Between Nationalism and Globalism: Framing Climate Change Risks in Chinese and American Newspapers

Abstract

This study gives a corpus-assisted discourse study of the framing of climate risks in China Daily (CD) and The New York Times (NYT) to reveal the dynamic relations between risk framing, ideologies, and national interests. The findings show that the risk frame is more favored in NYT. While CD shows more consensus on the risks, NYT emphasizes the disputes over the risks. CD prefers to highlight risks to people and adopt a global frame to underline efforts to address the risks. However, NYT features a national frame and emphasizes the potentially negative impacts on the economy and finance. It tends to show the pessimistic views in facing the threats and thus legitimize the inactions of the US government in the climate control. Their divergences in framing climate risks are further explained in terms of the different functions of the two newspapers and the national interests of the two countries.