The German energy transition in the British, Finnish and Hungarian news media

Germany was the first major country to commit itself to an electricity system transition based on decentralized renewable sources and energy efficiency. This experiment has attracted interest worldwide, but its influence on national energy debates is largely unknown. We study how the German transition appeared in the news media of three countries following alternative nuclear pathways—the United Kingdom, Finland and Hungary—between 2011 and 2015. We show that most discussions are techno-economic, supply-oriented and focused on nuclear, wind and solar energy. Key issues such as energy democracy, regional development, participation, demand-side measures, and bioenergy are neglected. We find that topics are detached from their original contexts and selectively contextualized elsewhere, resulting in very different pictures of the same transition in specific countries and news sources. The ‘Energiewende’ has become part of the international energy policy landscape, but its representation depends on local visions of a good society