Antal Wozniak, Julia Lück, Hartmut Wessler
Visual strategies and representations: How journalists and PR professionals coproduce the images of climate change.

64th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), Seattle, WA, May 22nd to May 26th, 2014

Based on the co-production model which describes the close collaboration between journalists and PR professionals during staged political media events, this study analyzes perceptions about visual representations of climate change among three actor groups who communicatively co-produce the annual UN Climate Change Conferences - journalists, NGO spokespeople, and governments' press officers. These actors' core perceptions of effective climate change imagery are assessed and used as an empirical benchmark for a comparative quantitative content analysis of newspaper visuals across five countries. Basic assumptions of the co-production model regarding common interpretations about visual framing across professions as well as NGO-friendly outcomes in visual media coverage are confirmed. Implications for further research and the general relationship between journalism and political PR in a transnational context are discussed.