Between fear and utopia : The framing of the climate movement and the anti-thermal power plant movement in the media

This research comparatively analyzes the news media portrayal of the climate movement and the anti-thermal power plant movement. The principal purpose of this study is to examine the representation of social movements that challenge the institutions and political systems given their responsibility in climate inaction and environmental injustices. It was claimed that ecological problems in general and the climate crisis, in particular, are discussed within the framework of a consensus-based discourse shaped by neoliberalism and that this framework has a depoliticizing effect on public debates. Based on this claim, this master's thesis asserts that the calls for environmental and climate justice and the actors' demand on this issue cannot cross the political economy constraints of the media in their attempt to politicize the climate crisis. Framing analysis has been utilized as a research method to test this hypothesis empirically. Based on this claim, Bianet, the daily BirGün, Cumhuriyet, Hürriyet, Sabah, and Yeni Şafak were included in the research sample, and the total 682 news articles published between 2018-2020 were examined by applying qualitative and quantitative content analysis. Research results indicate that the depoliticization of climate crisis as a social problem was manufactured and sustained by news frames that did not focus on the demands and accusations of activists who react to the climate inaction. Moreover, provided that the number of actions taking place abroad is higher than the climate actions in Turkey, this situation resulted in a missed opportunity to disseminate the claims on Turkey's climate inaction through the climate movement. In a similar vein, the representation of the anti-thermal power plant movement in the alternative and independent media foregrounds the local injustices caused by the thermal power plants. On the other hand, there is a lack of connection between thermal power plants and their effects on the climate crisis in the media, and this misframing disguises the role of these plants in the materialization of transnational climate injustices. Besides, the focus of the collective action frames of anti-thermal power plants movement on the risk and problems resulting from these plants provide genuine opportunities to shake the fossil fuel hegemony of neoliberalism. However, the connection has not been established between these problems, the capitalist systems' intrinsic tendency for ongoing growth to achieve maximum profit, and the importance of the fossil fuels industry to realize it. Therefore, news media maintained the status quo by removing the capitalist system on the issue.