This study employs Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine how state-sponsored and independent news media frame the climate crisis, focusing on power relations, ideological positioning, and discursive strategies. A purposive sample of 80 news articles (40 from state-sponsored outlets, 40 from independent media) published between January 2023 and December 2024 was analyzed using Fairclough’s three-dimensional model. Findings reveal stark contrasts: state-sponsored media predominantly employ a “managed transition” frame, emphasizing technological solutions, national sovereignty, and economic continuity while systematically downplaying urgency and systemic critique. In contrast, independent media utilize an “emergency accountability” frame, highlighting corporate responsibility, political failure, and grassroots activism, often employing crisis metaphors and direct attribution of blame. Lexical choices, passive/active voice constructions, and intertextual references further differentiate the two. The study concludes that state-sponsored media discursively stabilize existing power structures by redefining climate action as incremental and non-disruptive, whereas independent media amplify dissenting voices and structural critique. These divergent framings have significant implications for public perception, policy support, and democratic deliberation on climate change.

Critical Discourse Analysis, climate crisis, media framing, state-sponsored media

Benson, R. J. T. and society (1999). "Field theory in comparative context: A new paradigm for media studies." 28(3): 463-498.

Boykoff, M. T. J. A. b. s. (2013). "Public enemy no. 1? Understanding media representations of outlier views on climate change." 57(6): 796-817.

Drake, E. (2025). "From Lock-In to Phase-Out: Pathways Towards Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform."

Entman, R. M. and N. J. J. o. c. Usher (2018). "Framing in a fractured democracy: Impacts of digital technology on ideology, power and cascading network activation." 68(2): 298-308.

Hall, A. J. J. o. c. (2003). "Reading realism: Audiences' evaluations of the reality of media texts." 53(4): 624-641.

Karppinen, K. and H. J. J.-T. P. Moe (2016). "What we talk about when talk about “media independence”." 23(2): 105-119.

Molek-Kozakowska, K. J. D., Context and Media (2018). "Popularity-driven science journalism and climate change: A critical discourse analysis of the unsaid." 21: 73-81.

Nasrin, S. (2024). Journalistic and Activist Responses to the Current Climate Crisis in the United States: Building an Interdependent Solutions-Based Agenda, University of Maryland, College Park.

O’Riordan, T. and A. J. G. E. C. Jordan (1999). "Institutions, climate change and cultural theory: towards a common analytical framework." 9(2): 81-93.

Robinson, S. J. J. and C. Monographs (2011). "“Journalism as process”: The organizational implications of participatory online news." 13(3): 137-210.

Talib, N. and R. J. C. D. S. Fitzgerald (2016). "Micro–meso–macro movements; a multi-level critical discourse analysis framework to examine metaphors and the value of truth in policy texts." 13(5): 531-547.

Ul Islam, Z. J. S. M. P. i. T. L. S. i. F. and I. T. A. A. C. D. Analysis (2025). "Social Media Persuasion in Tourism: Linguistic Strategies in Facebook and Instagram Tourism Advertisements–A Critical Discourse Analysis."

Welch, J. P. (2026). "The Medusa Doctrine: State-Sponsored and State-Supported Terrorism (S³T)."

Wright, K., et al. (2020). "Soft power, hard news: How journalists at state-funded transnational media legitimize their work." 25(4): 607-631.