Ruminant livestock and climate change: Critical Discourse Moments in mainstream and farming sector news media

Simmonds, Philippa ORCID: 0000-0003-3929-4934, Maye, Damian ORCID: 0000-0002-4459-6630 and Ingram, Julie ORCID: 0000-0003-0712-4789 (2024) Ruminant livestock and climate change: Critical Discourse Moments in mainstream and farming sector news media. Agriculture and Human Values. (In Press)

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Abstract

There is ongoing contestation around greenhouse gas emissions from ruminant livestock and how society should respond. Media discourses play a key role in agenda setting for the general public and policymakers, and may contribute to polarisation. This paper examines how UK news media portrayed ruminant livestock’s impact on climate change between 2016 and 2021. The analysis addresses a gap in the literature by comparing discourses in national and farming sector newspapers using a qualitative approach. Four national and two farming sector news outlets were searched for articles published between 2016 and 2021. A corpus of 996 relevant articles was assembled, from which 154 were selected for in-depth examination using Critical Discourse Analysis. Four ‘Critical Discourse Moments’ (CDMs), each signifying a discursive shift in the debate, were identified over the 6-year studied period: 1) Low salience, diverging discourses, 2) We must eat far less meat, 3) Fighting the anti-meat agenda, and 4) Policy (in)action at COP26. There was a large increase in the number of published articles from January 2019 onward, partly associated with publication of the EAT/Lancet Commission report. CDM 2 (We must eat far less meat) occurred mainly in the national media, while CDM 3 (Fighting the anti-meat agenda) occurred mainly in the farming media. Our findings reveal both opinion polarisation and intergroup polarisation between national and farming sector media, and low engagement with food system power imbalances. Addressing polarisation will be important to enhance capacity for collective decision-making regarding methane emissions from ruminant livestock.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Ruminant livestock; Climate change; Media analysis; Critical discourse moments; Discursive power; Polarisation
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General)
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > Countryside and Community Research Institute
Depositing User:	Anna Kerr
Date Deposited:	12 Sep 2024 10:45
Last Modified:	12 Sep 2024 10:45
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/14372

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