Framing Climate Change: A Multi-level Model

Much framing research has focused on climate change, the threat of the 21st century. Drawing on theoretical conceptualizations, however, the authors argue that these empirical studies largely fail to provide more thorough insights: They use frame as a ‘catch-all term’ or do not account for the hegemonic nature of framing. Therefore, attempting to add more depth and breadth to the research on climate change framing, the authors have analyzed three mainstream and two alternative news outlets in northern Belgium. This paper will discuss the five detected frames and their respective ideologically coloured ‘subframes’ in detail, providing comprehensive frame matrices. Of particular interest are the similarities and differences among the subframes, for example, regarding the views on mitigative/adaptive action. These stem from the overarching Anthropocentric and Biocentric Masterframes. Most importantly, this research is one of the first to integrate framing and hegemony research, while also making tangible the deconstruction-reconstruction frames of Brulle (2010).