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Political parties gain their legitimacy through continuous public support, which is enhanced by their central presence in the public sphere. By contrast, particular political views that are regularly marginalised from the media (like environmental issues), weaken the credibility of the parties championing them (like the Greens). Some scholars suggest that the current commercial media system itself is one of the biggest barriers to the rising influence of civic service organisations – whose primary objectives are to create a more egalitarian and ecologically sustainable global economy. The participatory and deliberative models of democracy favoured by the Greens rely heavily on a healthy public sphere for the maintenance of open information flows. Therefore, if society is to make the successful transition to a participatory democratic paradigm, the current media systems will have to change. An alternative media system should aim to catalyse and support the development of a more vibrant public sphere, placing a greater premium on public consensus making and deliberation. This change will require the reversal of current media and political trends, where increasingly political deliberation and participation are losing relevance within modern liberal democratic societies. Green Party documents often acknowledge the power of the media to undermine the expansion of participatory forms of democracy, and the question remains, on how such rhetoric translates into hard policy objectives? This paper sets out toGlobal Greens and the Mass Media answer this question by analysing the contents of Green policy papers from a selection of countries around the world in order to determine their commitment concerning media reform.

Abstract. A particularly troubling issue in US news discourse is that global warming, and human activity as a cause for it, continued to be presented as controversial even after a scientific consensus emerged and was reflected in other countries ’ media coverage. Previous research by journalists, sociologists, and geographers has consisted mostly of content analysis; this paper complements it by focusing on specific linguistic elements that indicate the degree of certainty expressed in references to the causes and effects of global warming. An analysis of news articles on global warming published in US newspapers between 2005 and 2008 suggests that the degree of certainty in statements about global warming increased after the UN Climate Change Conference in December of 2007 in Bali, but that US news discourse still lags behind the UK. Research on media coverage of global warming Volume of coverage. In the US, media coverage of climate change increased each year

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum Conspicuous redemption? Reflections on the promises and perils

Media representational practices are vitally important to conceptions of challenges and possibilities for action to address the issue of anthropogenic climate change. They shape processes between science, policy and the public and thereby influence issues of governance and practices in our everyday lives and livelihoods in the twenty-first century. Many complex factors contribute to media representation practices: external (such as political economic challenges associated with corporate media consolidation) as well as internal influences (such as contributions from the deployment of journalistic norms). In this chapter, I touch on salient and swirling factors that contribute to how issues, events and information have often become climate ‘news ’ about anthropogenic climate change. To the extent that these pressures have led to problematic representational practices, media coverage of climate change has contributed to misperceptions, misleading debates, and divergent understandings. Such practices are therefore detrimental to efforts that seek to enlarge rather than constrict the spectrum of possibility for appropriate responses to various environmental challenges.

The first decade of the twenty-first century was a big one for climate science and policy. Climate change steadily rose on the policy agenda of nations, regions, states, and cities. Ironically, it was also the decade in which public opinion vacillated on the reality of climate