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James' teaching and research are focused on the portrayals of climate change in legacy, digital-born and social media in the UK and around the world, and environmental communication in general. This has covered a wide range of research areas including climate denialism, risk and uncertainty, animal agriculture and climate change, lab-grown meat, extreme weather events, climate niche sites, climate journalism and biodiversity loss.

James was the Director of the Journalism Fellowship Programme at Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University for eight years until September 2017, and remains a research associate there. He has been a visiting professor at the IKMZ in the University of Zurich (2017-8), at the University of Navarra in Pamplona (2018), and at the University of Perugia (2018). He is currently a senior visiting fellow at the Grantham Research Institute, LSE.  He has supervised several Masters and Doctoral students at the School of Geography.

James previously worked as a journalist for several years, particularly at the BBC World Service, where he was head of the Spanish American Service, head of the BBC Miami office, and Executive Editor Americas. He has carried out several consultancies for the IPCC, IPBES, Oxfam, UNDP, Conservation International and other organisations.

His current research projects include:

  • Climate denialism/obstructionism/disinformation in the media (including two studies on the media coverage of the 2021/2 IPCC reports, a book chapter on climate obstructionism in the UK, and a study of how the UK media spread inaccuracy and misinformation about the Net Zero policy).
  • The textual and visual journalistic portrayals of extreme weather events, with a particular focus on Extreme Event Attribution; case study of the Indian heatwave of 2022, and its coverage by Indian media 
  • The media portrayal of climate scenarios, and in particular the coverage of this aspect of the IPCC WGI and WGIII reports (carried out as a consultant to the IPCC).
  • Animal agriculture, climate change and dietary options in mainstream and social media; he was collaborator on the LEAP project at the James Martin School at Oxford University (until 2022)
  • The challenges facing climate journalism

 

 

Publications

2024

  • Painter, J., Marshall, S. & Leitzell, K. (2024) Communicating climate futures: a multi-country study of how the media portray the IPCC scenarios in the 2021/2 Working Group reports. Climatic Change 177, 82. doi: 10.1007/s10584-024-03744-z
  • Painter, J., Thaker, J., Borwankar, V., Jain, G., & Negi, K. (2024). The 2022 Indian heatwaves: Exploring media coverage in English, Hindi, Marathi, and Telugu. Climate Trends.
  • Sanford M., Painter J., (2024) Divergences between mainstream and social media discourses after COP26, and why they matter, Oxford Open Climate Change, 2024; kgae006, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgae006
  • Daley F, Newell P, McKie R, Painter J, (2024). Climate Obstruction in the UK: charting the resistance to climate action, in Brulle R.J., Timmons J.T. and Spencer M. (eds), Climate Obstruction across Europe, Oxford: OUP, available at https://cssn.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Climate-Obstruction-in-Europe.pdf
  • Painter J, Plehwe D, Moreno JA, The transnational impact of think thanks: A case study of the media presence of renewable energy studies funded by fossil fuel interests in six countries, 2008-2011, under review.
  • Wetts R., Painter J., Loy L. The IPCC in the hybrid public sphere: divergent responses to climate mitigation solutions in mainstream and social media. Climatic Change. Forthcoming.


2023 

  • Painter, J., Ettinger, J., Holmes, D. et al. (2023) Climate delay discourses present in global mainstream television coverage of the IPCC’s 2021 report. Commun Earth Environ 4, 118 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00760-2 
  • Gilly Mroz, Hibba Mazhary & James Painter (2023) What’s cooking? The normalization of meat in YouTube recipe videos consumed by South Asian British Muslims, Food, Culture & Society, DOI: 10.1080/15528014.2023.2196195 
  • Ettinger, J., Walton, P., Painter, J., Flocke S.A. & Friederike E.L. Otto (2023) Extreme Weather Events as Teachable Moments: Catalyzing Climate Change Learning and Action Through Conversation, Environmental Communication, DOI: 10.1080/17524032.2023.2259623

 

2022

  • Painter J et al (2022) Journalism in Climate Change Websites: Their Distinct Forms of Specialism, Content, and Role Perceptions, Journalism Practice, doi: 10.1080/17512786.2022.2065338 
  • Mroz G, Painter J (2022) One person’s meat is another’s poison: representations of the meat-health nexus in UK news media, Health Promotion International, Volume 37, Issue 3, daac072, doi: 10.1093/heapro/daac072
  • Mroz G & James Painter (2022) What do Consumers Read About Meat? An Analysis of Media Representations of the Meat-environment Relationship Found in Popular Online News Sites in the UK., Environmental Communication, doi: 10.1080/17524032.2022.2072929
  • O’Neill, S., Hayes, S., Strauß, N., Doutreix, M., Steentjes, K., Ettinger, J., Westwood, N. and Painter, J. (2022). Visual portrayals of fun in the sun misrepresent heatwave risks in European newspapers. The Geographical Journal. doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12487
  • Russell A, Kangas J, Kunelius R, Painter J. (2022) Niche climate news sites and the changing context of covering catastrophe. Journalism. doi: 10.1177/14648849221113119

 

Other publications

  • Painter, J. (2021). The international coverage of biodiversity loss. Chapter in Takahashi B et al., (eds.), The Handbook of International Trends in Environmental Communication. Routledge.
  • Painter, J., Ettinger, J., Doutreix, M.N. et al. (2021). Is it climate change? Coverage by online news sites of the 2019 European summer heatwaves in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. Climatic Change, 169(4). doi: 10.1007/s10584-021-03222-w
  • Sanford, M., Painter, J., Yasseri, T. et al. (2021). Controversy around climate change reports: a case study of Twitter responses to the 2019 IPCC report on land. Climatic Change, 167, 59. doi: 10.1007/s10584-021-03182-1
  • Schäfer, M. and Painter, J. (2021). Climate journalism in a changing media ecosystem: Assessing the production of climate change‐related news around the world. WIREs. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.675
  • Painter, J., Brennen, J.S. and Kristiansen, S. (2020). The coverage of cultured meat in the US and UK traditional media, 2013-2019: drivers, sources, and competing narratives. Climatic Change, 162: 2379-2396. doi: 10.1007/s10584-020-02813-3
  • Painter, J., Osaka, S., Ettinger, J. and Walton, P. (2020). Blaming climate change? How Indian mainstream media covered two extreme weather events in 2015. Global Environmental Change, 63: 102119. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102119
  • Painter, J. and Hassol, S. (2020). Reporting extreme weather events. Chapter in, Holmes, D.C. and Richardson, L.M. (eds.) Research Handbook on Communicating Climate Change Edward Elgar.
  • Kristiansen, S., Painter, J. and Shea, M. (2020). Animal agriculture and climate change in the US and UK elite media: Volume, responsibilities, causes and solutions. Environmental Communication, 15(2): 153-172. doi: 10.1080/17524032.2020.1805344
  • Painter, J. and Schäfer, M. (2019). Global Similarities and Persistent Differences: A Survey of Comparative Studies on Climate Change Communication. Chapter in, Brevini, B. and Lewis, J. (eds.) Climate Change and the Media New York: Peter Lang.
  • Painter, J. (2018). Journalistic Depictions of Uncertainty about Climate Change Across Countries. Chapter in, Nisbet ,M. (ed.) The Oxford Encyclopedia of Climate Change Communication Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
  • Painter, J. and Gavin, N. (2016). Climate Skepticism in British newspapers, 2007 - 2011. Environmental Communication, 10(4): 432-452. doi: 10.1080/17524032.2014.995193