Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Jul 17.
Published in final edited form as: J Public Econ. 2016 Oct 27;144:91–108. doi: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2016.10.004

Table 3.

Cross-country comparisons of beliefs in climate change, media coverage, and journalistic norms

Share of … Time period Germany Italy United Kingdom United States
… adults who believe that rising temperatures have a human cause 2010 0.60 0.57 0.38 0.36
… newspaper articles mentioning skeptical scientists 2000–2010 0.02 — 0.17 0.24
… journalists who think objective reporting expresses fairly the position of each side 1990–1992 0.21 0.28 0.31 0.40

Note: Share of adults who believe that rising temperatures have a human cause is from a 2010 Gallup survey (Ray and Pugliese 2011) that asked: “Temperature rise is a part of global warming or climate change. Do you think rising temperatures are (i) a result of human activities, (ii) a result of natural causes, (iii) both [if volunteered], (iv) don’t know/refused, (v) not aware of global warming.” The value reported is the share who answered (i) out of those who answered (i) to (iv). Share of newspaper articles mentioning skeptical scientists is from Grundmann and Scott (2014). The value reported is the count of articles mentioning scientific researchers who are skeptical of climate change, as a fraction of articles mentioning both advocates and skeptics, in the top 10 newspapers in each country by climate-change coverage. Share of journalists who think objective reporting expresses fairly the position of each side is from Donsbach and Klett’s (1993) survey of journalists that asked: “Please look at the five statements about good news reporting. Which comes closest to your understanding of the term ‘objectivity’? Good news reporting (i) does not allow the journalist’s own political beliefs to affect the presentation of the subject, (ii) expresses fairly the position of each side in a political dispute, (iii) requires an equally thorough questioning of each side in a political dispute, (iv) goes beyond the statements of the contending sides to the hard facts of a political dispute, (v) makes clear which side in a political dispute has the better position.” The value reported is the share who answered (ii). Sample is restricted to the four countries included in Donsbach and Klett’s (1993) survey.