Coverage of Climate Protests in German Media in the Protest Winter of 2022/23

The next session at IAMCR 2024 is on media framing, and we start with Henri Mütschele, whose interest is in the German media portrayals of the Fridays for Future and Letzte Generation protest movements in the ‘protest winter’ of 2022/23. Germany has a long tradition of climate protests, but these groups have very different approaches to their protests: from socially acceptable demonstrations to more radical and disruptive blockage actions.

In winter 2022/23, against the context of the European energy crisis brought on by the Russian war on Ukraine, there was a heightened rate of protests by such groups, and these were covered in a variety of ways in the German media. More deviant actors in such protests are usually covered more widely and more negatively by the media. But how do journalists decide which actors are more deviant? This usually depends on the protests’ goals and tactics.

Henri’s work builds on past research assessing the public-strategic communication of climate movements, the media coverage of such movements, and the factors influencing their portrayal by the media. Such patterns may also diverge depending on the underlying political orientation of different media outlets, of course, and Henri’s research therefore focussed specifically on the left-wing taz, the centre-left Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the right-wing Welt during October 2022 to January 2023. It draws on any articles in these newspapers that mentioned either of the two protest movements.

Letzte Generation is thematised in such articles predominantly as a climate protest and as having questionable legality; Fridays for Future is discussed across a much more diverse range of topics. Interestingly, and unexpectedly, Letzte Generation was evaluated more positively than Fridays for Future; there were also strong differences between the two left-wing and centre-left outlets on the one side and the right-wing outlet on the other, however.

Frames used in such coverage focussed strongly on on political causes for Fridays for Future, and more on the protest actions themselves as well as their political causes for Letzte Generation. Economic causes were a frame predominantly for Fridays for Future. Guilt was attributed in both cases mainly to climate movements and political actors, showing a critical evaluation of climate movements; the focus for Letzte Generation was also strongly on how to deal with their protest actions, whereas for Fridays for Future a broader range of actions (including their general demands and proposals) were addressed.

This does not support the existence of a distinct protest paradigm in media coverage, then; media outlets differentiate between the different climate movements, and their portrayal varies substantially. This might also have something to do with the period of study, however. Media framing analysis might need to be further adapted to study this with greater nuance, too.