Fighting carbon dioxide or fighting humans?: The ideological fault lines underlying two climate change frames

Abstract

Our collective future largely depends on the ways in which we frame climate change. It is argued, however, that the dominant frames are only superficially environmental and keep reproducing the (anthropocentric) hegemonic ideology. Real change, contrariwise, requires ideological transformation (biocentrism). As one frame can promote various ideologies, familiar frames like ‘Cycles of Nature’ or ‘Environmental Justice’ can provide convenient contexts for hegemonic struggles. However, little is known yet about the nature of the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic ‘subframes’. Therefore, we have conducted a qualitative framing analysis on a corpus of Belgian mainstream and alternative news articles. The results demonstrate the strong similarities among the two exemplary frames and striking contrasts within the frames. The anthropocentric ‘subframes’ foreground an external fight with a largely external enemy (carbon dioxide). The biocentric ‘subframes’ highlight internal problems within human society. However, being quantitatively and qualitatively underdeveloped, the latter still lack the potency to truly inspire. Hence, they require further (collaborative) scrutiny and development.