Influence of Media Narratives on Climate Change Perception and Policy Action

Abstract

This study investigated how media narratives coalesce with public understanding of climate change and how this nexus autonomously or dependently affects policy formulation. Through a comparative analysis of about two decades of coverage, the investigation traced how framing devices map the salience of climate phenomena, the resulting societal effects, and the translation of both into or away from affirmative legislative cycles. Utilising a library-oriented, multi-language archive, the methodology interwove framing and agenda-setting inquiry with peer-reviewed journals, meta-analyses, grey literature, and datasets from both content analysis and semi-structured interviews. Findings revealed that portrayals centred on cataclysmic thresholds typically evoked either hyper-vigilant maladaptation or a dispassionate paralysis, while accounts qualifying that danger with achievable mitigation milestones fostered citizenship-engaged persistence. Ideological contamination of the coverage, especially sensationalised partisanship that discretely reframed findings, corrupted consensus framing and attenuated socio-political solidarity. The report therefore affirmed that factually layered and disaggregated accounts, communicating uncertainty in proportion to its scientific weighting, are critical to sustaining a granular public and legislative discourse. Recommendations underscore the imperative of systematic media literacy curricula, the institutional embedding of journalist-academic collaboration on climate datasets, and policy-regulatory frameworks that reward transparent and data-rich climate reporting in conscious civic awareness-building.