Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40417318›Full record

ArticleAgriculture and human values2025

Ruminant livestock and climate change: critical discourse moments in mainstream and farming sector news media.

Philippa Simmonds, Damian Maye, Julie Ingram

Abstract readNews
In one paragraph

Article in Agriculture and human values, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Philippa SimmondsCountryside and Community Research Institute, University of Gloucestershire, Francis Close Hall Campus, Swindon Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL50 4AZ UK.ORCID 0000-0003-3929-4934
Damian MayeCountryside and Community Research Institute, University of Gloucestershire, Francis Close Hall Campus, Swindon Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL50 4AZ UK.ORCID 0000-0002-4459-6630
Julie IngramCountryside and Community Research Institute, University of Gloucestershire, Francis Close Hall Campus, Swindon Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL50 4AZ UK.ORCID 0000-0003-0712-4789

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

There is ongoing contestation around greenhouse gas emissions from ruminant livestock and how society should respond. Media discourses play a key role in agenda setting for the general public and policymakers, and may contribute to polarisation. This paper examines how UK news media portrayed ruminant livestock's impact on climate change between 2016 and 2021. The analysis addresses a gap in the literature by comparing discourses in national and farming sector newspapers using a qualitative approach. Four national and two farming sector news outlets were searched for articles published between 2016 and 2021. A corpus of 996 relevant articles was assembled, from which 154 were selected for in-depth examination using Critical Discourse Analysis. Four 'Critical Discourse Moments' (CDMs), each signifying a discursive shift in the debate, were identified over the 6-year studied period: 1) Low salience, diverging discourses, 2) We must eat far less meat, 3) Fighting the anti-meat agenda, and 4) Policy (in)action at COP26. There was a large increase in the number of published articles from January 2019 onward, partly associated with publication of the EAT/Lancet Commission report. CDM 2 (We must eat far less meat) occurred mainly in the national media, while CDM 3 (Fighting the anti-meat agenda) occurred mainly in the farming media. Our findings reveal both opinion polarisation and intergroup polarisation between national and farming sector media, and low engagement with food system power imbalances. Addressing polarisation will be important to enhance capacity for collective decision-making regarding methane emissions from ruminant livestock. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10460-024-10651-7.

Indexed as

Climate changeCritical discourse momentsDiscursive powerMedia analysisPolarisationRuminant livestock

Identifiers

PMID40417318
PMCPMC12098180

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.