Mainstream and Social Media Framing in the Great Barrier Reef Debate in Australia

The next session that I’m in at at ANZCA 2023 is on media and climate change, and starts with my QUT Digital Media Research Centre colleague Carly Lubicz-Zaorski, whose focus is on the mainstream media framing of UNESCO’s ‘in danger’ rating for the Great Barrier Reef on the Australian northeast coast.

Mainstream media continue to play a key agenda-setting role on social media platforms, but the way this works differs across social media platforms. Carly collected data from several social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) around the UNESCO ‘in danger’ recommendation in 2021. The recommendation was eventually ignored by the World Heritage Committee, at the time led by the Chinese delegation; China’s involvement in these matters became part of the framing especially amongst right-wing media in Australia, such as The Australian, while more left-wing sources like The Guardian focussed more on the climate change threats to the Barrier Reef.

Key accounts on Twitter that thematised this included journalists, politicians, and media entities as well as a prominent climate change denialist; Guardian Australia content was especially widely shared here, but some denialist content also circulated. Key frames in this media coverage were conflict and strategy, public accountability and governance (emphasising China’s role in the decision-making), and scientific and technical uncertainty (a denialist frame).

The network of interactions around this discussion showed a clear distinction between the mainstream discussion and a sizeable cluster of notorious climate change denialists and supportive media (e.g. Sky News Australia), with prominent climate change activists also drawn into this cluster through @mentions. In this cluster, NewsCorp and other conservative media content dominated. The Australian also published an editorial from a well-known climate change denialist that challenged the ‘in danger’ listing; this was republished on several denialist blogs and other Websites, too.

On YouTube, Sky News Australia emerged as the most prominent source of content; its YouTube channel has grown its subscriber numbers very substantially and is now well ahead of other Australian TV channels like ABC New. Its videos are strongly emphasising conflict and strategy as well as public accountability and governance frames, and repeatedly featured climate change denialists as well.

On Facebook, several advocacy groups as well as the pages of The Guardian and Sky News Australia were particularly prominent in the debate; Guardian and YouTube content as well as other NewsCorp sources were especially prominently shared. Denialist and public accountability and governance framings were especially prominent, though a hope and solutions frame also uniquely emerged here. Here, too, a distinct difference between a mainstream and a climate-sceptic cluster emerged, with Sky News Australia especially prominent in the latter.

These findings indicate considerable polarisation between mainstream and denialist groups, and show the significance of NewsCorp brands in providing news frames that serve conservative and denialist ideologies. The impact of such diverging frames on the public understanding of this and other issues must be better understood; it could add to greater division as well as lead to audiences simply switching off from such divisive debates. This could also serve to further undermine public trust in scientific and governmental authorities.