10th Biennial ACSPRI Social Science Methodology Conference in conjunction with the Australian Social Network Analysis Conference (ASNAC)

Previous climate change communication research has examined how news framing shapes attitudes, emotions, policy support, and behavioral intentions. However, less attention has been paid to whether people with similar characteristics evaluate news using the same frame in similar ways and whether the factors associated with this similarity differ across frames. Do conservatives evaluate climate news in ways similar to other conservatives, and liberals in ways similar to other liberals? Or are similar evaluations associated more with how people feel about climate change and whom they trust for political information?

This study examines whether similarity in news quality evaluations is associated with similarities in climate-related emotions (concern, hope, and anger), climate change knowledge (perceived and objective knowledge), and political factors (political ideology and political information-source trust). It also examines whether these associations differ across climate change news frames.

To identify climate change news frames, 7,855 articles published between 2021 and 2024 by six major national newspapers in South Korea were analyzed using semantic network analysis and CONCOR (CONvergence of iterated CORrelations) analysis. Seven frames were identified: Harmful Impacts, Human Touch, Science, Economic Consequence, Responsibility & Accountability, Climate Action, and Power Battle. A web survey of 621 South Korean adults then measured participants’ evaluations of news stories representing each frame. Pairwise similarity matrices were constructed, and separate Multiple Regression Quadratic Assignment Procedure (MRQAP) models were estimated for each frame using the same set of variables.

The findings show that the climate-related emotions associated with similar news quality evaluations differed across frames. Similarity in concern was positively associated with evaluation similarity in Harmful Impacts, Science, Economic Consequence, and Power Battle. Similarity in hope was positively associated with evaluation similarity in Harmful Impacts, Human Touch, Science, and Economic Consequence. Similarity in anger was positively associated with evaluation similarity in Economic Consequence, Responsibility & Accountability, and Climate Action. These results show that different emotions were associated with similar evaluations depending on the frame used to present climate change.

Climate change knowledge showed distinct patterns across frames depending on whether it was subjective or objective. Similarity in perceived knowledge was positively associated with evaluation similarity in Harmful Impacts and Power Battle but negatively associated with it in Climate Action. Similarity in objective knowledge was negatively associated with evaluation similarity only in Economic Consequence. Perceived and objective knowledge were therefore associated with evaluation similarity in different frames and showed no common pattern across all seven frames.

Political factors showed a clearer pattern. Similarity in political ideology was positively associated with evaluation similarity only in Responsibility & Accountability and Power Battle. By contrast, similarity in political information-source trust was positively associated with evaluation similarity across all seven frames. People who had similar levels of trust in political information sources were more likely to evaluate climate news similarly than people who merely shared a similar ideological position.

This study extends framing research by examining which shared audience characteristics are associated with similar evaluations of news using the same frame. The findings suggest that similarity in climate news evaluations is not explained by knowledge or political ideology alone. Climate-related emotions and trust in political information sources were also associated with similar evaluations, with political information-source trust showing an association across all seven frames. Climate journalism should therefore consider not only the factual and scientific information presented in news but also the emotional and trust-based contexts through which audiences interpret it. In fragmented information environments, differences in these contexts may shape whether audiences develop similar standards for evaluating climate news across different frames.