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of climate change. We focused on scientific and political aspects of climate change that are usually reported in the media. Scientific aspects include causes
and consequences of climate change. Political aspects include blame and responsibility as well as actions (adaptation, mitigation) against climate change.
Results show similarities and differences for both aspects. Similarly, regional and national newspapers portray climate change as man-made. Furthermore,
industrial countries are consistently blamed and hold responsible for climate change. However, as expected, regional newspapers report particularly on
those consequences the region is especially affected by. As well, regional newspapers discuss twice as many adaptation opportunities to climate change as
national newspapers. Results will be discussed in the conference presentation.
PS 105
Exploring the Attribution of Beijing Outdoor Air Pollution by Chinese Party and Commercial Media: A Content Analysis of Haze-Related
Coverages on Chinese Media
J. Pan
1
, X. Tong
2
1
Renmin University of China, School of Journalism and Communication, Beijing, China
2
George Mason University, Communication Department, Fairfax, USA
Some Chinese big cities have been suffering from serious outdoor air pollution for years, therefore has become a major concern for public health. There is
a consensus that air pollution is responsible for increasing mortality from respiratory infections, lung cancer, and cardiovascular disease, at least partially.
Beijing, as Chinese capital, has been threatened by serious haze events since January 2013, with increasing public awareness and demanding for actions
taken by the local authority. How mass media report haze as an environmental and social issue, and their attribution on haze not only influences the public
perception and coping with the red alerts, but also implies the responsibility and the distribution of limited resources to deal with this problem. Previous
literature shows that party newspaper tend to blame individual and industry for the air pollution. However, how party media and commercial media vari‑
ous on this topic has not been investigated. This study aims to find how the media attribute haze to the following 4 dimensions based on previous studies:
weather and topography dimension, government policy and regulation dimension, individual dimension and industry dimension. Additionally, whether
the attributions differ in distinguished media, context and message source were examined to further understand the research question. A content analysis
of the coverage of haze by all party and commercial media in China during the two red alerts issued by Beijing government in the last month of 2015 was
conducted. A sample of 521 relevant reports were analyzed with special focusing on the attributions of haze. Overall, the results showed that haze in Beijing
was much more likely attributed to individual and industry side than objective and governmental side. Party media tend to attribute haze to weather and
topography more than policy and regulation, compared with the coverages translated from overseas media and reported by the domestic commercial
media. Simultaneously, party media are less likely to mention the health consequences of haze, as well as the coping strategies. Some other interesting
themes emerged from the analysis. First, surprisingly, the media identified local authority, rather than individual and industry, as the principal to take care
of the influence of the haze in Beijing, although they tend to attribute haze to individual and industry. Second, children were the most frequently mentioned
subgroups influenced by the haze. Differences between the coverages in the first and second red alert were compared. The implications of these results and
the suggestions for further research are discussed.
PS 106
Building a NewWorld, the Impact of Silent Revolutions: The Detox and Manmade Chemicals Example
C. Pascual Espuny
1
1
Aix Marseille University, IUT- dpt GEA, Aix-en-Provence, France
Trauma, wars and dislocations have shaken regularly the 21
st
century. If the field of the Environment seems “a priori” less dramatically affected from a hu‑
man point of view, nonetheless the alerts and disasters have disfigured and reconfigured natural spaces and also social spaces. The some particularly acute
events like disasters health, oil spills, nuclear or chemical accidents... have profoundly affected people awareness, and led to the formation of an envi‑
ronmental global consciousness. We propose in this communication to look at the silent revolutions that have yet deeply changed the perception of our
environment and our lifestyles. How do silent revolutions, which are not tangible, not visible, express themselves? How are they communicated? How do
they change the collective memory and social representations?What is the role of media and social actors in the narrative and the construction of this social
realities? We propose to work on the chemicals study case to understand how this mediated memory culture (Connerton, 1989, Halbwachs, 1992, Le Goff,
1992, Nora, 1997) and cognition is communicated. This was the subject of our PHD research and of many researches we have conducted until today: we
present primary results (Pascual Espuny, 2007). We see how the issue of chemical products was publicized, and how it introduced a line of discontinuity
in the perception of progress and the History of Mankind. Through the issue of chemicals and the construction of the "Detox" narrative frame, we see how
a different perception have been communicated, supported by a long battle between the social actors with competing interests. Then, we will analyze how
it was transformed by the media treatment. Finally, we will show how this perception changes now our relationship to the environment, to the agriculture,
the Nature and the Progress in general. More specifically, we will take as analysis ground the negotiations on REACH, the European directive which governs
today the production and the placing on the market of chemicals. We will explain what were the communicative strategies implemented by social actors
at the time of these negotiations. We extend our study up to today, by new results, considering the perceptions in the media, including television. We
have chosen to present a comprehensive research, with primary results of our PHD research, crossed with new analysis that allow to follow the evolution
of perception through ten years of mediatic treatment that have built “detox”memory (Pascual Espuny 2008, 2009). We propose an analyze of the media
treatment under the logic of actors and deliberately chosen stakeholder communication strategies to build a memory (Arquembourg 2007, Cefai 1996,
Flageul 2000, Nora 1974).