Responsibility and the Media : A critical discourse analysis of climate change representations in the U.S and Nigerian news outlets

Scientists have reached a consensus that human activities have contributed to global climate change, yet its outcomes affect societies disproportionately. Often the least responsible countries are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. This study will therefore be looking at vulnerable countries and highest carbon emitters, by engaging in a critical discourse analysis of climate change representations in the U.S and Nigerian news. Through the analysis of the Nigerian floods in 2018 and the U.S Campfires in 2018, functions of systemic functional linguistics and critical discourse analysis such as frame analysis, transitivity analysis, deemphasis/emphasis were used as tools to investigate how responsibility was discursively constructed in the media. The analyses show that the media coverage of Nigerian floods present frames of ‘government accountability’ and ‘victim accountability’ while the U.S Camp Fires media coverage present frames of ‘heroism’ and ‘victims’. No explicit mention of climate change is present in the texts and responsibility is discursively constructed away from climate change and human activities as a responsible agent and towards the actual fires themselves, government, or victims