Heating up the headlines: How tabloid framing reshaped Germany's Buildings Energy Act

Abstract

Media has become a decisive force in shaping climate and energy policy, influencing not only which issues gain attention but also how they are framed and contested. This paper examines how BILD, Germany's largest tabloid, transformed the 2023 reform of the Buildings Energy Act (GEG) into one of the most polarizing political controversies in recent German history. Analyzing a corpus of 333 BILD articles from January 2023 to March 2024, we identify three dominant rhetorical strategies – personalisation, economic alarmism, and ideological framing – epitomised by the term “Heizungshammer”, which appeared over 250 times in BILD alone and spread to more than 1100 articles across the broader press. These narratives produced concrete policy outcomes: the progressive dilution and eventual abandonment of the 65% renewable energy obligation, the cancellation of planned building efficiency standards, and a reversal of Germany's position in EU negotiations on the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. The case demonstrates that tabloid framing can migrate directly into legislative outcomes, with measurable consequences for climate governance ambition, highlighting the fragility of climate legislation in an age of digital populism.