Whose pain counts? Towards analysing inequalities in collective attention cycles of international disaster coverage in German news
- Event: Seminar
- Presented by: Brielen Madureira from the University of Leipzig
- Date: 29 April 2026
- Time: 13:15-15:00
- Venue: Gothenburg University, Humanisten and online
- Address: Renströmsgatan 6, 412 55 Göteborg
- Room: J335
- Zoom link: https://gu-se.zoom.us/j/67063108947?pwd=kPpjvMLCekxNTBVzq4uYP5gFZ6Y6vd.1
- Slides:
Abstract
Inequalities in media attention may shape public perception, policy response, and the allocation of disaster-relief funds. Research is needed to unravel how media discourse constructs disasters, determines whose suffering is made visible, and whether collective attention is distributed unequally. In this joint project between the Leipzig University and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, our purpose is to examine whether media coverage of climate-related disasters in German newspapers reinforces existing social inequalities. So far, we have worked on three main tasks: preprocessing and identifying relevant news among millions of documents from 2000 to 2024; geoparsing texts to identify the country of interest; and a pilot analysis of segmenting the resulting time series into news events. This talk presents an overview of three papers, as well as unpublished ongoing analyses, and discusses the ways forward. Upcoming results will indicate which types of events and countries are under- and overrepresented in German news coverage. Ultimately, we seek to explore structural biases in climate disaster discourse and their implications for global justice in the era of escalating climate extremes.