Discursive Construction of Climate Change in Kenyan Newspapers: A Critical Analysis of Four Cop Summits

Abstract

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), has confirmed that global average surface temperatures in 2024, reached an unprecedented 1.55°C above pre-industrial level, marking the tenth consecutive year of record-breaking temperatures since 2015. Yet, climate change is not just an environmental problem; it is also the site of a discursive and ideological struggle over meaning and responsibility. The annual climate summits known as the Conference of Parties (COPs), provide an arena where hegemony is articulated, contested and disseminated, with media playing a pivotal role in reproducing or, at different times, resisting the dominant narratives. This study critically investigated how two Kenya newspapers, the Daily Nation and The Standard constructed climate change discourse across four pivotal COPs: COP 12 (2006), COP 15 (2009), COP 21 (2015), and COP 27 (2022). Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and a mixed-methods explanatory sequential design, the study examined dominant discourses and discursive strategies that are mobilised to position climate stories. Further, the Hierarchy of Influences (HoI) framework was incorporated, through in-depth interviews with climate journalists, to analyse the structural and institutional factors shaping climate change coverage. The quantitative and textual analysis revealed that Green Keynesianism – an ideology that ties climate action to state-led investments and economic growth – dominates climate coverage, marginalising justice-oriented alternatives such as Ecosocialism. This hegemony is entrenched through discursive strategies such as authority appeal, actor description, burden attribution and evidentiality, that privilege elite news sources, expert opinion, and growth-oriented solutions. The HoI analysis also demonstrated that the financial precarity of newsrooms and a knowledge gap among editors, paradoxically entrench hegemonic frames. The study shows how the resultant reporter-led news practices, donor-supported trips and training, and absent or weak climate desks, sustain the dominance of Green Keynesianism rather than enable discourse pluralism. This research addresses a significant gap in existing literature, which has largely relied on quantitative, surface-level framing and content analyses, while neglecting the deeper power dynamics and ideological structures underpinning climate narratives. By integrating CDA with HoI, the study offers a fresh model for understanding how language and institutional constraints intersect to shape climate journalism. A striking finding is that hegemony, far from being underpinned by strong institutions, can in fact be entrenched by weakness. The study contributes to ongoing debates on the media’s role in constructing climate narratives by showing how economic framings of climate change are reproduced and their hegemony sustained in the Kenyan press. It offers insights that can inform journalistic practice and communication strategies aimed at expanding the discursive space, countering institutional weaknesses, and creating conditions for more justice-oriented climate action.