Representing the politics of the greenhouse effect:

Abstract

This article aims to identify the discursive strategies of political actors and the media in their re-constructions of climate change. The analytical framework employed in this research project builds on the tradition of critical discourse analysis and has both diachronic and synchronic axes. On the one hand, by tracing the biography of the greenhouse effect as a public issue, the article will look at continuities and discontinuities in its representation and at the historically constitutive power of discourse. On the other hand, the systematic comparison of representations of the problem in three British ‘quality’ newspapers – The Guardian, The Independent, and The Times – at given moments shows that there are alternatives and therefore enhances a critical examination of discursive strategies.