations

took the second and third places, while in The New York Times, the second and third most

frequently used frames were domestic politics and international relations.

The People’s Daily used a total of 136 sources, or 1.2 sources per story; The New

York Times used 572 sources, or 2.8 sources per story. In both newspapers, the most

frequently quoted source was officials.

32
RQ1: What were the changes, if any, in the amount of global warming coverage in

the People’s Daily and The New York Times from 1998 through 2007?

There were a total of 122 global warming stories in the People’s Daily, and the

number increased steadily from 1998 through 2007. In 1998 there were only three stories,

but in 2007, the People’s Daily published 37 stories (see Table 1).

The New York Times published 207 global warming stories. In 1999, only five

such stories appeared in the newspaper—the smallest number in the 10 years under study.

The peak year for such stories was 2007, during which 36 stories were found in The New

York Times (see Table 1).

In both newspapers, 1998, 1999, and 2000 were the years in which there were

fewer global warming stories published compared to other years. The number of stories

in both newspapers increased dramatically in 2006, and reached their peak in 2007.

In general, the People’s Daily ran fewer stories about the global warming issue

than The New York Times in every year except 1999 and 2007. In those two years, the

number of global warming stories in the People’s Daily was one more than the number in

The New York Times.

While the number of global warming stories in the People’s Daily showed a rising

trend, the frequency in The New York Times displayed a more varied pattern: from 1998

to 2005, there was roughly a cyclical pattern. However, the number of global warming

stories doubled in 2006 and 2007, which broke the cycle. It should be noticed that

although the number of global warming stories in The New York Times displayed a

cyclical pattern, the overall number was increasing.

33
 Table 1: Frequencies of Global Warming Stories in the People’s Daily and The New
York Times, 1998-2007
Year 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Total
People’s 3 6 5 5 7 10 14 11 24 37 122
Daily (2.5%) (5.0%) (4.1%) (4.1%) (6.6%) (8.2%) (11.5%) (9.0%) (19.6%) (30.3%) (100%)
New 9 5 11 32 22 22 21 15 34 36 207
York (4.3%) (2.4%) (5.3%) (15.5%) (10.6%) (10.6%) (10.1%) (7.2%) (16.4%) (17.4%) (100%)
Times
X2 = 20.854, df = 9, p ≤ .02

None of the global warming stories published in the People’s Daily appeared on

the front page, while 19 (9.2%) of global warming stories were on the front page of The

New York Times.

Table 2: Placements of Global Warming Stories in the People’s Daily and The New
York Times, 1998-2007
Front page Other pages Total
People’s Daily 0 122 122
(0%) (100%) (100%)
New York Times 19 188 207
(9.2%) (90.8%) (100%)
X2 = 11.677, df = 1, p ≤ .001

RQ2a: What were the dominant frames of the global warming coverage in the

People’s Daily and The New York Times from 1998 through 2007?

New evidence/research, in which new studies, research, reports were introduced,

was the most frequently used frame in both the People’s Daily and The New York Times.

However, the new evidence/research’s percentage in the People’s Daily (32.3%)

was nearly 8% greater than it was in The New York Times (24.7%). The second most

common frame in the People’s Daily was consequences (22.1%), which referred to any

consequences that global warming might bring to the environment and human society. It

was closely followed by the frame of international relations (21.2%), which focused on
34
international conferences, treaties, talks, etc. Economics took the fourth place (9.1%),

followed by scientific background (7.7%) and domestic politics (7.7%) (see Table 3).

Interestingly, while domestic politics was the least-used frame in the People’s

Daily, it was the second most frequently employed frame in The New York Times

(19.0%). International relations was in the third place (18.3%), the same as it was in the

People’s Daily. The frame of consequences was tied with the frame of economics for

fourth place (15.9%) in The New York Times, followed by the frame of scientific

background (6.1%) (see Table 3).

In sum, the frames of new evidence/research and international relations were

emphasized and the frames of economics and scientific background appeared less

frequently in both newspapers. However, their use of the frame of consequences and the

frame of domestic politics were totally different.

35
Table 3: Frame Frequencies in Global Warming Coverage of the People’s Daily and The
New York Times, 1998-2007

Frame New Consequences International Economics Domestic Scientific Total

evidence/research relations politics background
People’s Daily 67 46 44 19 16 16 208
(32.2%) (22.1%) (21.2%) (9.1%) (7.7%) (7.7%) (100%)
New York 65 42 48 42 50 16 263
Times (24.7%) (15.9%) (18.3%) (15.9%) (19.0%) (6.1%) (100%)
X2 = 18.442, df = 5, p ≤ .005
rho = .457, n = 6, p ≤ .05
RQ2b: What frame changes, if any, were shown in the two newspapers’ coverage of

global warming from 1998 through 2007?

The absolute numbers and percentages of the six frames examined in this study

fluctuated from year to year in the two newspapers, and there was no clear pattern.

Nevertheless, some noticeable features in the use of frames over time were identified in

this study.

For the frames that were used in the People’s Daily, most of them took an almost

fixed proportion every year except the frames of economics and domestic politics. It can

be seen from the table (see Table 4) that both frames appeared more frequently in the

second half of this 10-year period, reaching their peak at 2007, with a percentage of

18.5% and 12.9% respectively. The use of new evidence/research was dominant: it was

the most mentioned frame every year, and sometimes it even took up half of all the

frames. Scientific background and consequences showed a very steady use, with the

former ranging from 0% to 14.3% and the latter from 11.1% and 31.3%.

Although the frame of new evidence/research was used most frequently in The New York

Times from 1998 through 2007, this was not the case for every year. For example, in

2002, only 9.7% stories contained the new evidence/research frame. The other frames in

the global warming stories in The New York Times also fluctuated from year to year: the

frame of scientific background was used most often in 2000 (12.5%) and was not used at

all in 2003. The frame of consequences was mentioned most often in 1999 (33.3%) and

was not used at all in 2005. In 1998, the global warming stories in The New York Times

used no frame of economics at all. But in 2003, the frame represented 28.1% of all

frames used in the stories. The frame of domestic politics also reached it peak in 2003
(28.1%), but just a year before, it appeared in only 6.5% of the stories. In 1999, no story

used the frame of international relations, but after two years, its proportion rose to 29.4%

(see Table 4).

38
Table 4: Frame Changes in the Global Warming Coverage of the People’s Daily and
The New York Times, 1998-2007

Year Newspaper New Scientific Consequences Economics Domestic International Total

evidence/research background politics relations
1998 People’s Daily 2 2 2 1 0 1 8
(25%) (25%) (25%) (12.5%) (0%) (12.5%) (100%)
New York Times 3 1 3 0 1 3 11
(27.3%) (9.1%) (27.3%) (0%) (9.1%) (27.3%) (100%)
1999 People’s Daily 6 1 3 1 0 2 13
(46.2%) (7.7%) (23.1%) (7.7%) (0%) (15.4%) (100%)
New York Times 3 1 3 1 1 0 9
(33.3%) (11. 1%) (33.3%) (11.1%) (11.1%) (0%) (100%)
2000 People’s Daily 4 0 2 1 0 1 8
(50% ) (0.0%) (25%) (12.5%) (0%) (12.5%) (100%)
New York Times 4 2 2 2 4 2 16
(25% ) (12.5%) (12.5%) (12.5%) (25%) (12.5%) (100%)
2001 People’s Daily 2 0 1 0 1 2 6
(33.3%) (0.0%) (16.7%) (0%) (16.7%) (33.3%) (100%)
New York Times 9 2 6 8 11 15 51
(17.6%) (3.9%) (11.8%) (15.7%) (21.6%) (29.4%) (100%)
2002 People’s Daily 4 1 1 0 0 3 9
(44.4%) (11.1%) (11.1%) (0%) (0%) (33.3%) (100%)
New York Times 3 2 6 6 6 8 31
(9.7%) (6.5%) (6.5%) (6.5%) (6.5%) (25.8%) (100%)
2003 People’s Daily 6 3 6 2 2 4 21
(28.6%) (14.3%) (28.6%) (9.5%) (9.5%) (19.0%) (100%)
New York Times 6 0 4 9 9 4 32
(18.8%) (0%) (12.5%) (28.1%) (28.1%) (12.5%) (100%)
2004 People’s Daily 10 1 4 1 0 4 20
(50% ) (5%) (20%) (5%) (0%) (20%) (100%)
New York Times 9 2 5 5 2 4 27
(33.3%) (7.4%) (18.5%) (18.5%) (7.4%) (14.8%) (100%)
2005 People’s Daily 6 1 5 1 0 3 16
(37.9%) (6.3%) (31.3%) (6.3%) (0%) (18.8%) (100%)
New York Times 5 1 0 1 3 3 13
(38.5%) (7.7%) (0%) (7.7%) (23.1%) (23.1%) (100%)
2006 People’s Daily 20 7 9 4 2 7 49
(40.8%) (14.3%) (18.4%) (8.2%) (4.1%) (14.3%) (100%)
New York Times 14 4 7 4 4 2 35
(40% ) (11. 4%) (20%) (11.4%) (11.4%) (5.7%) (100%)
2007 People’s Daily 16 0 7 10 7 14 54
(29.7%) (0.0%) (12.9%) (18.5%) (12.9%) (25.9%) (100%)
New York Times 10 1 9 7 9 7 43
(23.3%) (2.3%) (20.9%) (16.3%) (20.9%) (16.3%) (100%)
RQ3a: What were the dominant sources of the global warming coverage in the

People’s Daily and The New York Times from 1998 through 2007?

The average number of sources used in The New York Times was about four times

of that used in the People’s Daily. In both newspapers, officials combined (including

categories of domestic officials, officials of other countries, and officials of the United

Nations and other intergovernmental organizations) were the dominant sources, with

those sources appearing in 62.5% in the stories of the People’s Daily and 39.2% in the

New York Times’ stories.

However, if looked at the source usage in separate categories, the results were

different. The most frequently mentioned source in the People’s Daily was officials of

other countries (30.1%), and the second most often used one was domestic officials

(22.1%). In The New York Times, domestic scientists (24.9%) were most often cited, and

the second most frequently mentioned source was also domestic officials (23.6%).

Interestingly, the People’s Daily quoted more foreign officials than domestic

officials, while The New York Times was more likely to publish comments from domestic

officials. That pattern was also the case for the source categories of domestic scientists,

scientists from other countries, and scientists from the UN and other intergovernmental

organizations. The People’s Daily quoted more scientists from other countries (20.6%)

than domestic scientists (18.3%), although the difference between the two was not great.

In contrast, The New York Times interviewed far more domestic scientists (24.9%) than

scientists from other countries (2.3%) and those of the U.N and the other international

environmental organizations (2.8%).

 Compared to The New York Times, the voices of interest groups, including both

environmental groups and industry groups, appeared infrequently in the People’s Daily:

they took a combined 3% of all the sources that appeared in the global warming stories in

the Chinese newspaper. In The New York Times, the proportion of industry groups

(12.4%) was slightly more than that of environmental groups (9.8%). Ordinary persons

took 2.8% in the People’s Daily and 3.0% in The New York Times of all the sources

quoted respectively (see Table 5).

Table 5: Source Frequencies in the Global Warming Coverage of the People’s Daily
and The New York Times, 1998-2007

Source Officials Domestic Scientists Domestic Officials from Scientists from Ordinary Industry Environmental Others Total
from other officials from other scientists UN and other UN and other persons interest interest groups
countries countries intergovernmental intergovernmental groups
organizations organizations
People’s 41 30 28 24 14 8 4 2 2 2 136
Daily (30.1%) (22.1%) (20.6%) (18.3%) (10.3%) (5.9%) (3.0%) (1.5%) (1.5%) (1.5%) (100%)
New York 63 126 12 133 20 15 15 66 52 27 533
Times (11.8%) (23.6%) (2.3%) (24.9%) (3.8%) (2.8%) (2.8%) (12.4%) (9.8%) (5.3%) (100%)
X2 = 125.723, df = 9, p ≤ .005
rho = .164, n = 10, ns

RQ3b: What source changes, if any, were shown in the two newspapers’ coverage of

global warming from 1998 through 2007?

The number of sources in the People’s Daily, the same as the number of global

warming stories in it, increased rapidly in 2006 and 2007. The table (see Table 6) showed

that from 1998 to 2005, the biggest number of sources in the People’s Daily was 13.

However, in 2006, that number surged to 35 and then to 48 in 2007.

41
 However, because the number of sources in the People’s Daily each year was

relatively small, the differences between source categories may not be statistically

significant. And no clear pattern in source changes was identified. For example, in 1998,

1999 and 2003, there were no domestic scientists quoted. However, in the other years,

they were responsible for more than 20% of all the quotations. This irregularity seemed

true for other categories. There were always some years during which one category was

not mentioned at all, but in the other years they became the most frequently quoted

sources. One characteristic of source changes in the People’s Daily was that

environmental groups, industry groups, and ordinary persons only appeared in the latter

half of this 10-year period, and their numbers were small. Environmental groups only

appeared once in 2004 and 2005, and industry groups appeared once in 2005 and 2007.

Ordinary persons were quoted three times in 2006 (see Table 6)

In The New York Times, domestic scientists and officials had a relatively stable

share of all the sources quoted every year, although the use of the sources also fluctuated

as the sources of the People’s Daily did. For example, the proportion that the domestic

scientists represented was 50% in 1999 but in 2005 only 16.7% of all the sources quoted.

The frequencies of scientists of other countries and scientists of the United Nations and

the other intergovernmental organizations used in those 10 years studied were all below

10%, except in 1999 when 12.5% of the sources were foreign scientists. The frequencies

of domestic officials varied from 8.0% in 2006 to 33.3% in 1998. Officials of other

countries were not mentioned in the news stories published in 1998 and 1999, but their

voices took up more than 20% of quotations in 2001 and 2002. Officials of the United

Nations and other intergovernmental organizations represented the smallest share in the

42
officials source category: their biggest share was 7.4% in 2002. The voices from interest

groups were heard almost every year except in 1999 and 2000. There were five years in

which the sources from industry groups appeared more frequently than those from

environmental groups and one year in which their percentages were the same (see

Table 6).

43
Table 6: Source Changes in the Global Warming Stories in the People’s Daily and The New York Times,
1998-2007
Year N e wspape r D ome stic Scie nti st s fr om Scie ntists fro m D ome sti c Offi ci als O ffi cials from Envi ron me ntal Indu st ry O rd in ary Ot he rs Tot al
scientists othe r c ount ries UN and othe r o ffi cia ls fro m U N a nd ot he r inte re st gro up s inte re st persons
inte rg ove rn ment al othe r inte rgo vernme nt al grou ps
organ iz atio ns cou nt rie s o rga niz at ion s
19 98 People ’s Daily 0 1 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 5
(0% ) (2 0%) (40% ) (20% ) (20 %) (0% ) (0%) (0% ) (0 % ) ( 0% ) (10 0%)
Ne w Yo rk 8 0 0 9 0 0 4 2 1 1 27
Ti me s (29.6% ) (0%) (0% ) (3 3.3% ) (0% ) (0% ) (1 4.8% ) (7.4% ) (3.7% ) (3 .7% ) (10 0%)
19 99 People ’s Daily 1 3 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 5
(2 0% ) (6 0% ) (0% ) (0% ) (0% ) (20 % ) (0%) (0% ) (0 % ) ( 0% ) (10 0%)
Ne w Yo rk 4 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 8
Ti me s (5 0% ) (12.5%) (0% ) (12.5 % ) (0% ) (0% ) (0%) (12.5% ) (0 % ) (12 .5% ) (10 0%)
20 00 People ’s Daily 0 0 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 4
(0% ) (0%) (50% ) (25% ) (25 %) (0% ) (0%) (0% ) (0 % ) ( 0% ) (10 0%)
Ne w Yo rk 10 0 2 6 1 1 3 0 0 0 23
Ti me s (4 3 .5% ) (0%) (8.7% ) (26.1 % ) (4.3 %) (4.3% ) (1 3.0% ) (0% ) (0 % ) ( 0% ) (10 0%)
20 01 People ’s Daily 2 1 1 4 3 2 0 0 0 0 13
(15.4% ) (7.7%) (7.7% ) (3 0.8% ) (23.1%) (15.4% ) (0%) (0% ) (0 % ) ( 0% ) (10 0%)
Ne w Yo rk 12 0 3 31 19 5 5 14 1 4 94
Ti me s (12.8% ) (0%) (3.3% ) (3 2.9% ) (20.2%) (5.3% ) (5.3%) (14.9% ) (1.2% ) (4.3% ) (10 0%)
20 02 People ’s Daily 3 1 0 1 4 2 0 0 0 0 11
(27.3% ) (9.1%) (12.5% ) (9.1% ) (3 6.4% ) (18.2% ) (0%) (0% ) (0 % ) ( 0% ) (10 0%)
Ne w Yo rk 8 0 1 15 11 4 7 6 1 1 54
Ti me s (14.8% ) (0%) (1.9% ) (2 7.8% ) (20.4%) (7.4% ) (1 2.9% ) ( 11.1% ) (1.9% ) (1.9% ) (10 0%)
20 03 People ’s Daily 0 1 1 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 5
(0% ) (2 0%) (20% ) (40% ) (20 %) (0% ) (0%) (0% ) (0 % ) ( 0% ) (10 0%)
Ne w York 18 1 2 18 1 1 7 7 1 1 57
Ti me s (3 1 .6% ) (1.8%) (8.7% ) (31.6 % ) (1.8 %) (1.8% ) (1 2.3% ) (12.3% ) (1.8% ) (1.8% ) (10 0%)
20 04 P eople’s Daily 2 3 0 3 2 0 1 0 0 0 11
(18.2% ) (2 7 .3% ) (0% ) (2 7.3% ) (18.2%) (0% ) (9.1%) (0% ) (0 % ) ( 0% ) (10 0%)
Ne w Yo rk 13 4 0 7 8 2 4 10 0 0 48
Ti me s (2 7 .1% ) (8.3%) (0% ) (14.6 % ) (16.7%) (4.2% ) (8.3%) (20.8% ) (0 % ) ( 0% ) (10 0%)
20 05 People ’s Daily 3 3 0 0 5 0 1 1 0 0 13
(23.1% ) (23.1%) (0% ) (0% ) (3 8.5% ) (0% ) (7.7%) (7.7% ) (0 % ) ( 0% ) (10 0%)
Ne w Yo rk 7 1 2 12 4 0 9 3 0 4 42
Ti me s (16.7% ) (2.4%) (4.8% ) (2 8.6% ) (9.6 %) (0% ) (2 1.4% ) (7.1% ) (0 % ) (9.5% ) (10 0%)
20 06 People ’s Daily 9 5 1 7 7 3 0 0 3 0 35
(2 5 .7% ) (14.3%) (2.9% ) (20% ) (20 %) (8.6% ) (0%) (0% ) (8.6% ) ( 0% ) (10 0%)
Ne w Yo rk 29 2 1 7 8 3 8 13 8 8 87
Ti me s (3 3 .3% ) (2.3%) (1.2% ) (8.0% ) (9.1 %) (3.5% ) (9.1%) (14.9% ) (9.1% ) (9.1% ) (10 0%)
20 07 Peo p le ’s Da i ly 4 10 1 10 14 6 0 1 1 1 48
(8.3% ) (20.8% ) (2.1% ) (20.8 % ) (2 9.2% ) (12.5% ) (0% ) (2.1% ) (2.1% ) (2.1% ) (10 0% )
Ne w Yo r k 24 3 4 20 11 4 9 10 3 7 75
Ti me s (3 2% ) (4% ) (5.3% ) (26.7 % ) (14.7% ) (5.3% ) (12% ) (13.3% ) (4 % ) (9.3% ) (10 0% )
H1a: The global warming coverage of The New York Times from 1998 through 2007

will show a cyclical pattern.

H1a was supported. From 1998 through 2005, the change of the number of global

warming stories in The New York Times showed, roughly, a cyclical pattern. The number

of stories began to increase in 2006 and then in 2007. This increase in the last two years

under study might indicate a new cycle that received more attention from The New York

Times than the previous cycles (see Figure 1).

H1b: The global warming coverage of the People’s Daily from 1998 through 2007

will show a clear cyclical pattern.

H1b was not supported. From 1998 to 2007, there was no cyclical pattern of the

global warming stories in the People’s Daily. The number of global warming stories

displayed an increasing trend although it had downturns in 2000 and 2005. It should be

noticed that, similar to coverage in The New York Times, the number of global warming

stories in the People’s Daily increased rapidly in 2006 and 2007 (see Figure 1).
 40
30
New York Times
20
People's Daily
10
0
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Figure 1: Frequency Changes of Global Warming Stories in the People’s Daily and
The New York Times, 1998-2007

H2: The global warming coverage in the People’s Daily will show a less cyclical

pattern than that in The New York Times from 1998 through 2007.

H2 was also supported. As figure 1 shows, global warming coverage in the

People’s Daily did not show a cyclical pattern at all. Instead, it displayed a steadily rising

trend (see Figure 1).

46
 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

In this thesis, global warming coverage in the People’s Daily and The New York

Times was content analyzed in order to determine if Downs’ (1972) issue-attention cycle

model would be applicable to the media in China and if extra-media influences would

affect the issue-attention cycle. This study had three major findings:

First, the number of global warming stories in the People’s Daily did not show a

cyclical pattern at all, while the coverage in The New York Times did show such a pattern

from 1998 through 2005. However, in 2006 and 2007, the number of global warming

stories increased in both newspapers. The increased attention paid to the global warming

issue in The New York Times in 2006 and 2007 could be an indication of the extra-media

influences; it might also indicate the beginning of a new issue-attention cycle. This

finding suggested that instead of one issue-attention cycle, multiple cycles of one issue

might exist, especially for long-lasting issues like global warming. However, Downs’

(2007) issue-attention cycle may not be applicable to China, and the cycle model may

also be influenced by other extra-media factors.

Secondly, the dominant frames in the People’s Daily were new evidence/research

of global warming, the consequences of global warming, and international relations. The

frames of economics and domestic politics appeared more frequently after 2000. In The

New York Times, the most frequently used frames was also new evidence/research.

However, unlike the People’s Daily, domestic politics represented a large portion in the

global warming coverage in The New York Times.

The third major finding of this study related to the sources the two newspapers

quoted in their global warming stories. Consistent with the findings of previous studies,

47
both the People’s Daily and The New York Times used officials more than any other

sources. However, the People’s Daily tended to quote foreign officials and scientists

more often than domestic ones. While environmental groups and industry groups seldom

appeared in the stories in the People’s Daily, they were a major source in The New York

Times.

The study concluded that when major events tied to the global warming issue

occurred, such as the holding of international conferences and the publishing of domestic

policies, the number of global warming stories increased in both newspapers. That

finding suggested that extra-media influences, such as the government, the marketplace,

and interest groups, could exert some impact on global warming coverage. Nevertheless,

this speculation is still open to further study.

Issue-Attention Cycle

This study found that from 1998 through 2007, The New York Times published

207 stories, whereas the People’s Daily published 122. There were 21 global warming

stories appearing on the front page of The New York Times, but none appeared on the

front page of the People’s Daily. However, it should be noticed that The New York Times

publishes 50 to 100 pages everyday, while the People’s Daily publishes 16 pages. And as

the official newspaper of China, the front page of the People’s Daily is usually dedicated

to political news (Wang, 2006).

The findings of this study challenge Downs’ (1972) issue-attention cycle model.

Because the Kyoto protocol talk was held in December 1997, according to Downs’ theory

and previous studies (McComas & Shanahan, 1999; Trumbo, 1996; Trumbo & Shanahan,

2000), a new issue-attention cycle should form and develop after 1997. However, while

48
there was a cyclical pattern existing in the global warming coverage of The New York

Times, the global warming coverage of the People’s Daily showed no cyclical pattern at

all.

One reason that might explain the phenomenon that there was a steady increase of

the global warming coverage instead of a cyclical pattern in the People’s Daily was the

influences of government as well as international situations. On the one hand, as

environmental problems became serious in China, the Chinese government began to pay

attention to these problems, including global warming. As time passed, the Chinese

government put increasing emphasis on the global warming problem. Although the Kyoto

Protocol was passed in 1997, China did not ratify it until 2002. As found in this study, the

number of global warming stories in the People’s Daily began to increase after 2002. By

2005, the Chinese government had established a committee to investigate the climate

system and climate change, which received large exposure. The continued increase of

global warming stories in 2006 and 2007 could also be attributed to the influence of

politics. In 2006, the Chinese government and the National Coordination Committee on

Climate Change published the first official assessment of the climate situation in China,

which gave rise to much discussion in the media. In 2007, the Chinese government issued

China’s National Plan for Coping with Climate Change and the Scheme of China’s

Global Warming Policies. The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology also held a

press conference on the government’s plan to cope with global warming and reduce

greenhouse gas emissions. All these events may explain the significant increase in the use

of domestic politics as a frame and domestic officials as sources in the 2006 and 2007

coverage.

49
 On the other hand, international relations also seemed to have exerted a strong

impact on the global warming coverage in the People’s Daily. Global warming is a

international issue and has been deliberated by the international community. The findings

of this study suggest that when important international events related to global warming

occurred, the frequency of such stories would increase. In 2002, two stories of seven

reported that 15 European countries had ratified the Kyoto Protocol and promised to

reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. In 2004, China, Japan, and Korea established a

joint working group to solve environmental problems, including global warming. China

also set up a committee of experts from six countries to protect the wet lands in the

Northeast part of China. In 2006 and 2007, the United Nations held two conferences on

climate change. In 2007, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore as well as the

Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change together received a Nobel Peace Prize for

their contributions to raising people’s awareness of the seriousness of global warming

(“Nobel peace prize”, 2007). All these events received great attention in the People’s

Daily.

In other years, when no major events in politics or international relations relate to

global warming occurred, the numbers of global warming stories in the People’s Daily

were fewer. As those events discussed above happened one after another in the past few

years, the People’s Daily gradually put global warming on its agenda.

As for The New York Times, although from 1998 to 2005, the number of its global

warming stories went up and down as Downs’ issue-attention cycle predicted, the

dramatically surge in the number of stories in 2006 and 2007 was unanticipated. That

intense attention paid to the global warming issue in the two years might suggest that a

50
new cycle had formed and developed. The results showed that in 2004 and 2005, the

attention paid to the global warming issue in The New York Times had declined.

However, in 2006, when the United Nations’ Conference on Climate Change was held in

Kenya, just as the People’s Daily had, The New York Times poured its resources into that

event. The global warming issue, which have not gone into the last stage of the issue-

attention cycle and faded out as Downs’ model predicted, entered the second and third

stage of the issue-attention cycle again.

However, the surge and fall in the number of global warming stories in The New

York Times could also be attributed to major politics and international events. Although

from 1998 to 2005, the change of the number of stories displayed a cyclical pattern, the

argument that the forming of a cycle was due to Downs’ (1972) explanation that

environmental problems had no intrinsically exciting qualities was questionable. As this

study found, the number of global warming stories in The New York Times in 2001

increased from 11 to 32. This increase might not indicate that the global warming issue

had entered the second and third stages in Downs’s (1972) issue-attention cycle, in which

people began to understand the seriousness and costs of an environmental issue and paid

considerable attention to it. A more possible reason for this increase was that in 2001,

U.S. President Bush announced that the United States would withdraw from the Kyoto

Protocol and proposed alternative plans for solving the global warming problem. As

documented in the analysis of The New York Times’ global warming coverage in 2001,

the most frequently used frames were domestic politics and international relations, and

the most quoted sources were domestic politicians. The New York Times devoted many of

its stories about global warming to this topic—nearly two thirds of them talked about

51
President Bush’s position and his plans, and the reactions of the United Nations and other

countries. After 2001, the number of global warming stories declined; however, it was

still much higher than what it had been before 2001. In 2006, as also the case with the

People’s Daily, the number of global warming stories in The New York Times more than

doubled that in 2005. This increase in coverage might be caused by the same reason as

that in the People’s Daily—so many critical events about global warming happened in

these two years.

It should be noticed that the marketplace might also have influenced the global

warming coverage in The New York Times. Unlike the People’s Daily, industry groups

had much to say in this U.S. elite newspaper, and they appeared more and more

frequently after 2004. The finding showed that after 2004, every year there were a certain

number of stories concentrated on automobile and oil companies’ attitudes and

movement toward global warming.

Extra-media Influences

The analysis of frames showed that the frames of economics and domestic politics

were used less often in the People’s Daily than in The New York Times. However, it did

not necessarily indicate that the influences coming from the government and the

marketplace were less intense on the People’s Daily than they were on The New York

Times.

The emphasis on the frames of new evidence/research and consequences and de-

emphasis on the frames of domestic politics and economics in the People’s Daily might

be caused for three reasons. First, global warming is a scientific problem, and scientists

are still working on this problem today, therefore, media coverage of new scientific

52
research and discoveries of global warming could be part of a routine global warming

reporting. Second, why people are so serious about global warming is that it could cause

numerous problems to the environment and the human society. China, where the

environmental conditions are deteriorating, is a victim of the many consequences of

global warming. Third, it is only in recent years that the Chinese government began to

take the global warming problem seriously and published a series of policies and plans.

As a result of the Kyoto protocol, it is not very imperative for China, a developing nation,

to reduce its heavy greenhouse gas emissions immediately. This could probably explain

why there was a lack of coverage on the economic costs of global warming in the

People’s Daily.

Although the frames of domestic politics only took a small part in the global

warming coverage in the People’s Daily, officials dominated in the global warming

stories. An interesting finding was that foreign officials were used as news sources more

often than Chinese officials. Since the People’s Daily is the official voice of the China

government, this finding sounds surprising. An analysis of news frames may help explain

this “surprise.” Because the domestic politics frame was used much less frequently in the

People’s Daily than the international relations frame, domestic officials would appear in

the global warming news stories less frequently than foreign officials. That was why in

2006 and 2007, when the number of stories using the frame of domestic politics

increased, the number of domestic officials also increased accordingly. In the scientists

source category, scientists of other countries were also quoted more frequently than

domestic scientists. This finding may reflect the reality that scientific research on global

warming in China is still behind that in some developed countries. The lack of voices

53
from interest groups in the coverage of the People’s Daily was not surprising. Interest

groups were new in China, and their influence was still very limited.

The New York Times had both similarities and differences with the People’s Daily

in the use of frames and sources. There were three similarities. First, The New York Times

also used the frames of new evidence/research more often than other frames. The reason

might be the same: global warming is a scientific problem. Second, international relations

was the third most frequently used frame in The New York Times as well. This was

probably because global warming, as a global problem, had entered into the world

politics agenda. Third, the most dominant source in The New York Times was also

officials, with domestic officials taking the lion’s share. This finding was consistent with

the findings of previous studies. Another possible reason for this finding was that

political debates about global warming in the United States were much more intense than

they were in China.

There were two major differences in the use of frames and sources between The

New York Times and the People’s Daily: First, the frame of domestic politics was given

high priority in The New York Times, where it ranked second among all the frames. A

possible reason was that in the United States, global warming had already become an

indispensable topic on the political agenda. Second, both environmental interest groups

and industry interest groups were much more often (10%) quoted in The New York Times

than in the People’s Daily. That difference was probably due to the fact that interest

groups had developed for many years in the United States and become much more

influential than their counterparts in China.

54
 In sum, the results of this study showed that the changes in the amount of the

global warming coverage in the People’s Daily and The New York Times differed, and

neither fully followed Downs’ (1972) issue-attention cycle. The change in media

coverage of environmental issues could be affected by major events as well as other

extra-media influences. The analysis of frames and sources found that many differences

between the use of frames and sources in the People’s Daily and The New York Times.

However, whether the difference in the change of the amount of global warming

coverage in the two newspapers was completely due to the extra-media influences on

them remain open to further exploring. As Shoemaker and Reese (1996) suggested, there

are many factors that had influences on media coverage, such as journalistic routines,

organizational structures, ideology, etc. Since all those factors were different in China

and the United States, they should have interacted with the extra-media influences to

influence the media coverage in both countries in different ways.

Limitations

This study still has several limitations. First, it only examined one newspaper in

each of the two countries, which might not be representative of all media in the two

countries. There were many other newspapers in China and the United States, and their

global warming coverage could be vary from that found in the two newspapers studied.

Second, this study only content analyzed the news stories about global warming

but excluded editorials. As the global warming issue was becoming a major topic both

domestically and internationally, more and more editorials about this issue were

published in newspapers. The exclusion of editorials might skew the results of this study.

55
 Future Studies

To further investigate whether the issue-attention cycle previous studies have

found in the U.S. media is applicable to other countries, a multi-country content analysis

should be conducted. For example, the European countries’ attitudes toward the global

warming issue are totally different from those of China and the United States. Therefore,

including their news coverage about global warming in future studies would broaden

understanding of the applicability of Downs’ (1972) model.

In the meantime, more newspapers from each country should be examined in

future studies. Involving more newspapers could make the samples of studies more

representative and lead to, hopefully, a broader and deeper understanding global warming

coverage in a given country and internationally.

What is more, in recent years, television is overtaking newspaper as the most

powerful media in the world. Studies have found that TV news coverage was perceived

to be more credible than newspaper news among college students (Lee, 1978). And while

the number of audience of newspapers is shrinking, the number of television viewers is

increasing (Einav & Carey, 2008). Therefore, except newspapers, television news

coverage of the global warming issue can also be content analyzed for better

understanding of the issue-attention cycle.

56
 REFERENCES

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Gazette 66, 553-565.

Bowker’s News Media Directory (2007). New Jersey: New Providence.

Briefing (2008, July 21). Time, p. 13.

Carey, J. (2008). China’s carbon explosion, Business Week, Retrieved April 20, 2008 from Lexis-
Nexis Academic search.

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 APPENDIX A: CODING BOOK

Introduction

This coding sheet is aimed at examining the coverage of global warming in the

People’s Daily and The New York Times from 1998 through 2007. It records the

prominence, frames, and sources of each news story. The following six definitions are

important in selecting and analyzing the content under study.

Term Definitions

News Story

Stories that exclude editorials, columns, letters to the editor, and advertisements. Any

stories that merely mention the word “global warming” but does not focus on the issue

will be excluded from this study. For example: “… gathering for questions about the

issues he considers important: health care, global warming, poverty, the economy.”

Global Warming

Global warming refers to “the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's

near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation, and the

reason of the phenomenon, while still in debate, is acknowledged by most scientists that

is the emission of greenhouse gases” (IPCC glossary, 2008, p. 3).

Greenhouse Effect

The greenhouse effect refers to “the process in which the emission of infrared

radiation by the atmosphere warms a planet’s surface” (IPCC glossary, 2008, p.3). The

term is believed to come from an incorrect analogy with the warming of air inside

a greenhouse compared to the air outside the greenhouse.

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Greenhouse Gas

Greenhouse gas refers to “a gas that absorbs radiation at specific wavelengths within

the spectrum of radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface and by clouds, which in turn

emits infrared radiation from a level where the temperature is colder than the surface”

(IPCC glossary, 2008, p.3). Water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide

(N2O), methane (CH4), and ozone (O3) are primary greenhouse gases.

Frame

Frames are “organizing principles that are socially shared and persistent over time,

that work symbolically to meaningfully structure the social world” (Reese, 2001, p. 11).

Source

In this study, a source is defined as a person or an interest group whose words are

directly quoted by reporters. That can be indicated by attributions such as “he said,” “she

argued,” or as so-and-so put it.

Coding Steps

The following steps should be taken in the coding process:

(1) Using key words “global warming,” “greenhouse effect,” and “climate

change” to search for appropriate news stories. While the reports in the People’s Daily

are searched in the newspapers’ own database, the stories in The New York Times are

searched in Lexis-Nexis Academic database. All stories will be read to determine

whether they are appropriate for this study or not (Apply the definition of a news story as

mentioned above).

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 (2) The date (year/month/day) of the news stories will be coded.

(3) The words of each news story will be counted. A pretest of all the news reports

on one issue of the People’s Daily and The New York Times will be done to decide the

average length of a report in those two newspapers, thus to better understand the

prominence of the global warming coverage in both newspapers.

(4) The frames in a news story will be coded. A frame is coded 1 if presented in a

report and 0 if not.

(5) Each source in a news report will be coded. The sources will be counted. The

same source appears twice or more times in a report will be counted only once.

Coding Category

V1 Story ID

Each news story will be assigned a number as its ID.

V2 Headline

This variable is the headline of a news story.

V3 Newspaper

This variable is the name of the newspaper that publishes a news story.

V4 Date (yyyy/mm/dd)

This variable is the date (year/month/day) when a news report was published.

V5 Placement

This variable refers to the page on which a news story is covered.

V6 Prominence

This variable is the length of the news report.

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7 Frame

V7.1 New research/evidence

The announcement of a new government study, new scientific report, environmental

group report, or current weather report.

V7.2 Scientific background

General scientific or technological background information of the global warming

issue.

V7.3 Consequence

The bad or good consequences that global warming may bring, including predictions.

V7.4 Economics

The costs of remedies or solutions for the global warming problem.

V7.5 Domestic politics

The government laws, policies, and regulations as well as officials’ speeches related

to the global warming issue.

V7.6 International relations

The international summits, forums, and treaties about the global warming issue.

8 Sources

V8.1 Domestic scientists

University professors or government organizations’ researchers working in the

newspaper’s country.

V8.2 Scientists of other countries

University professors or government organizations’ researchers in other countries.

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V8.3 Scientists of the UN and other intergovernmental organizations

Scientists working in the United Nations, or other intergovernmental organizations,

such as Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), European Environmental

Agency (EEA), and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

V8.4 Domestic officials

For China, central and local government officials, or representatives of the National

People’s Congress, the law-making body in China. For the United States, the members of

the Congress (senators and representatives), and federal, state, and/or local government

officials.

V8.5 Officials of other countries

The government officials in other countries.

V8.6 Officials of the UN and other intergovernmental organizations

Officials working in the United Nations, or other intergovernmental organizations,

such as Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), European Environmental

Agency (EEA), and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

V8.7 Environmental interest groups

An interest group (also advocacy group, lobby group, pressure group or special

interest group) is “an organized collection of people who seek to influence political

decisions and policy, without seeking election to public office” (source?). The

environmental interest groups are interest groups involved in environmental protection.

V8.8 Business interest groups

Interest groups or person represent the stance and benefits of businesses, industries,

companies, etc.

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V8.9 Ordinary persons

Ordinary citizen

V8.10 Others

This category includes sources that cannot be categorized by any of the above-

mentioned categories.

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 APPENDIX B: CODING SHEET

V1 Story ID __ __ __

V2 Headline

_________________________

V3 Newspaper ___

1 = The People’s Daily 2 = The New York Times

V4 Date (yyyy/mm/dd) __ __ __ __/ __ __/ __ __

V5 Placement ___

1 = Front page 2 = Other pages

V6 Prominence __ __ __ __

7 Frames (Present=1/Not Present=0)

V7.1New evicences/research__

V7.2Scientific background __

V7.3Consequence__

V7.4Economics__

V7.5Domestic politics__

V7.6International relations__

8 Sources

V8.1Domestic scientists__

V8.2Scientists from other countries__

V8.3Scientists from UN and other intergovernmental organizations__

V8.4Domestic officials__

V8.5 Officials from other countries__

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 V8.6Officials from UN and other intergovernmental organizations__

V8.7Environmental interest groups__

V8.8Business interest groups__

V8.9 Ordinary persons__

V8.10 Others__

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Date: 2008.09.09 15:28:45 -04'00'