Lane County Media Coverage of Wildfires and Smoke in Relation to Climate Change
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Date
2019
Authors
Huddleston, Christa Marie
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Forest fires have been all over the news in Oregon the past two years, especially during the dry summer months which have hit record-high temperatures and record-long periods without rain. Due to nearly a century of fire exclusion, wildfires continue to get larger and wildfire season continues to get longer each year. This already devastating pattern is accelerated by climate change due to climate scientists predicting hotter and drier summers in the Pacific Northwest. Yet, existing literature shows climate change continues to be a low priority for the public. The media is one of the main avenues through which the public receives information about both forest fires and climate change. I hypothesized that most local media coverage of forest fires does not mention climate change. My thesis project analyzed local media coverage of forest fires and smoke here in Lane County using a content analysis: keyword searching for words such as ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ in relevant articles from May 2017 through November 2018. It was found that only 21.3% of Lane County media coverage of wildfires and smoke mentioned climate change. The purpose of demonstrating this lack of coverage is to start a discussion about the media’s role in communicating information about wildfires and climate change.
Description
25 pages
Keywords
Journalism, Climate Change, Media, Wildfire, Lane County, Smoke