Media Coverage

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Track trends and create accountability around print, radio, and television news about climate change. We also have worked with television networks, broadcasters, and programs, as well as the music industry.

The Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) tracks climate change coverage in 127 newspapers, radio and television sources. These span across 59 countries, in 13 languages (English, Spanish, Arabic, French, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Danish, German, Russian and Portuguese). MeCCO monitors climate-relevant content each month and produces monthly as well as yearly summaries of the ebbs and flows of news. MeCCO produces 4 open access data sets each month at the global level for newspapers (2004-2020) and radio (2000-220), along with newspaper coverage in seven regions – Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, North America and Oceania – as well as at the country level in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

  Activities include:

  • Monthly monitoring and updates on media coverage of climate change or global warming on the MeCCO website across these two-dozen data sets
  • Monthly ‘explainers’ or ‘summaries’ of top ecological, meteorological, political, economic, scientific, social and cultural dimensions of media coverage of climate change or global warming around the world
  • An annual report analyzing media coverage of climate change or global warming around the world
  • Coordination with CU Libraries to provide open-source datasets for downloading and use by other researchers, students, journalists, policy decision-makers, engaged citizens and practitioners
  • Offshoot research projects that draw on these datasets, with members of the MeCCO research team

This project was first co-founded by Max Boykoff, Maria Mansfield and Debs Strickland at the University of Oxford in 2008. The project moved to the University of Colorado Boulder in 2009, which has served as the MeCCO hub, working with a twenty-eight-member team of scholars across ten other Universities and Institutes: Aarhus University, Deakin University, Munich Technical University, National Institute for Environmental Studies (Japan), Oslo Metropolitan University, University of New England, Universidad de Sevilla, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Finnish Environment Institute, and University of Helsinki.

There is no other resource like it available for researchers, interested media outlets and decision-makers.

DATA SETS

Boykoff, M., Aoyagi, M., Benham, A., Daly, M., Doi, K., Fernández-Reyes, R., McAllister, L., McNatt, M., Nacu-Schmidt, A., Oonk, D., Pearman, O., Simonsen, A.H., and Ytterstad, A. (2021) World Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2004-2019. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, doi.org/10.25810/4c3b-b819

Boykoff, M., Chandler, P., Nacu-Schmidt, A., and Oonk, D. (2021). World Radio Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2000-2019. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, doi.org/10.25810/k55w-7a04

Boykoff, M., Benham, A., Daly, M., McNatt, M. and Nacu-Schmidt, A. (2021). International Wire Service Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2000-2020. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, doi.org/10.25810/fj1y-8c74

Boykoff, M., Gifford, L., Nacu-Schmidt, A. and Osbourne-Gowey, J. (2021). US Television Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2004-2020. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, doi.org/10.25810/C862-0E81

Boykoff, M., Daly, M., McAllister, L., McNatt, M., Nacu-Schmidt, A., Oonk, D., and Pearman, O. (2021) Australian Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2004-2020. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, doi.org/10.25810/558F-C477

Boykoff, M, Daly, M., McAllister, L., McNatt, M., Nacu-Schmidt, A., Oonk, D., and Pearman, O. (2021) Canadian Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2000-2020. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, doi.org/10.25810/es52-xr23

Boykoff, M., Benham, A., Daly, M., Fernández-Reyes, R., McAllister, L., McNatt, M., Nacu-Schmidt, A., Oonk, D., Pearman, O., Simonsen, A.H., and Ytterstad, A. (2021). European Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2004-2020. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, doi.org/10.25810/fx6e-r462

Boykoff, M, Daly, M., McAllister, L., McNatt, M., Nacu-Schmidt, A., Oonk, D., and Pearman, O. (2021) German Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2004-2020. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, doi.org/10.25810/rxtv-eb29

Boykoff, M, Daly, M., McAllister, L., McNatt, M., Nacu-Schmidt, A., Oonk, D., and Pearman, O. (2021) Indian Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2004-2020. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, doi.org/10.25810/6qjv-1296

Boykoff, M., Daly, M., McAllister, L., McNatt, M., Nacu-Schmidt, A., Oonk, D., and Pearman, O. (2021) New Zealand Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2005-2020. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, doi.org/10.25810/jgyv-zg57

Boykoff, M., Chandler, P., Daly, M., McAllister, L., McNatt, M., Nacu-Schmidt, A., Oonk, D., and Pearman, O. (2021) United Kingdom Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2004-2020. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, doi.org/10.25810/8196-e820

Boykoff, M., Daly, M., McAllister, L., McNatt, M., Nacu-Schmidt, A., Oonk, D., and Pearman, O. (2021) United States Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2000-2020. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets.Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, doi.org/10.25810/jck1-hf50

Fernández Reyes, R., Boykoff, M., Daly, M., McAllister, L., Nacu-Schmidt, A., and Pearman, O. (2021) Latin American Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2004-2020. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, doi.org/10.25810/5dxz-xm93