Integrating media studies concepts into theories of the policy process: Enhancing the role of media as a climate service in the wake of recurring extreme weather events

Abstract

Theories of agenda-setting, punctuated equilibrium and framing undergird theories of the policy process. These theories presume that public attention to extreme weather events would result in an increased likelihood of policy action. However, another possibility suggests that the increasing frequency, expanded range and extended duration of climate disasters could result in the normalization of extreme weather events. Despite increasing news coverage of heatwaves, supercell tornados, record wildfires and 1000-year weather events, existing points of intractability have hardened to dull pathways for policy change. By integrating more recent media studies concepts associated with citizen journalism, image events and upward activation into theories of the policy process, this theoretical review identifies new areas of interdisciplinary collaboration and examines how mobile media, social media and shortform video (MSV) can be used to perform climate services and encourage policy action in the wake of ongoing and recurring extreme weather events.