| dc.description.abstract | Climate change is one of the biggest issues we are facing today, and the risks associated are many. If we don’t manage to reduce greenhouse gas emission quickly, the consequences can be severe. The risks related to climate change are however not perceived by all as high. Risk perception research can help explain this phenomenon. Where factors such as our values and worldviews, knowledge and heuristics can help explain why some people are not concerned about these risks.
This is a quantitative case study looking at how Miljøpartiet de Grønne and Fremmskrittspartiet uses risk concepts in relation to climate change, as well as applying risk perception and risk communication concepts to analyse their climate change risk communication. The problem statement is: How does the political parties Fremskrittspartiet and Miljøpartiet De Grønne use risk concepts regarding climate change relative to the current risk science? The related research questions are: How do the political parties communicate the climate change risks? Can the risk perception and risk communication concept be used to analyse how political parties convey climate change risk? Is there value in using risk concepts to analyse the political communication of risk?
By going over literature on risk, risk perception and risk communication this study utilized these concepts to gain knowledge about how Miljøpartiet de Grønne and Fremmskrittspartiet conceptualize and communicate climate change risk. It also used the risk perception and risk communication concept to analyse how political parties convey this risk information.
The value this study found in applying the risk description/risk conceptualization framework to the political parties, was that one could in a systematic manner analyse what climate change risk picture that they communicated. It was found that Fremmskrittspartiet did not provide an informative risk picture of climate change, while Miljøpartiet de Grønne did. This study finds that by applying the concepts of risk perception and risk communication to the political parties, it provides an explanatory value. In this sense we can provide explanations to the reasoning behind what they chose to communicate about climate change and their policies. This study finds that it can be useful to use risk concepts to analyse the political communication of risk. | |