We’ve been delighted to host a Nuffield Research Placement over the past month. Sian, from Ysgol Gyfun Rhydywaun, has been researching the way the media reports on onshore wind, and comparing it with DECC’s own data.
Her research demonstrates a big difference between the way in which two major global news portals report on onshore wind.
The Daily Mail and The Guardian are the UK’s biggest newspapers by online views (13.6m and 7.7m monthly hits respectively). Sian’s analysis compared the ‘sentiment’ of news articles of both publications with the ‘actual’ view of the general public as collected by DECC.
The Daily Mail portrays onshore wind in an exclusively neutral-hostile fashion. The Guardian is much more representative of public opinion, and its representation very closely matches the data collected by DECC.
Commenting on the research, David Clubb said:
“The results won’t come as a shock to those of us working in the sector; they reflect the nature of public discourse in the UK which is highly influenced by some media organisations with a very strong editorial bias against onshore wind.
“Sian’s work is very useful because it provides research which demonstrates the extent to which the Daily Mail is wholly unrepresentative of the general public on this issue, and is potentially influencing people to believe something which isn’t true – namely that people don’t like onshore wind, when in reality it is a very popular technology.
“It has been a pleasure to host Sian over the last month, and we wish her the very best for her future studies”
The full poster with further details of the research can be downloaded here.