Thread by @SaffronJONeill

Our paper now posted as a pre-print: osf.io/preprints/soca…

'Visual portrayals of fun in the sun misrepresent heatwave risks in European newspapers'

Co-authors: @sylviahayes98 @nadinestrauss @DoutreixN @lkathe @JoshEttinger Ned Westwood @JamesPainter61

A summary 🧵:
1/10

#heatwave communication is an important part of effective adaptation. News media play a key role in shaping how we think and feel.

Whilst there's ++ research on textual media representations, there's far less on visuals. But visuals play a key role in communication!

2/10

We examined media coverage (text and visual) from the UK, Netherlands, France and Germany during summer 2019. Importantly, this was for news that mentioned BOTH keywords #heatwave and #ClimateChange.

Our detailed codebook and coder instructions are available in Supp Info

3/10

Many visuals were positively valenced (heatwaves = fun/enjoyable) - a prominent visual framing of heatwaves as ‘fun in the sun’. In all countries, the majority of pics showed people having a fun time in/by water. Contrast this to article texts, which were v rarely + valenced 4/10

The most prevalent type of images in all countries were photographs of people having fun in or by water.

(The pic below shows all images for the 'fun in the sun' code, of all valence types, but even here, you can see how most are + valenced in/by water images).

5/10

We found another prominent visual discourse, the 'idea of heat'. Whilst this did depict some notion of heat & danger (e.g. 'dangerously hot' red/orange colours, bright sunbursts), people were largely absent (and if featured, they were depersonalised - couldn't see faces etc) 6/10

Dissonance between article texts and images could be very stark.

We found examples of headlines talking of unprecedented heat, vulnerable people, even heatwave deaths... alongside 'holiday snaps'. All the images filling the bars below accompanied these sorts of articles. 7/10

This current visual framing of heatwaves is problematic in two ways:
1. By displacing concerns of vulnerability, it marginalises the experiences of those vulnerable to heatwaves.
2. These visual discourses exclude opportunities for imagining a more resilient future. 8/10

But - emerging solutions journalism does exist!

@ADnl is doing something different and interesting. E.g. instead of picturing families by an ice-cream van on a benign sunny day, they showed elderly residents eating ice-creams at a care home (other examples in our paper).

9/10

We hope this paper helps as part of the rapidly moving conversation on #VisComm #heatwaves #ClimateChange #media #journalism (we discuss barriers and opportunities in our paper). It's for us all to critically question visual portrayals of heatwaves and their unequal impacts.10/10

@arguedasortiz @NiranjanAjit @JulieDoylej @ClimateAdam @dramcgarry @wblau @cboussalis @dougmcneall @ProfGillian @angelamorelli @tobysmithphoto @climatevisuals @shauryapatel29 @mss7676 @ed_hawkins @AyeshaTandon @schipper_lisa @EmilianoTrere @DominicMHinde @lwhitmarsh @maxboykoff

Also flagging @KHayhoe @ClimateComms @DoctorVive who've been part of many a conversation (with me and others) on problematic heatwave visuals over the last few years.

And a final very big thank you to my PhD student @annayahprosser who has guided me through the PrePrint process - a brave new world!! Thanks Annayah - learning most certainly goes both ways 🙂

This thread and our pre-print is getting a lot more attention than we anticipated! Tagging @LeverhulmeTrust as my Research Fellowship was the real impetus in facilitating this research project. It's part of my LT Fellowship (2021-23) 'The visual life of climate change'.