Enough? Cultural values, cultural emissions and sustainability in the news media

Despite longstanding scientific knowledge about the impacts of human behaviours on the environment (Meadows et al, 2012), almost half of greenhouse-gas emissions have happened since 1990 (Chancel et al, 2022).

Without urgent effort now, we will not remain under 1.5 degrees warming (Anderson, 2025) and many more lives, both human and non-human, will be changed or lost.

As such, climate scientists highlight the vital need for social interventions (Steffen et al, 2015; Anderson et al, 2020), something we may consider part of the role of news media (see for example: albert, 2021).

Through a content analysis of news media advertising and editorial, redefined here as ‘cultural emissions’ (Styles, 2025), this paper extends our understanding of the news media’s long-term role in influencing sustainability.

It seeks to link our ‘values’ (Schwartz et al, 2012) to ‘theories of the press’ (Siebert et al, 1976) to shows how dominant media theory and practice may have long been at odds with sustainability.