A Comparative Analysis of American and Chinese News Media Coverage of Climate Issues Over 2021

Abstract

This research offers an empirical analysis comparing Chinese and U.S. news agencies coverage of Climate Change in 2021. As Climate Change negotiations become more of a consistent and pressing issue, it is important for us to study the world’s top two greenhouse gas emitters, China and the U.S, and the roles they play in global negotiations. With international news agencies holding strong influence on global community’s perspectives and resolution of general knowledge, we examined the presentation of news agencies between the two countries and whether the depositions of the topic were similar. Comparatively, we argued that if not similar, the conflicting views would result in differences between presiding principles and the dominant interests of each individual news agency’s home nation. Our research showed that both agencies published varying amounts of news coverage that stemmed from multiple sources. It was also noted that there were differences between Chinese framing of climate change and the U.S. framing. We can contribute these differences to the influence of the differing governments propaganda reports on this topic in each country.