Aviation Discourses in News : The influence of the political climate on climate politics

Abstract: Climate change must be considered one of the most critical issues of the coming decades that poten- tially poses foundational threats to human societies. Aviation has relatively little impact on green- house gas emissions globally, but this picture changes when focusing on emissions of rich industrial states. While being one of the foundations of the modern globalised world, present aviation growth trajectories are untenable. In this thesis, I investigated (a) how discourses about climate change are mediated, amplified and constructed by traditional mass media in Germany and (b) which de- bate configurations lead to political and civil society action on the issue. In particular, I highlighted the underlying ideological currents that influence how journalists discuss issues. This study uses a corpus-assisted approach to critical discourse studies, where statistical insights from large amounts of data are combined with a closer reading of text extracts. It is unique in its methodological breadth and the focus on a non-English-speaking country. The analysis is also angled differently compared to many previous studies insofar as I capture climate in relation to a different topic and not as the main issue. I reproduce previous findings of two periods of intense reporting on the issue with a period of disinterest in between and show that attitudes and ideologies of both the progressive and conservative media outlets have changed considerably over time. This change created a novel debate constellation that proved to be surprisingly robust in the woes of the coronavirus pandemic. Discus- sions moved from a dichotomy between effective climate and economic policy towards a narrative of economic transformation towards innovative industries and technologies. Meanwhile, there was also an increased focus on social consequences and questions of efficacy. The results expand on many of the earlier framing analyses and yield additional insight into effectively drafting and communicating climate policy to appeal to both progressive and conservative target groups. Creating climate poli- cies that are attractive to various strata in the population is essential to avoid polarised debates and assuage climate denialism, tendencies that can already be observed in a variety of countries.