"Climate Change in the Local News: The Role of Community Characteristic" by Hyerim Jo

Date of Award

Spring 2025

Embargo Period

4-11-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Communication

Program

Communication

First Advisor

Masahiro Yamamoto

Committee Members

Brandon Gorman, Chang Sup Park

Keywords

local newspapers, climate change, automated text analysis, community structure approach, thematic emphasis, thematic diversity

Subject Categories

Journalism Studies | Mass Communication | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

Despite widespread recognition of climate change and its localized impacts, research on how local media cover this topic remains limited. The first study of this dissertation analyzes 15,788 opinion articles published from 2013 to 2020 by 391 local newspapers in the United States to examine their volume, topics, and thematic emphases. Using automated text analysis methods, including Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Analysis of Topic Model Networks (ANTMN), the study identifies 11 topics and three overarching themes. Findings indicate that the volume, topics, and themes evolved over time, likely influenced by the severity of climate-induced hazards and political and socioeconomic contexts. Over the study period, coverage shifted from debates on climate change and macro-level policy ideologies to the emphasis on community action and localized solutions. The second study, grounded in the community structure approach, examines how community characteristics, including vulnerability to climate change, structural pluralism, political heterogeneity, and concentrated disadvantage, influence the thematic emphasis and diversity in opinion articles across 305 counties or county equivalents. Findings show that structural pluralism and political heterogeneity are positively associated with an emphasis on the theme Local Climate Policies and Sustainability Efforts but negatively associated with Macro Social-Political Ideologies. Practical Implications of Climate Change is not associated with any of the community characteristics examined. Thematic diversity is negatively associated with vulnerability to climate change but positively associated with structural pluralism. Overall, these findings support the structural pluralism model and highlight the role of community power structure in shaping local climate change coverage. Beyond its theoretical and methodological contributions, this dissertation offers practical implications for policymakers and media practitioners. Several limitations are acknowledged, along with directions for future research.

License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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