A Bewildering Message

Abstract

This master thesis focussed on the correlation between the narrative on climate change within British diplomacy and BBC programming, based on the research question: ‘to what extent has the narrative on climate change within BBC programming been part of British nation branding since the 1997 Kyoto protocol until 2021?’ This research has firstly analysed the current academic literature pertaining the role of climate change within British diplomacy. The findings of previous research were subsequently complimented with an analysis of speeches by representatives of the United Kingdom at the General Assembly of the United Nations. The conclusions regarding this analysis were that climate change steadily became a more important part of British diplomacy, whenever there were no other major crises. Secondly, this master thesis analysed the changing narrative on climate change within nature documentaries of the NHU, as part of BBC programming. This resulted in the conclusion that both climate change specifically and the impact of humans on the environment in general steadily became a more prevalent part of the NHU documentaries over time. When both analyses are compared, the narrative in British climate diplomacy generally matches the narrative within the NHU documentaries. Besides, the correlation between the narrative on climate change within British foreign policy and the NHU documentaries matches the link between British politics and the BBC governance structure. In contrast, the continuity within the production teams of the different nature documentaries does not match their changing narrative, making this factor seem less relevant to its narrative. This implies that the answer to the research question is that BBC programming is part of British nation branding. The existence of the BBC’s missions “representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities” and “bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK” since 2007 explicitly support this conclusion.