Pikl Markus, Dipl.-Ing.

Email: m.pikl(at)students.boku.ac.at

Education

2010-2013
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna
Masters programme
“Management of Environment and Bio Resources”
Specialisation in nature conservation and water economics

Master Thesis „Klimawandel und Klimawissenschaft in der Berichterstattung österreichischer Tageszeitungen“; Institute of Forest, Environmental, and Natural Resource Policy

2007-2010
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna
Bachelors programme “Management of Environment and Bio Resources”

 

Master thesis associated with the PhD-Project
Science-Policy Interactions

“Klimawandel und Klimawissenschaft in der Berichterstattung österreichischer Tageszeitungen”

In contemporary society the mass media play an important role in creating environmental awareness. They increase public attention towards ecological problems and translate scientific expertise in everyday speech. Due to the uncertain and abstract nature of climate change, there is also an increased need for explanations by knowledgeable experts in the media.

Focusing on these perspectives, the coverage of climate change in four Austrian daily newspapers and the scientific expertise in the news coverage were analyzed through content analysis and interviews, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Research objectives were to examine differences among the four newspapers’ coverage on climate change, different journalistic styles and norms and different types of scientists in the media.

Summarized, the results show major differences between “mass media”-classified newspapers and “quality-press”-classified newspapers. Moreover, scientific expertise serves four key functions which lead to different pictures of science depicted in the media. Scientists that provide explanations with respect to climate change were categorized in three types, of which the alerting type in comparison to the critical questioning and factual analyzing type dominated.

Supervisors
supervisor: Hogl Karl, Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.nat.techn.
co-supervisor: Bauer Anja, Mag.

Master’s thesis PDF (only available in German)