Clearing the Air : A Longitudinal Study of Air Pollution in the French Media

Air pollution is a major environmental and public health issue that has gradually attracted media attention over the past two decades. This longitudinal study examines how the French media represented pollution from 2004 to 2024, by analyzing a corpus of 1166 press articles from national and local media with various political orientations. Using a computer-assisted content analysis, we identified distinct phases of media coverage that describe an evolution from an initially scientific and health-focused discourse, to a more political, legislative, and territorialized discursive debate. Our results reveal that air pollution has evolved from a technical environmental problem to a controversial public object marked by legal action, local governance debates and citizen mobilization. This study contributes to understanding the social construction of environmental risks in media discourse, and highlights the role of the press in public perception and political debate.