Media representations of climate change risk to ski tourism: a barrier to climate action?

Abstract

The multi-billion-dollar global ski tourism industry faces significant climate risks as evidenced by a significant body of literature. Despite this a wide gap persists between leading research, common media portrayals, and ski industry climate risk perceptions; and the global ski industry generally remains ill prepared for accelerating climate changes. Considering the salience of climate change for the ski industry and the extent to which public media sources are cited as important channels for climate information by ski industry leaders, this research analyzes media portrayals of ski industry climate risk over time (1988–2019). Exploring both the quantity and content of coverage mainstream media gives to ski tourism and climate change, this research finds that media disproportionately covers the global ski tourism market geographically, uses four dominant frames; disaster, settled science, economic, and unsettled science, and often fails to cite credible research or experts. Typical media coverage is likely a barrier to ski industry acceptance of credible science and may contribute to slower climate responsiveness. The paper concludes with a discussion of opportunities to improve research-media-industry communication with the aim of enhancing industry climate preparedness.