Climate responsibility in Finnish tabloid media

This study explores how climate responsibility was portrayed in Finland’s largest tabloid newspaper, Ilta-Sanomat, in 2019 and 2023. The analysis approaches climate change as a structural injustice, drawing on Iris Marion Young’s concept of the social connection model of responsibility (SCM). The content analysis was conducted using a conceptual framework based on the SCM. The findings reveal a notable shift from emphasising individual responsibility and action in 2019 to focusing on institutional and national responsibility in 2023. The role of individuals transitioned from active agents to passive subjects of climate legislation. This may reflect the successful advancement of official climate politics, but it may also be seen as a result of major global crises and societal changes that occurred between 2019 and 2023. The SCM proved to be a structured yet flexible framework for qualitative text analysis. This study argues that the SCM can be effectively adapted beyond philosophy to analyse public discourse in mainstream media texts.