Study claims skeptics use media for 'seeding doubt' on man-made warming - Congrats to A. Watts website!

Here (PDF).

The most successful, WattsUpWiththat.com, the US‐based blog of sceptic and former weatherman Anthony Watts, in July this year posted 646,024 page views (2.8m since launch). It is in the top four of 3.4m blogs using the free online blog authoring tool, Wordpressxv. Using the latest Nielsen Net Ratings data, even the most conservative estimate would give it over 300,000 monthly visits and a readership of over 31,000 users.xvi Compare that to the New Statesman’s 12.7% year‐on‐year decline, to headline sales of just over 26,000. [...] This paper explores the ways in which new media is used to derail action on climate change. Climate change can be a gloomy subject; but in the spirit of this conference I’ll attempt to map out some productive coordinates for what is an increasingly urgent question. First I provide a (very) brief summary of the scientific consensus, and examples of where this is undermined online. Then I explore whether this phenomena is of substantive enough importance for our attention. Finally, I address its implications for new media and democratic renewal. On 3rd August this year, IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri told the Chicago Tribune: “The science about climate change is very clear. There really is no room for doubt at this point.”i Since publication of the 4th IPCC report in 2007, the mainstream media has, in general, accepted this position. As Andreadis and Smith (2007) note, UK journalists are no longer required to balance each warning voice.

(Via Marc Morano)