CSTPR Seminar: Ines Lörcher
February
3
Wed
2016
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Open to Public
Climate Change from the Audience’s Perspective
by Ines Lörcher - Institute for Journalism and Communication, University of Hamburg
Abstract: Climate change is considered as one of the biggest problems humanity is facing today. At the same time, it is an abstract and complex phenomenon and the findings of climate science are often temporary and uncertain. The communication of this scientific issue to the public is therefore a challenge – especially for the mass media as one of the most important mediators. Climate change is ever-present in the media and in the last years, news coverage of the issue has increased all over the world. A research project at the University of Hamburg in Germany investigated for 6 years the overall question in which way media influence the public knowledge about and attitudes towards climate change. Here, the definition of media was very broad as also the meaning of fictional content and online communication was analyzed. In her talk, Ines Lörcher as one of the members of the research team will present results of their various multi-method studies within the project: surveys, qualitative interviews and a broad quantitative online content analysis via manual and automated coding methods of journalistic articles and their reader comments, scientific expert blogs, discussion forums and social media.
Biography: Ines Lörcher is a research associate in the project “Climate Change from the Audience Perspective” (funded by the German Research Foundation) and member of the research group “Climate Change Perception, and Communication” in the Cluster of Excellence “CliSAP” at the University of Hamburg in Germany. She studied at the University of Mainz in Germany and the University of Navarra in Pamplona in Spain and holds M.A. degrees in Communications, Political Science and Cultural Anthropology. Currently, she is working on her PhD thesis on climate change communication in different online publics.