Researching Environmental Communication

The concept of framing environmental issues in the media is a topic that I would like to conduct research on.  Hansen (2011) argues that “one of the most interesting and productive developments in approaches to media coverage of environmental issues has been the increasing application of the concept of ‘framing’, i.e. the principles of ‘selection’ and ‘salience’ (Entman, 1993) in media content which may contribute to the structuring of public and political responses by directing attention to: what the issue/problem is; who/what is responsible; and what the solution is” (p. 15).  If I were granted the opportunity to undertake environmental communication research, I would do a cross cultural comparison of how different countries frame the same environmental issue.  This topic interests me because I believe that there should be unity in how environmental issues are framed. Within Canadian and American media this is rarely the case.  I would be very interest to see how other countries frame issues in comparison to North American media.