Dr James Painter

James Painter (james.painter@politics.ox.ac.uk) is a Research Associate at the Reuters Institute.

James was the Director of the Journalism Fellowship Programme for eight years until he stepped down from the role in September 2017, when he took up a position as visiting professor at the IPMZ in the University of Zurich, then at the University of Navarra in Pamplona (2018), then at the University of Perugia (2018).  He is currently a senior teaching associate at the School of Geography, Oxford University. He teaches the MSc module on climate change, communication and the media, lectures on the same topic, and supervises Masters and PhD students. He is also a senior visiting senior fellow at the Grantham Research Institute, London School of Economics.

James' teaching and research are focused on the portrayals of climate change in legacy, digital-born and social media in the UK and around the world, and environmental communication in general. This has covered a wide range of research areas including climate denialism, risk and uncertainty, animal agriculture and climate change, lab-grown meat, extreme weather events, climate niche sites and biodiversity loss.  His current research projects include:

• Climate denialism/obstructionism/disinformation in the media (currently working on two studies on the media coverage of the 2021/2 IPCC reports, a book chapter on climate obstructionism in the UK, and a study of how the UK media spread inaccuracy and misinformation about the Net Zero policy).

• The textual and visual journalistic portrayals of extreme weather events, with a particular focus on Extreme Event Attribution; case study of the Indian heatwave of 2022, and its coverage by Indian media

• The media portrayal of climate scenarios, and in particular the coverage of this aspect of the IPCC WGI and WGIII reports (carried out as a consultant to the IPCC).

• Animal agriculture, climate change and dietary options in mainstream and social media; collaborator on the LEAP project at the James Martin School at Oxford University (until 2022)

• The challenges facing climate journalism

He is the author of five RISJ publications on climate change: Summoned by Science: Reporting Climate Change at Copenhagen and Beyond (2010); Poles Apart: the international reporting of climate scepticism (2011); Climate Change in the Media: reporting risk and uncertainty (2013); Disaster Adverted? Television Coverage of the 2013/4 IPCC Climate Change Reports (2014) and Something Old, Something New: Digital Media and the Coverage of Climate Change (2016). He is also the author of several academic articles on the media's reporting of climate change.

He writes regularly on climate change in the media and speaks at major international conferences for academics, journalists, policy makers and scientists.  He has given evidence to two select committees of the UK Houses of Parliament.

He has carried out several consultancies for the IPCC, IPBES, Oxfam, UNDP, Conservation International and other organisations.

James joined the BBC World Service in 1992, and worked as head of the Spanish American Service, head of the BBC Miami office, and Executive Editor Americas. Prior to joining the BBC, he was a correspondent in Bolivia for four years working for various media in the UK and USA, including the BBC, Reuters, the Independent and the Christian Science Monitor. He has published, or contributed to, several books and articles on Latin America, particularly on the drugs trade, Bolivia and Central America, and Latin American media issues.  He has also researched international news channels.

Publications

2024 (including forthcoming/in review)

Painter, J., Marshall, S. & Leitzell, K. (2024) Communicating climate futures: a multi-country study of how the media portray the IPCC scenarios in the 2021/2 Working Group reports. Climatic Change 177, 82. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-024-03744-z

Painter, J., Thaker, J., Borwankar, V., Jain, G., & Negi, K. (2024). The 2022 Indian heatwaves: Exploring media coverage in English, Hindi, Marathi, and Telugu. Climate Trends.

Sanford M., Painter J., (2024) Divergences between mainstream and social media discourses after COP26, and why they matter, Oxford Open Climate Change, 2024; kgae006, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgae006

Daley F, Newell P, McKie R, Painter J, (2024). Climate Obstruction in the UK: charting the resistance to climate action, in Brulle R.J., Timmons J.T. and Spencer M. (eds), Climate Obstruction across Europe, Oxford: OUP, available at https://cssn.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Climate-Obstruction-in-Europe.pdf

Painter J, Plehwe D, Moreno JA, The transnational impact of think thanks: A case study of the media presence of renewable energy studies funded by fossil fuel interests in six countries, 2008-2011, under review.

Wetts R., Painter J., Loy L. The IPCC in the hybrid public sphere: divergent responses to climate mitigation solutions in mainstream and social media. Climatic Change. Forthcoming.

2023

Painter, J., Ettinger, J., Holmes, D. et al. (2023) Climate delay discourses present in global mainstream television coverage of the IPCC’s 2021 report. Commun Earth Environ 4, 118 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00760-2

Gilly Mroz, Hibba Mazhary & James Painter (2023) What’s cooking? The normalization of meat in YouTube recipe videos consumed by South Asian British Muslims, Food, Culture & Society, DOI: 10.1080/15528014.2023.2196195

Ettinger, J., Walton, P., Painter, J., Flocke S.A. & Friederike E.L. Otto (2023) Extreme Weather Events as Teachable Moments: Catalyzing Climate Change Learning and Action Through Conversation, Environmental Communication, DOI: 10.1080/17524032.2023.2259623

2022

Painter J et al (2022) Journalism in Climate Change Websites: Their Distinct Forms of Specialism, Content, and Role Perceptions, Journalism Practice, DOI: 10.1080/17512786.2022.2065338

Mroz G, Painter J (2022) One person’s meat is another’s poison: representations of the meat-health nexus in UK news media, Health Promotion International, Volume 37, Issue 3, daac072, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daac072

Mroz G & James Painter (2022) What do Consumers Read About Meat? An Analysis of Media Representations of the Meat-environment Relationship Found in Popular Online News Sites in the UK., Environmental Communication, DOI: 10.1080/17524032.2022.2072929

O’Neill, S., Hayes, S., Strauß, N., Doutreix, M., Steentjes, K., Ettinger, J., Westwood, N. and Painter, J. (2022). Visual portrayals of fun in the sun misrepresent heatwave risks in European newspapers. The Geographical Journal. doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12487

Russell A, Kangas J, Kunelius R, Painter J. (2022) Niche climate news sites and the changing context of covering catastrophe. Journalism. doi:10.1177/14648849221113119

Books

J. Painter (2016) Something Old, Something New: Digital Media and the Coverage of Climate Change, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford

J. Painter (2013) Climate Change in the Media: Reporting Risk and Uncertainty, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford

J. Painter (Editor) India’s Media Boom: The Good News and the Bad, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, 2013

J. Painter (2011) Poles Apart: The International Reporting of Climate Scepticism, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford

J. Painter (2010) Summoned by Science: Reporting Climate Change at Copenhagen And Beyond, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford

J. Painter (2008) Counter-Hegemonic News: A Case Study of Al-Jazeera English and Telesur, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford

Book chapters

Painter J. and Schafer M. (2019). Global Similarities and Persistent Differences: A Survey of Comparative Studies on Climate Change Communication in Brevini B. and Lewis J. (eds.), Climate Change and the media, New York: Peter Lang.

Painter J. (2016) ‘Disaster, Risk or Opportunity? A Ten-Country Comparison of Themes in Coverage of the IPCC AR5’ in Media and Global Climate Knowledge: Journalism and the IPCC, Kunelius, R., Eide, E., Tegelberg, M., Yagodin, D. (eds)

Painter J. (2015) ‘Quels ont été les grands traits de l’évolution de l’opinion publique mondiale vis-à-vis du changement climatique?’, in Petit M. (ed.), Climat - le temps d’agir, Cherche-Midi.

Journal articles

Painter J (2021) The international coverage of biodiversity loss.  Chapter in Takahashi B et al., (eds.), The Handbook of International Trends in Environmental Communication. Routledge.

Painter, J., Ettinger, J., Doutreix, MN. et al. (2021) Is it climate change? Coverage by online news sites of the 2019 European summer heatwaves in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. Climatic Change 169, 4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03222-w

Strauss N, Painter J, Ettinger J, Doutreix M,  Wonneberger A, Walton P (2021) Reporting on the 2019 European Heatwaves and Climate Change: Journalists’ Attitudes, Motivations and Role Perceptions, Journalism Practice, DOI: 10.1080/17512786.2021.1969988

Sanford, M., Painter, J., Yasseri, T. et al. (2021) Controversy around climate change reports: a case study of Twitter responses to the 2019 IPCC report on land. Climatic Change 167, 59. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03182-1

Schäfer M and Painter J (2021) Climate journalism in a changing media ecosystem: Assessing the production of climate change‐related news around the world.  WIREs, https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.675.

Shea MM, Painter J, Osaka S. (2021) Power, the Pacific Islands, and the Prestige Press: A Case Study of How Climate Reporting is Influenced by UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Summits. The International Journal of Press/Politics.  doi:10.1177/19401612211018067

Ettinger, J., Walton, P., Painter, J., Osaka, S., & Otto, F. E. L. (2021). “What’s Up with the Weather?” Public Engagement with Extreme Event Attribution in the United Kingdom.  Weather, Climate, and Society, 13(2), 341-352. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/wcas/13/2/WCAS-D-20-0155.1.xml

Ettinger, J., Walton, P., Painter, J. et al. Climate of hope or doom and gloom? Testing the climate change hope vs. fear communications debate through online videos. Climatic Change 164, 19 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-02975-8

Painter J Brennen JS and Kristiansen S (2020) The coverage of cultured meat in the US and UK traditional media, 2013–2019: drivers, sources, and competing narratives. Climatic Change, DOI 10.1007/s10584-020-02813-3. https://rdcu.be/b6Ib0

Painter J Osaka S Ettinger J and Walton P (2020) ‘Blaming climate change?  How Indian mainstream media covered two extreme weather events in 2015’. Global Environmental Change, 63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102119

Painter J and Hassol S (2020) Reporting extreme weather events, in Holmes DC and Richardson LM, Research Handbook on Communicating Climate Change. Edward Elgar (forthcoming).

Schäfer M and Painter J (2020) Climate journalism in a changing media ecosystem: Assessing the production of climate change‐related news around the world.  WIREs, https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.675.

Kristiansen S Painter J Shea M (2020) Animal Agriculture and Climate Change in the US and UK Elite Media: Volume, Responsibilities, Causes and Solutions. Environmental Communication, https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2020.1805344

Shea M Painter J Osaka S (2020) Representations of Pacific Islands and climate change in US, UK, and Australian newspaper reporting. Climatic Change, 161: 89–108.

Stephance A et al. (including Painter J) (2020) The 2019 review of IPBES and future priorities: reaching beyond assessment to enhance policy impact.  Ecosystems and People, 16(1):70-77.

Osaka S Painter J Walton P Halperin A (2019) Media Representation of Extreme Event Attribution: A Case Study of the 2011-2017 California Drought. Weather, Climate and Society, 2020. doi/pdf/10.1175/WCAS-D-19-0050.1.

Painter J (2019) Climate Change Journalism: Time to Adapt. Environmental Communication, 13:3, 424-429, DOI: 10.1080/17524032.2019.1573561

Painter J., Kristiansen S., and Schafer M. (2018). How ‘Digital-born’ media cover climate change in comparison to legacy media: A case study of the COP 21 summit in Paris. Global Environmental Change, January, (48), 1-10.

Painter J., (2018). Journalistic Depictions of Uncertainty about Climate Change Across Countries in Nisbet M. (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Climate Change Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Previously available online at DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.

Kundzewicz Z. W., Painter J., and Kundzewicz W.J., (2017). Climate Change in the Media: Poland’s Exceptionalism, Environmental Communication, December.

Painter J., and Gavin, N. (2016). Climate Skepticism in British newspapers, 2007 – 2011. Environmental Communication, 10:4, 432-452.

Howarth C., and Painter J. (2016).  Exploring the science–policy interface on climate change: The role of the IPCC in informing local decision-making in the UK. Palgrave Communications 2, article number 16058, Doi: 10.1057.

Painter J., (2015). ‘Disaster, uncertainty, opportunity or risk? Key messages from the television coverage of the IPCC’s 2013/4 reports’, Metode Science Studies Journal, 85.

McGaurr L., Lester L., and Painter J. (2013). Risk, uncertainty and opportunity in climate change coverage: Australia compared. Australian Journalism Review

Painter, J. and Ashe, T. (2012). Cross-national comparison of the presence of climate scepticism in the print media in six countries, 2007-2010. Environmental Research Letters, 7(4), 1-8.

Reports

Painter J. and Walton P. (2017), Raising risk awareness in East Africa and India: Stakeholder perspectives of extreme weather event attribution. CDKN, London. August.

Painter J. (2015) The effectiveness of the IPCC communication: a survey of (mainly) UK-based users. Advance paper for IPCC Expert Meeting on Communication (February 2016, Oslo, Norway), available here

J. Painter (2014) Disaster Averted? Television Coverage of the 2013/14 IPCC's Climate Change Reports, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford

Commentaries

Painter J. (2019) Climate Change Journalism: Time to Adapt, Environmental Communication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2019.1573561