Articles on Communication/Discourse Studies by Paul Saurette
This paper conducts a comparative study of how the idea of hypocrisy was invoked in media coverag... more This paper conducts a comparative study of how the idea of hypocrisy was invoked in media coverage of climate change in 12 newspapers from four countries (Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) between 2005 and 2015. It develops the concepts, and explores the characteristics, of three distinct types of climate hypocrisy: personalized (which attacks the moral character of individuals based on inconsistencies between their stated beliefs and behavior); institutional-analytic (which identifies contradictions between institutional rhetoric and ongoing policies and practices); and reflexive (which develops sympathetic accounts of the struggles individuals face in reconciling the tension between values and actions). It explores how these types are used to undermine the credibility of climate advocates as well as to argue for more aggressive climate action, and maps out key features of climate hypocrisy discourse including ideological attributes, targeted actors and behaviors, affective intensity, and regional variations. It outlines a number of surprising key findings, such as (i) hypocrisy discourses are more frequently invoked by “progressives” supporting climate change action than by “conservatives” resisting climate change action, and (ii) while both groups use hypocrisy discourse, they tend to use very different types of hypocrisy discourses which each likely have very different impacts on climate change discourse.
Papers by Paul Saurette
This article presents a critical discourse analysis of the principal storylines through which the... more This article presents a critical discourse analysis of the principal storylines through which the Calgary Herald framed the oil sands between May 1, 2010, and May 31, 2011. The analysis reveals that rather than avoid coverage of environmental protests and critiques , the Herald's narratives used these events to portray the oil and gas industry (and the province and people of Alberta) as victims of an aggressive and well-funded global environmental lobby. This framing not only defends the industry by dismissing environmental criticism of the oil sands as ill-informed and ideologically motivated, it also champions the idea that the provincial government must become a promotional petro-state whose main role is to actively defend the industry.
Canadian Journal of Political Science, 2011
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Articles on Communication/Discourse Studies by Paul Saurette
Papers by Paul Saurette