Attention, Access and the Global Space of Interpretation: Media Dynamics of the IPCC AR5 Launch Year

Abstract

The publication of the IPCC AR5 reports in 2013 and 2014 offers a unique case study for capturing the role of journalism in global communication. As the IPCC's years of work were condensed fi rst into the full reports (WGs) and then the Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs), enormous amounts of information and scientifi c insight were put into action at the moment of publication. This moment initiated a partially rou-tinized and partially unexpected process that mobilized a transnational infrastructure of communication. Identifying some of the key features of this structure and understanding its dynamics is the core target of this study. In this chapter, we provide a fi rst view of what happened at the global level as the fi ndings of scientists and the shared interpretations of the IPCC's scientifi c-political actors were compressed through the needle hole of publicity.