“How am I supposed to do this?” Navigating the use of visuals in the production of digital climate change journalism

Abstract

In light of the digital transformation and contemporary media ecosystem, norms and practices for professional climate change journalism have shifted. Specialist niche climate change media organisations are at the forefront of these shifts, being uneasy with the neutral, detached observer model of traditional journalism and thus blurring the boundaries between science, journalism, and advocacy through “transformative journalism”. Against this backdrop, this study is particularly concerned with the renegotiation of the norm of journalistic objectivity with reference to climate change, and how this relates to imagery. This thesis therefore takes a critical approach to understand the way that visual imagery is produced and used at one UK-based climate digital-born media organisation (Carbon Brief). This research draws from a hybrid (on- and off-line) ethnographic approach, including a four-month participant observation with Carbon Brief, as well as in depth interviews with media actors including photographers, picture editors, and journalists at various mainstream media organisations and global image agencies. Drawing theoretically from the hierarchy of influences model, this research discusses the factors which influence the production of visual climate change content across the levels of social institutions, media organisation, routine, and the individual. In particular, this thesis shows that factors across each level evolve over time, constructing an unofficial editorial policy at Carbon Brief which is built from three cumulative and unwritten principles of image use. Overall, this thesis argues that the transformative power of niche climate sites is limited for imagery, as these organisations are restricted by the myriad factors influencing the process of news photography for climate journalism. This study therefore makes a novel contribution by applying the hierarchy of influences model to imagery, and by demonstrating how factors at each level are not static but evolve over time to create a relatively stable but changing shared organisational approach towards image use.