Between facts and values: print media coverage of the greenhouse effect, 1987-1990

Using as a baseline Herbert Gans' work on values in the news, this qualitative study of US print media coverage of the greenhouse effect between 1987 and 1990 asserts there are at least three additional values that help frame news of the greenhouse effect: progress, the institutionalization of knowledge, and innocence. These values replicate in some crucial ways the values of the scientific community doing research on the greenhouse effect. However, the impact of these values tends to de-emphasize a view of the future and the role of ethical value choices in covering this story, both of which are essential to public understanding of the issue.