Natural, unnatural, national: The Australian’s framing of natural disaster and climate change

Australia has recently experienced a sharp spike in the number and severity of extreme weather events. However, despite the release of numerous scientific reports outlining their significance in relation to climate change, public opinion in Australia seems to have shifted away from support for climate change mitigation policies. The aim of this thesis is to explore whether the framing of recent floods reflected concurrent debates over climate change and its possible connection to extreme weather events. This thesis examines The Australian’s reporting of the floods which occurred across north-eastern Australia during March, 2012 as well as climate change reporting from the same month. Lester and Cottle have suggested that the visualisation of climate change, with its stock images of floods, droughts and storms, may ‘relay’ (Barthes 1977: 41) with footage of natural disasters and imply a causal link (Lester & Cottle 2009: 928). However, this thesis seeks to introduce Barthes’ concept of ‘anchorage’ (1977: 39) by establishing whether the surrounding headlines, captions and text, served to ‘anchor’ the meaning of the photography.