Researchers at the University of Colorado and at the University of Exeter, Oxford University, provide monthly tracking of major newspapers’ coverage of climate change/global warming spanning 20 countries on six continents.
Max Boykoff and Maria Mansfield update the chart monthly “as a resource for journalists, researchers, and others who may be interested in tracking these trends,” they write on the site.
“We’ve done this so people can pluck it off the site and use it for presentations, stories, etc. We typically update it on the 15th of each month, capturing the archives from the previous month embargoed for two weeks,” said Boykoff, who for several years has been closely studying and tracking media coverage on the issue.
The researchers explain on the website that they compiled the data using three principal search engines – Lexis Nexis, Factiva, and ABI/Inform. They used the Boolean string “climate change OR global warming” for their research, initiated in January 2004. They advise that “the relative trends across regions are more useful than absolute numbers,” and they say they focused on “influential” newspapers based on circulation, influence, and policy/public opinion and geographic diversity. On their site, they list the newspapers they use in assembling the monthly chart.