Climate action frames in television coverage of a natural disaster: the case of the Emilia-Romagna flood

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA DELLA COMUNICAZIONE
Author/s Cecilia Biancalana, Riccardo Ladini , Daria Loreti, Guido Legnante
Publishing Year 2026 Issue 2026/71
Language Italian Pages 21 P. 46-66 File size 160 KB
DOI 10.3280/SC2026-071003
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Climate action frames in television coverage of a natural disaster: the case of the Emilia-Romagna flood This article analyses the frames through which Italian television news covered the 2023 Emilia-Romagna flood, focusing on climate change and response strategies. Drawing on data from the Pavia Observatory, a qualitative frame analysis examines the news editions in which climate change is identified as a cause of the event, investigating the extent to which climate change is thematised, the solutions discursively evoked – adaptation and mitigation – and the narrative registers of emergency reporting. The findings show that climate change is rarely thematised and is mainly articulated by scientific experts, that adaptation frames clearly prevail over mitigation, and that frequent references to “bad weather” and dramatization weaken a systemic interpretation of the event.

Keywords: climate change, extreme weather events, television, framing, thematisation, adaptation and mitigation.

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Cecilia Biancalana, Riccardo Ladini , Daria Loreti, Guido Legnante, I frame di contrasto al cambiamento climatico nella narrazione televisiva di un disastro naturale: il caso dell’alluvione in Emilia-Romagna in "SOCIOLOGIA DELLA COMUNICAZIONE " 71/2026, pp 46-66, DOI: 10.3280/SC2026-071003