► What needs does the Media Observatory on Ecology intend to respond to?
In November 2023, 35% of French people believed that there had not been enough talk about climate change in the media, according to the barometer of trust in the media from The Cross. A quarter (26%), on the contrary, thought that we had talked about it too much. Data based on subjective feelings, which the brand new Media Observatory on Ecology (OME) intends to measure as objectively as possible. Officially launched this Thursday, November 7 in the evening, this online tool aims to measure “the share of ecological subjects in the information programs of the audiovisual media”, can we read on his site.
“Until the publication of this tool, there was no public, reliable, transparent and unified data on the treatment of environmental issues in the main traditional media,” underlines the consortium, which thus intends to draw up an observation which will serve as a basis for improving their media treatment.
Supported by a consortium of organizations and companies committed to environmental issues (Data for good, Eleven strategy, Expertises Climat, Mediatree, Pour plus de climat), the project was born at the initiative of the QuotaClimat association, whose the stated mission is to “put climate on the media agenda”. Supported and accompanied by Ademe, the new observatory also benefits from financial and methodological support provided by Arcom.
► Using what methodology is this data collected?
For the moment, only twenty audiovisual media are observed. Thus the morning shows, news bulletins, television news and other investigative and reporting programs from eleven television channels (TF1, France 2, France 3, M6, Arte, C8, CNews, BFMTV, LCI, Franceinfo and France 24 ) and nine radio stations (RTL, Europe 1, RMC, Sud Radio, France Inter, France Info, France Culture and RFI) are constantly scrutinized by an automated analysis tool.
This is based on the verbatim audiovisual stream provided by the company Mediatree to the OME, which is then based on a dictionary of keywords and expressions relating to three major categories: climate, biodiversity and resources. These keywords are also classified according to whether they refer to the causes of climate change, the observation of it, its consequences or solutions to environmental crises.
The dictionary was produced with the support of official reference sources (including the IPCC) and is regularly updated.
Consolidated and organized by an algorithm, this data can be viewed in a freely accessible dashboard. In addition to a detail channel by channel or station by station, comparative graphs of the time given to environmental issues on public service and in private media, in general media and on continuous news channels are recorded. or even on television and radio.
► Does this tool make it possible to draw up an initial observation of the media treatment of environmental issues?
The OME data, updated daily, goes back to spring 2023. Thus, they have already made it possible to draw up an initial, rather pessimistic, inventory. Environmental issues occupied 3.7% of airtime between January and October 2024, compared to 5.3% between March and December 2023, a significant drop of 30%.
Biodiversity and natural resources are on average two to four times less discussed than climate change. The share of airtime given to the environment in general is also largely dependent on current events: it increases when extreme climatic events occur, like the heat wave of summer 2023, which had increases to almost 7%.
These initial findings should support a future bill relating to the responsibility of the media in the treatment of environmental and sustainability issues. Presented on Wednesday November 13, it will be carried by the deputy for Haute-Vienne Stéphane Delautrette (Socialist Party), who had coordinated, in the summer of 2023, a transpartisan working group intended to study the proposals put forward by the Rousseau Institute and the QuotaClimat association.