How people make sense of climate issues in the news

Abstract

This paper asks how people make sense of climate issues in the news. As part of a study in Norway, with repeated interviews and open-ended questionnaires, we invited people to share their thoughts on three real and recent news stories. The examples were related to climate change on local, national and global scales, with varying levels of conflict and different narrative frameworks and visual components. We find that news articles with different characteristics invited three modes of sense-making: inconclusive reasoning, moral stance-taking, and reiterating climate discourse. Our study contributes to untangle central questions about how journalism with various forms of anchoring might mitigate low engagement with climate news. Methodologically, the study provides innovation in the form of a qualitative study with real news examples. In concluding, we discuss why the most important aspects of climate change make the least sense as news.

Introduction

Climate change is fraught with feelings of futility, and such sentiments are reflected in the ways people engage with news on climate issues. Climate communication scholarship has underlined persistent problems regarding the perceived complexity of climate change, also as a hindrance for individual and societal action (Bushell et al., 2017; Moser, 2010; Wolf and Moser, 2011). The media has been criticized for demoting citizens to “spectators or bystanders” (Carvalho, 2010: 176), and climate news coverage feed into social representations centered on fear and resignation (Höijer, 2010). Audiences of climate news express low beliefs in their abilities to effect change. Political scientists view this as a problem of efficacy, the belief that change is possible, and that individuals can contribute to such change (Campbell, 1971). Studies have used quantitative surveys or experiments to isolate distinct dimensions of efficacy, and test effects of different components of media content to improve messaging (Diamond and Urbanski, 2022; Hart and Feldman, 2016; Meijers et al., 2019). Correspondingly, media psychologists have mobilized construal level theory (Trope and Liberman, 2010) and approached similar questions as concerning psychological distance between individuals and climate issues (Duan et al., 2021; Jones et al., 2017).

In this paper, we approach the problem differently, with a qualitative approach to audience sense-making of climate news, as experienced in everyday life. Sense-making covers processes of knowledge construction, and allows us to study how people navigate information. We take inspiration from studies of climate news audiences that problematize assumptions about effects (Happer and Philo, 2016; Olausson, 2011) and indicate that people experience climate news as complex and abstract, as lacking spatial-temporal or relatable anchoring (Jensen, 2017). In our study, we dig into what people make of examples of actual climate news from media outlets in their communities, while maintaining an everyday life context involving in-depth interviews and a data collection over time. We explore connections between different characteristics of climate journalism, different climate-related issues, and audiences’ sense-making. With this intent, our research question is: How do people make sense of climate issues in the news?

To answer this question, we draw on a three-step data collection process, based on a small panel of informants (N = 30) living in Norway. Lifeworld interviews (step 1) where followed up with a qualitative online survey (step 2) in which the informants commented on three different news stories from recent Norwegian media, followed by new interviews (step 3) with selected informants, to allow for elaboration on the survey and the chosen examples. Based on insights from previous research we chose news stories that differed concerning (1) spatial grounding from the local via the national to the global; (2) the extent to which the story concerned an issue with a clear solution; and (3) the extent to which the story presented political disagreement or controversy. Our study design therefore enables us to study sense-making of climate news with different characteristics, including what climate news people avoid or engage with.

In the following, we first review relevant literature to substantiate our choice of three news examples, and contextualize our use of these in the research process. After accounting for our approach, we analyze our findings. We highlight three modes of sense making: inconclusive reasoning drawing on background knowledge, stance-taking grounded in a moral compass, and reiterating positions in climate discourse – and then discuss when climate news stops making.

Conflict, efficacy and psychological distance

Several strands of literature are relevant to untangle the relationship between climate news coverage and audiences’ sense-making: Scholarship that argues for the importance of narrative and especially conflict and framing; efficacy research that highlights clarity and solutions, and research highlighting on psychological proximity.

As basic narrative theory tells us, stories need a form (Puckett, 2016: 2). This is picked up in different strands of policy research. Policy issues need to be communicated structured with recognizable elements that lay out a setting, a plot, characters with roles as victims, heroes and villains and a moral (Schlaufer et al., 2022). Narrative in this sense is also, clearly, central to any journalistic endevour.

Several elements of such a narrative structure have been found lacking in media reports of climate change, which are part of complicated cultural discourse (Fløttum and Gjerstad, 2017). Firstly, such reports rarely provide agentic roles for citizens: The media have been lamented for presenting climate change as the concern of elites, putting citizens on the sideline (Carvalho, 2010: 176). Moreover, climate news does not represent any constructive end point, but rather feed into social representations centered on fear and resignation (Höijer, 2010). This alarmist coverage amounts to something akin to “climate porn” (Ereaut and Segnit, 2006: 7). Especially visuals have been given attention in this regard (Schroth et al., 2014). Thirdly, the villain is vague, “externalized and becomes socially disembodied” (Swyngedouw, 2010: 228). The result leaves no room for imagined resolutions, and even denies actual conflict between active interests.

The literature on news report frames also provides clues as to how different coverage matters for climate communication. Moser (2010) underlined problems with reaching different target groups with singular frames, combined with the skillful use of power of frames by contrarians. The division between frames that highlight general trends and information (thematic frames) versus case-based or episodic frames (Iyengar, 1996), has been found to matter for endorsement and attribution of responsibility (e.g., Hart, 2011; Springer and Harwood, 2015).

Work from two other disciplines shed further light, giving attention to the audience. Since the 1950s, efficacy, defined as a sense that “political and social change is possible, and that the individual citizen can play a part in bringing about this change” (Campbell, 1971: 187), has become “one of the most-researched political attitudes” in political science (Martin et al., 2018: 131). Efficacy has been sliced into different parts, including internal (that you are capable of understanding and acting on political issues) and external (that the political system would respond to your actions) as well as response efficacy (that said political response will be effective) (Hornsey et al., 2021). From such conceptual developments, political scientists have built survey instruments to substantiate the concepts, and test relations to different variables. Also within communication studies, much attention has been given to develop measurements for distinct dimensions of efficacy (e.g., Gil De Zúñiga et al., 2017).

The same can be said of research on climate change and efficacy: “Conflicting constructs and measures” is a recurring diagnosis (Crosman et al., 2019: 2329).

[I]nternal political efficacy in the realm of climate change requires confidence in one’s understanding of politics in general, one’s understanding of politics as it applies to climate change specifically, and one’s understanding of climate change itself, as well as in one’s ability to effectively participate on the issue of climate change (Hart and Feldman, 2016: 7).

This could be a cue to approach climate communication’s impact on efficacy in a holistic manner. Yet, the complexity has instead led to further development of sophisticated surveys to test relations between message exposure and different aspects of efficacy. Studies have exposed participants to textual informational messages (Hornsey et al.,. 2015), video messages (Angill-Williams and Davis, 2022), “visual impact metaphors” in still images (Meijers et al., 2019), virtual reality content (Meijers et al., 2022), and images mimicking Instagram posts (DiRusso and Myrick, 2021). Also features of journalistic content has been tested in a similar vein, e.g., by exposing respondents for negative versus positive news (Diamond and Urbanski, 2022), testing the effect of hard deadlines when describing the climate crisis (Kohl and Stenhouse, 2021), or the effects of so-called “solutions journalism” (Thier and Lin, 2022).

The research finds certain textual features (e.g., negative framing or clear deadlines) and certain imagery (e.g., visualizing concrete measures or the impact of climate change) relates positively to aspects of efficacy. The assumption is that such insights, if put into practice by communicators, could mitigate feelings of futility and lack of engagement. However, as found in studies of “solutions journalism” (Thier and Lin, 2022), it appears fundamentally difficult for journalism to inspire positive emotions in audiences regarding climate change, and this complicates the study of efficacy mechanisms.

Media psychology has approached the question of engagement with climate news differently. A dominant strand mobilizes construal level theory (Trope and Liberman, 2010) which explains that “psychological distance affects the level of abstraction at which people mentally represent the world around them” (Soderberg et al., 2015). Several studies report support for this concerning climate issues. Jones et al. (2017) used a survey experiment and found that climate communication with lower levels of uncertainty and social distance were positively related to climate concern. From there, research tends to focus on differences between individuals, e.g., concerning political views or environmental values (Rickard et al., 2016). The core take-away from this strand of work is the key role of felt distance – geographic, social, and temporal.

By highlighting the role of narratives and framing, concrete solutions and psychological distance, these bodies of work substantiate the challenges for climate journalism. The studies also help us understand why journalism on climate issues can be relatable to audiences in different degrees. Still, there are inherent limitations to research that isolates individual elements to test their effect in an setting cut loose from everyday life experiences. Low efficacy and psychological distancing are socially constituted. Sociologists have highlighted everyday life as essential to how people live with climate change, as in Norgaard’s pioneering study of how denial of climate change was ingrained in ways of life in a small Norwegian community (Norgaard, 2011). Comprehending the scales of climate change is a fundamental problem, and climate change remains disconnected from how humans think and feel (Hulme, 2008; Verlie, 2021). To better grasp what climate journalism people avoid or engage with, audience reception analyses focused on sense-making in everyday life offers an alternative approach.

Approach, methods and data: Making sense of climate news

Audiences’ interpretations of climate news are situated in everyday contexts, where people individually and socially draw on different resources, values, cultural discourses and mental models. The concept of sense-making captures such processes. Sense-making refers to theories of ongoing processes of knowledge construction, including how people navigate uncertainty and fill gaps. Theories of sense-making originate in organizational studies, developed to understand rationalizations and contextual interactions (Weick, 1995) and in library and communication science (Dervin, 1998) to understand interpretations of information. The latter perspective has been applied to understand everyday engagement in social media discussions on climate change, and is concerned with how people navigate information by building bridges to other perceptions (Moe et al., 2023). Similar studies analyze sense-making by discussing how climate change fundamentally challenges the model of “the-world-in-the-head” that news audiences rely on (Jensen, 2017), or through social representation theory (Olausson, 2011). Inspired by these contributions, we study audience sense-making of real and recent news articles on climate change.

A qualitative study in three steps

Our data stems from Norway. Norway’s media system is characterized by proactive state interventions operating at an arm’s-length distance; a popular publicly funded broadcaster; a fine-masked structure of local and national newspapers with an egalitarian readership; and high penetration of information and communication technologies (Syvertsen et al., 2014). This is also mirrored in widespread reliance on the smartphone as a main apparatus for news use (Newman et al., 2023).

Norwegians are spatially removed from evident effects of climate change such as extreme heat or hurricanes. Additionally, Norwegians might need extra psychological distancing to tackle the issue of climate change, given the country’s wealth stemming from fossil fuel. A recent Guardian article framed the country as a “paradox” which “rapidly adopts clean technologies while drilling furiously for oil and gas” (Nirjanan, 2024). Surveys portray Norway as resembling other countries concerning climate change attitudes, with skepticism more widespread among conservative men (Krange et al., 2019). Worry about climate change is relatively stable, with around half the population expressing some concern (Gregersen, 2022).

We recruited a sample of 30 people in Western Norway, centered on a major city (anonymized as City) and its surrounding areas, and a smaller community and surrounding rural areas (called Town). The informants were aged between early 20s and mid-80s, had different education levels, family and livings situations, and different occupations. With the two geographical locations as starting points, and an intention to achieve variety in social backgrounds, informants were recruited through the extended personal networks of one of the researchers.

In the first step of data collection in late 2022 and early 2023, the third author conducted in-depth interviews focused on informants’ everyday lives, media habits and news interests, including careful probing about their interest in climate change news. The second step was a qualitative questionnaire in spring 2023 – the focus of the present analysis, as described below. The third step, soon after, consisted of follow-up interviews with selected informants to discuss the questionnaire further and facilitate interpretations of the replies. We conducted follow-up with some informants who had given interesting replies to the questionnaire, and with some who had said little on climate change in the first interview, to better be able to contextualize their questionnaire replies.

The questionnaire in step 2 started with asking informants about their life, media use, and news interests at the time, including changes from the first interview round, through a mix of closed and open-ended questions. We then included screen shots of three climate news articles, for each asking “What are your thoughts on the issue(s) in this article? Please explain in your own words”. The phrasing in the original Norwegian indicates a small push towards commenting on issue/topic rather than format, but also to interpret “issue” as going beyond individual news reports. Replies were solicited in an open text field, and for each example we followed up with a closed multi-reply question on outlets where people had learned of this issue or seen similar articles. After the three examples, we included another open-ended question asking “Do you experience these articles as relevant? Explain why or why not”.

The rationale behind the questionnaire design, then, was to create a context in which we had prior knowledge of informants’ news habits and their attitude towards climate change news, narrated by themselves through questions about their routines, interests and everyday lives. Our analysis of this material indicated ambiguity and ambivalence regarding climate change as a news topic, which we sought to follow up on through further probing in the questionnaire. By introducing specific examples of news articles that represent variation in climate journalism – local to global, level of conflict, clarity of solutions – informants could express their thoughts on what such dimensions might mean to them, while the open format would facilitate insight into sense-making processes. Importantly, the examples were real and recent news articles from major Norwegian outlets the informants were broadly familiar with, not artificially constructed.

The authors analyzed the survey responses thematically – first collating replies to each example, then looking at crosscurrents across examples, next formulating and reformulating themes, then returning to the interview materials from round 1 and 2 for context. In the analysis below, we focus on the most prevalent modes of sense-making we found, which seemed to differ between examples. First, however, we introduce the specific news articles.

Three news articles concerning climate issues

We chose three articles based on how they differed in the aspects highlighted in the literature reviewed above: narrative structure and framing (cases or agents as heroes and villains, and conflict); concrete solutions or advice; and geographical and social distance. The articles were recent at the time of the questionnaire, presented in the form of screenshots from major Norwegian news media.

The first article was published by the Western Norway regional branch of the public service broadcaster NRK on January 31^st, 2023. It was titled “Town hall meeting on wind power resulted in endorsement of nuclear energy”, and the lead photo was an illustration of a nuclear facility in a rural area. The article covered a widely attended meeting in a small industrial community, where people had gathered to discuss plans to build wind turbines nearby, and form a resolution to pass on to local authorities. Surprisingly, the outcome of the meeting was a statement in support of nuclear energy, which goes against longstanding policy in Norway, a country with no nuclear power plants. Building on the characteristics discussed above, this story is predominantly framed as a case (episodic), while simultaneously being more of a “backgrounder” (Iyengar, 1996: 62): The story is locally grounded in controversies regarding placement of wind turbines and the energy needs of cornerstone industry, but also connected to broader debates on energy futures and nature preservation.

The second article was also published by NRK, on 23^rd of February 2023, and concerned a major national news story in Norway that winter. The title was the quote “Real people live with this injustice every day” attributed to the person depicted in the story, Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen, a well-known singer, actress and activist dressed in traditional Sami attire. She was a spokesperson in sit-downs in departmental buildings in the capital, protesting the government’s delay in following up a Supreme Court ruling where wind turbines in the Fosen area were found to be in violation of the human rights of Sami indigenous people. The article represents conflict between activists and government, between minority rights and majority interests, and between climate concerns and human rights. It appears as a typical example of an episodic frame, as one part of a major national news story, receiving wide attention beyond the Fosen area.

The third article was published by the most-read national newspaper VG on March 20th, 2023, with the headline “Head of UN: - Humanity on thin ice”, referencing a statement made by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in conjunction with an IPCC report. The report discussed the closing window for reaching the so-called 1,5-degree target, and Guterres commented on threats to humankind, and immediate needs for mitigation. The main illustration was a photo of two men evacuating cattle from wildfire in the Greek countryside, set against a bright red sky. Building on the characteristics discussed above, the story represents a global scope on the problems of climate change, thematically framing it as an existential threat to humans, and is also indicative of journalism applying dramatic visual representations facing natural disasters.

In responding to survey questions on these three specific news articles, some informants wrote “I don’t know” or had little to say – but the number of such replies was low. This was even the case for the first example, which was the least recognized of the three. Further, some informants placed themselves on the sideline, with short statements like “I haven’t thought much about that issue” (Nadia, nurse, City, 30s). Such statements tended to come from younger women without higher education, whereas a few male informants also pointed to experts, e.g., “I leave the work of considering this to those who have the knowledge. I don’t have much to say about this” (Kim, musical teacher, City, 50s). This resonates with findings in previous research, as gender and educational background matters for expressions of efficacy (Matthieu, 2023).

We assume that some of these responses build on narrow interpretations of the survey questions. Informants who had no recollection of a specific news article might have nothing to say – although the articles referenced broader issues. The second example dominated national news in the weeks preceding the survey and would have been hard to miss even if one tried, while the third article covered the general climate crisis, which several informants reasoned about even though they stated that they had not read the specific article at hand.

Analysis: Different news stories, different sense-making processes

From the first round of interviews, prior to the survey, we had gained familiarity with our informants’ media habits and observed that their interest in climate change news differed considerably. A few actively sought out news on climate change, while expressing needs for emotional balance regarding the issue, by avoiding climate news if feeling in a particularly good or bad mood. Others mentioned climate change briefly, or explained why it was not a prominent news interest for them, but more of a social or moral issue. People used phrases such as “complex”, “many different things”, “bigger than myself”, and “beyond what I can do something about”. These phrases could indicate low internal efficacy, connected to perceptions of the vast scales and complexities of climate change (Ytre-Arne et al., forthcoming).

In the second step of the data collection, we wanted to ground people’s responses in specific news stories, to delve deeper into sense-making beyond general expressions of the difficulty of climate change.

Our analysis of survey responses led us to formulate three modes of sense-making, one for each news article: We argue that the first article invited sense-making in the form of inconclusive reasoning drawing on background knowledge; the second article accommodated sense-making as stance-taking grounded in a moral compass; and the third article summoned sense-making as reiterating positions in climate discourse. These modes refer to understandings of sensemaking as knowledge management (Dervin, 1998), for instance by building bridges to other perceptions.

These three modes were the forms of sense-making we were able to identify in our materials, but we also found some sidelining or resignation. As noted above, some informants had little to say, and towards the end of the analysis, we discuss how these responses help us understand when and for whom climate news stops making. There were overlaps between the sense making-modes, as well as differences between informants: Some touched upon two or three modes in their responses, while others predominantly expressed statements indicative of one mode, discussed at length for one article and briefly referenced for another one. As such, the modes are not mutually exclusive, but we observe patterns in how the different news articles appeared to invite particular modes. By collecting and analyzing all informant responses to each article, we saw clear differences in the prevalence of the modes.

Reasoning drawing on background knowledge

The first sense-making process found in our material consisted of reasoning by outlining arguments and weighing concerns, drawing on background knowledge of the issues in the news. The first sample article, about the local discussion of wind turbines and nuclear power, seemed to invite this. Responses followed a pattern of stating that it was a complicated issue with relevant arguments on both sides, and then reasoned for and against. Rather than giving up or stepping aside when facing complexity, informants acknowledged the need to balance nature preservation and energy policy strategies, presenting both as relevant concerns.

The kind of background knowledge informants drew upon differed. Informants from the area in question tended to ground their thinking through what it meant to live near wind turbines. Juni, a retiree in her 70s from Town, wrote “Wind power is pure energy, and it must be tolerated as long as it does not come too near houses. I note that many political parties are open to discuss nuclear power. I’m not against that, if it can be handled in a safe manner”. Juni referenced a main discussion point about wind power (disturbance), while she also mentions considerations such as pollution (wind power as pure) and security (with nuclear power). Her statement is inconclusive, but nevertheless expresses a reasoning process.

We found a slightly different kind of reasoning amongst informants from the bigger city, not directly affected by wind turbines. Their sense-making seemed to be resting on statements that could be characterized as more “objective”, but also as quite generic and uncommitting, referring economic or technological factors with broad strokes:

“There will be a shortage of energy in Norway in the long term. In addition, electricity prices are high right now. […] Wind power is not very popular since it is viewed as causing big intervention in nature, and there is opposition in several communities. One alternative which has been unpopular for long is nuclear power, which is now getting more support, which this article shows” (Pål, economist, City, 30s)

“…I assume more people have understood that wind power is space-demanding, and not as harmless as has been said. Huge land areas are destroyed through extreme cultivation and construction of roads. The technology of nuclear power has progressed and there is less risk than earlier, according to the claims being made. But I actually don’t know this particular [case]» (Kari, architect, City, 40s)

Pål and Kari mobilize arguments and phrasing from their professional lives as, respectively, an economist (price mechanisms) and architect (”space-demanding”, ”cultivation”). Those living in Town, then, tended to deliberate on the challenge of locating unpopular but needed wind turbines somewhere, whereas those living in City reasoned on a more generic level or drew on their professional competence.

Some replies indicated a strong willingness to trust one’s grasp of complicated questions (e.g., risks of nuclear power). Others were more careful, stating that they did not possess the final answer, but that someone would have to weigh different considerations. Some related the issue to personal experiences, and included emotions in their reasoning, but they did not express hopelessness or fatigue at the difficulties of the issue, or doubt about how to navigate it. Further, most replies discussed the issue in the news article – instead of discussing the headline or illustration, or even media coverage of wind turbines generally.

Consider our informant Johan. He is an electrician in his 20s, living in City, and offered a lengthy reply, starting by opposing wind power while acknowledging its upside: “I don’t like how [wind turbines] look and how they affect Norwegian nature. At the same time, I agree that it’s smart to exploit energy sources we have access to.” Johan then got personal, bringing up his recreational life, work and family relations:

“I would never support wind power near where I stay, but if I get offered a job constructing wind turbines I wouldn’t decline out of practical reasons. I’ve experienced wind turbines around my cabin by the [Western] coast, and I think it destroys the feeling of “getting away”, in addition I’ve got a family member who worked on their construction. But I chose to not mention this, since the wind turbines ‘have to be placed somewhere’”. (Johan)

From there, he moved on to elaborate about the upside of nuclear power in rural Norway, underlining risks, but highlighting small footprint and how mountainous areas can be used for waste storage.

We thus found the first news article to invite sense-making that in different ways drew on background knowledge, stemming from proximity to wind power developments, professional expertise, and personal experiences. These responses could be interpreted as actual deliberation, or as uncommitting performances, enumerating well-versed generic arguments. On a manifest level, we emphasize the informants’ willingness to reason on a complicated issue without a clear outcome.

Stance-taking grounded in a moral compass

The second news story also concerned wind turbines and nature preservation, but in the context of the national government’s delay in following up a Supreme Court ruling on human rights violations against the indigenous Sami population.

Here, we also found expressions of sense-making through reasoning. However, contrasting the first example, we saw a clear tendency to reach an explicit conclusion, grounded in a moral stance in support of the Sami. In the debate between nature preservation and energy needs, the introduction of a Supreme Court ruling on human rights violations tipped the scales:

“I don’t know too much about this issue. But I’m aware that the Sami don’t like wind turbines, especially if you place them in areas where the reindeers graze. This is very understandable since a wind turbine make quite some noise and might scare the animals, which might create an “invisible” barrier for those keeping reindeers. I hope indigenous rights are upheld” (Johan, electrician, City, 20s)

Johan starts off with a disclaimer, which does not stop him from reasoning about presumed environmental effects and leads to support for indigenous rights. Kari, the architect who drew on professional competences when commenting wind power above, reiterated similar points here, now coupled with strong support: “I have sympathies with the Sami who are affected because the turbines destroy HUGE areas.”. Other informants expressed disappointment with the lack of action from Parliament, acknowledged the need for new green energy sources, but, again, referencing Sami rights and local environmental impact, concluded in support of the protesters.

The story, then, seemed to invite a kind of sense-making in which the issue was ultimately decided not by weighing concerns, but by ideas of right and wrong. Some responses skipped the arguments to move straight to the conclusion: Support for the Sami people against the wrongdoings of the state, thereby making sense of the issue by resorting to a moral compass. Some of these were just short statements ala “The turbines must be removed” (Grete, retired teacher, City, 70s). For others, the story triggered elaborate statements that combined stance-taking and admiration for the Sami’s fight, with reflections about wider consequences for society and democracy. Two younger female informants exemplify this:

“I always find it sad and unfair when communities and nature is disrupted without consent from the public. I’m impressed by how they fight for their rights […]. This raises an important debate: who decides about wind turbines, who makes money, how important is [such development] for Norway. How democracy works. How minorities are treated and what kind of power they have. What is best for society in the larger picture?” (Petra, shop assistant, Town, 30s)

“I find the Government has failed in waiting for so long to take the Sami serious. However, I think there should be a discussion about how much such a small part of the population (the indigenous population) has the right to decide [over the majority]”. (Oda, student, City, 20s).

While both clearly side with the Sami on the issue at hand, against the authorities, Oda opens a larger discussion also hinted at by Petra, about minority rights. These quotes could be interpreted as referencing a longer history of Norwegian state authorities suppressing the Sami way of life, including former conflicts over energy versus nature (Kårtveit, 2021). Importantly, the quotes demonstrate how stance-taking based on moral values do not close the door for further discussion on an overarching issue.

In sum, the mode of sense-making described here is characterized by a clear conclusion on the issue at hand – a conclusion rooted in a moral compass – which for some is married with the display of arguments.

Reiterating environmental positions

The third news article, on a UN report on the future of humanity, seemed to invite another mode of sense-making: invoking environmentalism. Some informants drew on knowledge or moral values also in this case, but most commonly, they reiterated a mixture of positions from public debate on climate change.

Few indicated that they had read the specific news article or other coverage of the UN report. Instead of situating a specific story in a broader debate, they went straight to the broader debate – in this case global warming, its consequences for humanity, and why someone needs to act. It thus seems that the article – or us asking for comments on it – made informants feel compelled to say something, by reiterating the kind of positions and arguments that swirl around in public discussions on climate change, from concepts such as “green energy”, to consumption and sustainability. There was a sense of fatigue in some of these statements, as when two of our informants drifted off in their responses, ending with “etc” or “and so on” (Kari and Mona). Others expressed what can be interpreted as frustration, as when Juni exclaimed the importance of recycling, while simultaneously questioning it: “Everyone needs to reduce their consumption, but what really makes a difference is what the industries do. Recycling is important!??”

Also here, we found informants to draw on their personal background, perhaps informing which discourses they reiterated. Consider Oline and Pål’s responses:

“It’s terrifying that global warming is not taken more seriously. We get constant reminders about what’s happening, but the authorities in our country as well as other countries let it happen without taking the action required. It’s like when [Prime Minister] Solberg became chair of [The High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy] and simultaneously approved the dumping of 250 million tons of mining waste in [a local fjord].” (Oline, retiree, Town, 70s).

“The article is about the climate issue and UN’s climate goals. It’s decisive to lower emissions of CO2 to reduce global warming. It’s a difficult issue, because my experience is that most agree with the aim, but it’s difficult to implement in practice, because then everyone must contribute by decreasing their emissions. Freeriding is a problem, where one opts to do as little as possible, while the others do as much as possible. I feel that Norway is an accountable actor taking responsibility for this challenge”. (Pål, economist, City, 30s)

Similar to the first article, Oline and Pål mobilize different sources in their sense-making: For Oline, a local case of pollution illustrates the double standard of the Norwegian government. For Pål, professional terminology (“freeriding”) is mobilized to make sense of the problems. A shared tendency across comments was deep concern for climate change – but the placement of responsibility and the belief in politicians’ willingness to act, differed. In pointing to politicians or government actors as the responsible parties, these replies were the most specific we found. They were not the dominant kind of attribution. Rather, several informants ended by vaguely formulating that “we” must do “something”.

Sense-making by invoking environmental positions shares the inconclusiveness we found in sense-making drawing on background knowledge, as discussed above. But where the replies drawing on knowledge to discuss the first article gave an air of command of the issue, including acknowledgement of difficult considerations, this latter mode of sense-making appears less gratifying to our informants.

This brings us to the point where climate news stops making.

Expressing resignation and media criticism

As noted, the third article invoked more emotional responses. Emotions are part of rather than incompatible with sense-making, but some emotional expressions in the material nevertheless signaled the limits of making sense of climate news.

We found expressions of anger, fear or despair, coupled with numbness, and statements that the news were impossible to comprehend: “I see the world is changing, but I’m not able to really take it in or think ahead” (Kim, musical teacher, City, 50s); “Really important issue, but not easy to make sense of which solutions that can right the ship” (Synne, psychiatrist, City, 50s); “It is horrible to read about, I get a bit disheartened…” (Oda, student, Town, 20s). People expressed low efficacy regarding their personal abilities to act on the problem or formulate a clear direction forward, as well as low external efficacy on behalf of society (Hornsey et al., 2015).

For some informants, the article invited resignation:

“I haven’t read this particular article. But if what it says is true (and I’m not really surprised), then it really is not good. We have fucked up the Earth and each other, and I’m not sure there is a way back. […] I can’t stand being too cynical, even though I should be, considering how much shit that’s happened and still happens in our world. I just get sad if I think about it too much” (Arne, IT-consultant, City 40s)

In a flurry of responses expressing such sentiments to the third article, there were informants who also turned to criticism of the media for failing to adequately report on climate change. Some criticized the specific article, while others referred to the type of climate journalism it represents: “I agree about the urgency, but I’m afraid this kind of headlines don’t work. No matter how close it gets to people, it’s still distant. We’ve seen these headlines so many times, and people unfortunately are not able to take it in” (Stine, communication officer, Town, 30s).

Stine and other informants criticized the rhetoric and image choices of the news article, as examples of “climate porn” (Ereaut and Segnit, 2006, 7) – where yet another call for urgent action end up inspiring further apathy. Jens described a growing numbness over time: “I think for each of those articles I read, I am less affected by the gravity of it”. Media criticism was mixed with sentiments of resignation and low efficacy. People seemed doubtful about the potential for positive effects of media coverage, notably not suggesting alternatives to what the news article should have done instead.

The second round of interviews, after the survey, allowed for follow-up on people’s interpretations of the news stories. Focusing on the third example, we draw on these interviews to substantiate the findings of resignation in the survey.

Several took issue with the headline “Humankind on thin ice”. Arne commented “fair enough, I get it, it’s been said for a long time […]”. He then distanced himself from the problem, saying: “It’s a bummer to think about, if it’s true. But it’s still in the distant future, and since it’s in the future, it’s a perspective which is hard to get familiar with for me.” Echoing this distancing, Kari remarked that “some are closer to the thin ice than others. Which makes it hard to comprehend that situation. We might be part of it, but it’s not like the Norwegian public will be hit first.” In these two comments, the gravity of the climate crisis is placed at a distance, temporally (by Arne) and spatially (by Kari).

Johan (electrician, City, 20s) admitted that the headline didn’t even signal a crisis for him: “’Humankind on thin ice’, well that’s…the only crisis here was in a way the Sami situation [referring to the second article] in my mind. Cause ‘humankind on thin ice’, we’ve said that for 20 years and…there’s a lot of discussion around that, but… [laughs]”. This sentiment resonated in other informants’ commenting on the problem with climate news, pointing to the lack of a middle ground, or lamenting how framings like “the world will end unless we act now” risks losing readers, since it is seen as “preaching about doomsday” (Jens, teacher, Town, 20s).

The crux of these comment to article three is its failure to muster engagement, corresponding to earlier findings in climate communication scholarship about the limited effects of fear-inducing visuals as a rhetorical strategy (Schroth et al., 2014). The contrast to the sense-making found regarding the two other examples, then, provides some interesting implications.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have analyzed audience sense-making of climate news, drawing on an open-ended questionnaire applying real and recent examples of three news articles with different characteristics, contextualized with interviews with the same informants. Adding to the literature on climate efficacy, we found that news articles with different geographical anchoring, and different levels of conflict and clarity in solutions, encourage different modes of sense-making. We have distinguished inconclusive reasoning from moral stance-taking, and discussed what it means to invoke environmental positions, taking us to the point when climate news stops making sense.

We found that the article on a UN report on global warming as a threat to humankind was the most challenging to our informants, who resorted to media criticism and vague statements that someone should do something. Theories of sensemaking could emphasize social rationalizations of former decisions (Weick, 1995), or forward-looking interpretative processes (Dervin, 1998), which are both relevant to the example. Informants said they know – in the sense of having seen or heard before – the article’s message, but they seem understandably reluctant to take in what it means to know of an existential threat to humankind. Mechanisms of psychological distancing and expressions of low efficacy thereby become potential shields from despair, making it easier to go on with everyday life as normal. Our case country Norway might matter here, as citizens are for now far removed from severe climate change impact, and simultaneously reliant on the fossil industry to uphold their way of life (Norgaard, 2011). As such, studies of different societies, also with different political systems would add to our understanding. Still, the routinization of climate journalism of this kind is part of the problem – the dramatic headline and visual elements no longer communicate “breaking news” or mandate extraordinary attention (Ytre-Arne et al., forthcoming).

A challenge for climate journalism, then, is that some severe aspects of climate change make little sense as news. Established problems of low efficacy and psychological distancing are most pronounced for news on how to mitigate global warming and ensure living conditions in different parts of the world, also in the future. In contrast, our informants find modes of sense-making that enable them to relate to climate news with a specific anchoring in local communities or political processes, where concerns such as energy needs versus nature preservation meet on the ground level. We are not indicating that some modes of sense-making are inherently superior – particularly, self-professed expertise on topics such as energy safety could easily be questioned – but these responses show that news articles on specific issues seem to work, without pushing audiences towards frustration. If climate journalism seeks to inspire change, it needs to find pathways to deeper and more committed ways of sense-making. More research is therefore needed on how climate news can make sense to audiences while conveying the big picture and addressing the most severe challenges.