Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Uncertainty discourses in the context of climate change: a corpus-assisted analysis of UK national newspaper articles

Collins, Luke C.; Nerlich, Brigitte

Authors

Luke C. Collins

Brigitte Nerlich



Abstract

Uncertainty is intrinsic to science, to knowledge acquisition and risk assessment. When communicating about climate change however, uncertainty can be used and understood as ‘not knowing’, i.e. as ignorance. In this article we aim to understand how ‘uncertainty’ is used in a specific cultural and media context at two important periods in time. Using a corpus linguistic approach, we examine how ‘uncertainty’ is used in the context of UK press coverage of climate change in 2010 (following ‘Climategate’) and in 2014-15, after the latest IPCC report had been published. We find that after climategate and the (failed) Copenhagen summit ‘uncertainty’ was used to question the authority and credibility of climate science; after the latest IPCC report and in the run-up to the (more successful) Paris summit discussions focused on uncertainties inherent in various climate change mitigation activities and associated with the economy, environment and politics more generally.

Citation

Collins, L. C., & Nerlich, B. (2016). Uncertainty discourses in the context of climate change: a corpus-assisted analysis of UK national newspaper articles. Communications, 41(3), https://doi.org/10.1515/commun-2016-0009

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 29, 2016
Publication Date Sep 2, 2016
Deposit Date Oct 13, 2016
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Communications: the European Journal of Communication Research
Electronic ISSN 1613-4087
Publisher De Gruyter
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 41
Issue 3
DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/commun-2016-0009
Keywords Uncertainty; Climate change; Climate science; UK press; Corpus linguistics
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/819369
Publisher URL https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/comm.2016.41.issue-3/commun-2016-0009/commun-2016-0009.xml

Files





Downloadable Citations