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<p>The article analyses the discursive roles of two prominent themes of the habitual media climate change imagery: “the smokestack” and “renewable energy”. Through semiotic analysis of connotation and thematic content analysis of images in <italic>The Guardian</italic>, the article argues that the constant reliance on these two themes and the particular ways of representing them sustain a definition of climate change as a <italic>technological dualism.</italic> The article argues further that this dualism of “dirty” and “clean” technologies, as the predominant way of visualising direct causes of and responses to climate change, articulates ecological modernisation discourse and its central storyline of progressing from “defiling growth” toward “sustainable development” (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_nor-2019-0003_ref_021">Hajer, 1995</xref>). The article suggests (1) further research on conventional thematic imageries as a meaningful approach to studying policy discourses and (2) the relevance of applying concepts of policy research to understanding and challenging the political bearings of prominent visualisations.</p>
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The article analyses the discursive roles of two prominent themes of the habitual media climate change imagery: “the smokestack” and “renewable energy”. Through semiotic analysis of connotation and thematic content analysis of images in The Guardian, the article argues that the constant reliance on these two themes and the particular ways of representing them sustain a definition of climate change as a technological dualism. The article argues further that this dualism of “dirty” and “clean” technologies, as the predominant way of visualising direct causes of and responses to climate change, articulates ecological modernisation discourse and its central storyline of progressing from “defiling growth” toward “sustainable development” (Hajer, 1995). The article suggests (1) further research on conventional thematic imageries as a meaningful approach to studying policy discourses and (2) the relevance of applying concepts of policy research to understanding and challenging the political bearings of prominent visualisations.

Picturing two modernities: Ecological modernisation and the media imagery of climate change

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The article analyses the discursive roles of two prominent themes of the habitual media climate change imagery: “the smokestack” and “renewable energy”....

Visual theme	N	Per cent
Fossil energy & industry	45	52
Traffic	10	11
Air pollution	5	6
Agriculture	5	6
Food	4	5
Deforestation	3	3
Waste	3	3
Housing	2	2
Population	2	2
Other	8	9
Total	87	100

Visual theme	N	Per cent
Wind energy	19	36
Solar energy	13	24
Forest/plantation	5	9
Building/lightning	4	8
Bicycling	2	4
Other energy	2	4
Other	8	15
Total	53	100

Picturing two modernities: Ecological modernisation and the media imagery of climate change

Published Online: Feb 19, 2019

Page range: 61 - 74

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2019-0003

Keywords
climate change, visualisation, media, discourse, ecological modernisation

© 2019 Jarkko Kangas, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Themes of images visualising causes of climate change.

Themes of images visualising responses to climate change.

Picturing two modernities: Ecological modernisation and the media imagery of climate change

Published Online: Feb 19, 2019

Page range: 61 - 74

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2019-0003

Keywordsclimate change, visualisation, media, discourse, ecological modernisation

© 2019 Jarkko Kangas, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Themes of images visualising causes of climate change.

Themes of images visualising responses to climate change.

Keywords
climate change, visualisation, media, discourse, ecological modernisation