Manufacturing Consent: Rereading News on Four Climate Summits (2000

This article examines if and how news media contribute to manufacturing consent by disabling ideological disagreement about established social structures underlying climate disruption. A critical discourse analysis reveals three discursive constructions emerging in two Belgian elite newspapers and one alternative news site during four climate summits (2000-2012). Despite advocating different policy approaches based on opposing ideological preferences, the newspapers were found to manufacture consent about these preferences by relying on depoliticizing discursive strategies. Only during Conferences of the Parties 18, ideological disagreement about alternative policy frameworks was enabled in the alternative news site and opinionated sections of one newspaper, by relying on politicizing strategies