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Paper for the SPRU Energy Conference Programme, Jan 25‐26 2010, Sussex University.
F. Sengers
Eindhoven University of Technology
School of Innovation Sciences
PO Box 513
5600 MB Eindhoven
The Netherlands
R.P.J.M. Raven
Eindhoven University of Technology
School of Innovation Sciences
PO Box 513
5600 MB Eindhoven
The Netherlands
Tel: 0031 40 247 4413
Email: r.p.j.m.raven@tue.nl
Fax: 0031 40 244 4602
Alex van Venrooij
Erasmus University
Department for the Study of Arts and Culture
PO Box 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam
The Netherlands
Version 21‐01‐10
Abstract
This study aims to open the black box of resistance to sustainable energy technologies by analyzing
(shifts in) media discourse. To this end, media coverage on biofuels in the Netherlands between
2000 and 2008 is analyzed by means of combining novel quantitative approaches with practitioner
interviews. The quantitative analyses reveal the dynamics in the content of media discourse, but also
its underlying structure in the form of two axes, each representing opposite socio‐cognitive frames:
‘techno‐economic vs. social‐ecological’ and ‘regional vs. global’. In‐depth interviews with key
practitioners in the Dutch biofuels field confirm these findings and provide additional insights with
regard to a) perceived shifts in media coverage; b) cognitive pluralism; c) the politics involved; and d)
resistance in practice.
Keywords: Resistance, acceptance, discourse analysis, content analysis, biofuels, Netherlands
1
1. Introduction
It is becoming increasingly clear that our need for energy should be met in a radically more
sustainable way using a variety of sustainable energy technologies. Despite progressive efforts,
practice shows that there is often a considerable amount of resistance concerning (the introduction
of) many of these technologies. This ‘resistance’ comes in many forms – e.g. in public protests
against wind parks or lobbying for maintaining the status quo. Resistance is also articulated and fed
by vivid debates in media. Considering this latter aspect of resistance, biofuels present an especially
interesting case.
In recent years biofuels have burst onto the scene like “desert blossoms after a heavy rain”
(Steenblik 2007). The main reason for this unprecedented rapid expansion were rising oil prices and
foundations laid earlier ‐ e.g. long‐term support for facilities, production‐related payments and fuel‐
excise tax exemptions. Despite their apparent success story, biofuels have become a highly
contested and resisted set of ‘sustainable’ energy technologies. In fact, experts, NGO’s and
corporate actors challenge the sustainability of biofuels on many fronts. Widespread criticisms range
from an alleged limited potential for real reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, to depicting biofuel
energy crop cultivation as root‐cause for deforestation, loss of biodiversity, social malpractices and
hunger in developing countries. Currently not much is known about the dynamics of these radical
shifts in depicting sustainable technologies, and how this kind of criticism, especially as ventilated
through the media, affects biofuel practices.
This paper aims to investigate how biofuel media discourse evolved during the 2000‐2008
period in the Netherlands, articulate shifts in content and structure of this discourse, and start to
explore how this affected biofuel practices. To this end, a set of methods from Discourse Analysis
(DA) and related fields of enquiry, such as quantitative Content Analysis (CA), are applied to a
selected set of Dutch newspaper articles. DA can be interpreted as the study of ‘language‐in‐use’
(Wetherell et al. 2001). The underlying premise of DA is that language, general terms and
categorizations used to discuss and represent a subject are vital for actual practice. Discourses have
power: they can be a valuable resource to further some practices, but also act as an obstruction for
other ones. The DA is complemented with five in‐depth interviews with practitioners from the Dutch
biofuel field to a) verify the patterns found in the DA; and b) start to explore how discourse dynamics
have affected practitioner’s practice. This paper, then, contributes by a) developing a better
understanding of how resistance articulated in media discourses on ‘sustainable’ energy
technologies can be measured and interpreted using quantitative methods; and b) clarifying how
(changes in) those discourses affect daily work from biofuel professionals. A number of relevant
studies have been published in the past years on Dutch biofuel development (e.g. Suurs 2009;
Ulmanen et al. 2009), but none of them combine an explicit focus on relationships between media
discourse and resistance to biofuel development with a formal, quantitative approach.
Section 2 continues by discussing previous literature on resistance to (sustainable) energy
technologies. In section 3 the central concept of discourse and related approaches are treated.
Section 4 elaborates on the specific research methodology applied in this paper. Section 5 presents
the results. Section 6 discusses important methodological issues. The paper ends with conclusions in
section 7.
2. Resistance to sustainable energy technologies
Studying resistance to new energy technologies is relatively new ground. Work has been done
though in the field of Science and Technology Studies (cf. Bauer 1995). What is clear from this work
is that resistance is a contested concept. There are many different ways of approaching it. For the
purposes of this paper resistance is defined as any intentional behavior directed against the advance
of a new technology that restricts the advocates of that technology to successfully develop and
implement it. There are, however, many other ways of approaching and defining the concept (see
Hollander & Einwohner, 2004, for a review of sociological literature on resistance).
In the field of energy technologies, more attention is paid to another side of the same coin:
social acceptance. Traditional social acceptance studies query the general public on attitudes or
support. They tend to show widespread support for issues like sustainable production and
consumption, climate change policies and green energy technologies in the Netherlands and Europe
(Eurobarometer 2008). The studies often fail to show the harsh reality that many projects and
policies face severe resistance and suffer from serious delays or standstills. Resistance to a
technology is often more clustered and confined to small, but organized groups, which often
strategically use media. This type of resistance fails to show itself in aggregated statistics. Hence
resistance to new technology cannot be understood from public perception research alone (Devine‐
Wright 2005).
Wüstenhagen et al. (2007), in a recent special issue of Energy Policy on social acceptance,
propose a more sophisticated line of thought by making a distinction between socio‐political‐,
community‐ and market‐acceptance. Their focus is mainly on the case of wind energy, but may be
extended to other energy technologies. Market acceptance focuses on consumers and investors and
has thus far received little attention. Community acceptance is the battleground of NIMBYism in the
sense that it is concerned with siting decisions and acceptance by local stakeholders. Socio‐political
acceptance refers to acceptance of the generic idea behind a technology and involves acceptance of
supportive policy measures and frameworks.
Some energy technologies are more contested than others. A lot of academic attention has
been paid to community and socio‐political acceptance of wind energy (cf. Wüstenhagen et al.,
2007; Stephans et al., 2009). There is even more in the academic literature on nuclear power and on
the public opinion‐, media attention‐ and resistance‐ issues surrounding it (Gamson & Modigliani
1989, Friedman et al. 1992, Bauer 1995, Rucht 1995). More generally, In a recent meta‐analysis of 27
energy projects throughout Europe, Raven et al. (2009a, 2009b) show for a variety of new energy
technologies, including bioenergy, wind, solar, hydrogen, Carbon Capture and Sequrestration (CCS),
geothermal energy and household energy efficiency, which critical issues and success factors are
important for social acceptance and derive a managerial procedure for project level social
acceptance issues.
Surprisingly, there is little in the academic literature on resistance to biofuels. Neither is
there much on stakeholder views, public perception or media discourse concerning these fuels. A
number of relevant studies have been published in the past years on Dutch biofuel development in
general (for an overview of the Dutch situation, see textbox 1). Suurs (2009) uses event data from
many Dutch newspapers and other more specific literature to understand the dynamics in the
technological innovation system surrounding biofuels. In another relevant study, Ulmanen et al
(2008) explore coalitions of actors (discourse coalitions) who mobilize discourses in Sweden and the
Netherlands and find three major discourses; oil substitution discourse, environmental discourse
and agricultural discourse. Though these discourses focus more on coalitions of actors and are not
the kind of media discourse of this research.
There are some studies that are of particular relevance for this paper, because they are
concerned with analysis of media coverage of energy technologies. Media coverage concerning
nuclear power was hugely susceptible to events (e.g. a meltdown) and peaked especially in periods
of heavy public concern and criticism (Gamson & Modigliani 1989, Friedman et al. 1992, Bauer
1995). Gamson and Modigliani (1989) suggest that media coverage on nuclear power can be
categorized in a number of ‘packages’. The packages they find vary in underlying cognitive frames
and in dominance across different media types at different times (e.g. packages like ‘progress’,
‘runaway’, ‘public accountability’, ‘energy independence’ etc.). More recently, Alphen et al. (2007)
investigated social acceptance of CCS technologies in the Netherlands by analyzing stakeholder
opinions and applying content analysis to Dutch newspaper articles. They find that media portrayal is
a balanced reflection of stakeholder views and that even though the positive side of CCS is more
dominant at present, NGO’s do find the media to express concerns. Also relevant is the recent
contribution by Qu et al. (2009) on how bioenergy is depicted to the public in China via the internet.
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Through applying content analysis methods on an extensive set of articles from Chinese energy web
platforms, they found that mainly positive aspects and advantages of biofuels were emphasized.
TEXTBOX 1: Biofuel policy in the Netherlands 1990‐2008
Directed biofuel policy is something of late. Biofuel use for mobility, Commission for raising the volumetric biofuel target to 10%
however, has been around for a longer time. Early diesel engines at for2020. Dutch policy makers did put some policy measures in
th
the end of the 19 century ran on vegetable oil and ethanol was practice in trying to comply with the EU policy. Oil companies were
used as an emergency fuel during the Second World War. Petroleum obliged to blend a small percentage of ethanol or biodiesel to their
fuels quickly “took over and ‘fueled’ the global expansion of gasoline or diesel (discussed in 2005/2006 and starting with 2%
transport vehicles” (Van der Laak et al. 2007). Interest in biofuels obliged blending beginning 2007). Use of biofuel was also
rekindled after the oil crisis of the 1970’s. In the following years stimulated by funding specific projects and niche experiments. In
after exploring the biofuel option it became clear quickly that 2006 a Dutch committee (Commissie Cramer) composed of a
biofuels cannot hope to compete with the fossil fuels extracted motley crew of policy actors, scientists, NGO’s and stakeholders
from crude oil and they do not stand any chance without protective from large corporations agreed on a number of criteria for
policy (Ulmanen et al 2009). sustainable biofuels in the Netherlands. In a sense Dutch policy
During the early 1990’s biofuels are not mentioned in the context of continued along an earlier line of trying to incorporate stricter
energy directly (oil prices are low, and climate change is not yet high sustainability criteria at the European level.
on the political agenda), but rather as potential addition for the The tide seemed to be turning in January 2008, when European
declining European agricultural sectors. Especially in countries with environmental commissioner Stavros Dimas announced that the
large agricultural sectors (e.g. France, Germany) energy crops are EU is rethinking its biofuel program due to concerns over rising
seen as a new market and as a way dealing with surplus production. food prices and environmental concerns (by that time biofuel
In the Netherlands this ‘agrification’ idea did not secure a very criticism was already very widespread) . Some interpreted this as
st
strong foothold and 1 generation biofuels remain under the same ‘Europe wants to get rid of its biofuels (obligations)’, while Dutch
legislation as fossil fuels (Suurs 2009). Halfway into the 1990’s other policymakers saw it mainly as plead for stricter sustainability
international developments also become more important: biomass criteria (to which ‘agricultural dwarfs’ like Britain and the
is becoming a more important part of the energy sector and climate Netherlands had appealed earlier). By October 2008 the
change is being put on the political agenda (culminating in the 1998 Netherlands adjusted its 2010 target to 4%, (since the actual 2008
Kyoto treaty). Academics and environmentalists call attention on percentage was only 3,25; see Senternovem 2009). Finally, the
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the negative aspects of 1 generation biofuels, but later they entirety of complicated national and supranational governance
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emphasize the positive effects of 2 generation biofuels too. In the activities resulted in The Renewable Energy Directive of late 2008.
late 1990’s Dutch government set up the GAVE (gaseous and liquid In this EU directive the targeted 10% for 2020 remained standing,
climate‐neutral energy carriers) program, which supported only but the target now also encompasses other renewable sources
projects with a very high GHG emission reduction potential. This (such as renewable electricity and hydrogen, but in reality this will
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effectively meant a focus on the propagation of 2 gen fuels alone probably mean mainly biofuels) and the directive incorporated a
(also see Suurs 2009). This indicates that sustainability criteria and number of sustainability criteria (though less extensive than the
st nd
the distinction between 1 and 2 gen was an important part of Dutch Cramer Criteria).
Dutch biofuel policy even then. Overall the result of consecutive policy measures is ambiguous for
Mainly due to interests and lobbying of agricultural powerhouses the Netherlands. In partly trying to comply with EU regulation and
such as France and Germany, the 2003 European Directive on partly not extending support, Dutch policy is now criticized on two
biofuels (2003/30/EC) did not decide in favor of strict criteria, but fronts; environmental NGO’s and other critics say the present
rather on a significant volumetric target of 5,75% biofuels for sustainability criteria are but a first step in the right direction,
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transport by 2010 (effectively supporting 1 gen fuels). Even more while policy implementers and biofuel entrepreneurs complain
ambitiously, in 2006 there were voices going up in the European about policy inconsistency and lack of support.
3. Approaches to discourse
The concept of discourse can be interpreted in a variety of ways and several different approaches to
its analysis have been developed.
Discourse Analysis (DA) consists of studies analyzing ‘language in use’ as written or spoken text
concerning a specific topic in which the discussion (either in incorporating the entire social context
and power struggles or in merely analyzing specific texts) is the object of analysis. A focus on policy
or power is widespread; actors are considered as exercising power in discourse coalitions and by
mobilizing particular discourses (sometimes using rhetoric). A specific approach worth mentioning
here is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Rooted in Critical Theory, this approach analyzes how
discourses produce and reproduce power structures. Critical discourse analysis also overlaps with
Foucaultian approaches to discourse analysis that emphasizes the close relation between discourse
and power (Hajer & Versteeg 2005, also see Flevbjerg 1997). Discourse analysis also has established
procedures for analysis, for example Hajer’s Argumentative Discourse Analysis (ADA) focuses on
analyzing exactly who says what to whom and how.
Frame Analysis (FA) is not a narrowly defined theoretical paradigm or a coherent methodological
approach to discourse. Drawing upon Goffman's (1974) work on frame analysis it encompasses a
number of related (and sometimes even partially incompatible) methods for the analysis of
discourses (Scheufele 1999). FA has been applied to distinct subjects of study: management &
organization, social movements and media. Especially FA’s focus on media studies is relevant here.
Frame analysis studies of media discourses mostly aim to identify a number of interpretative
(master)frames or cognitive structures which guide the perception and representation of reality.
Data is usually collected from print media and both qualitative and quantitative methods are used to
analyze media texts (see D’Angelo 2002). Gamson & Modigiliani’s celebrated 1989 enquiry on media
discourse and public opinion on nuclear power is an exemplary study of FA.
Content Analysis (CA) is actually not an approach to the ‘analysis of discourse’ as such, but rather a
set of mostly quantitative methods applied to study the content of mostly textual forms of
communication. Common are the use of statistical methodologies and a focus on relationships
between occurrence frequencies of different words and their co‐occurring relationships in large
bodies of text. In their statistical focus on quantifiable aspects, some CA‐scholars define discourse as
“a probabilistic content analysis model” and focus on “what is more or less likely to be said, and of
what the conceptual elements are that generate and constrain these possibilities” (Lowe 2004). This
probabilistic model is also applied in some Content Analysis software (such as T‐Lab). These
quantitative techniques make it possible to analyze the discursive structures of large datasets of
media texts and moreover enable the visualization of longitudinal changes in discourse structures.
4. Methods and data
In order to study the relation between media discourse and resistance to sustainable technologies, a
specific case study of media discourses on biofuel technologies in the Netherlands 2000 – 2008 is
presented here. The approach in this case study is twofold: First, a text analysis is carried out by
means of a Content Analysis software package called T‐Lab. This analysis is carried out in order to
find out more about the content and the underlying structure of biofuel media discourse. Second, a
number of in‐depth interviews are conducted with key practitioners in the Dutch biofuels field, each
with a different view, role and area of expertise. The goal of these interviews is to compare the
results of the content analysis with the views of practitioners and start to explore how resistance to
biofuel technologies affects them in their daily practices.
4.1 Text analysis
To perform a content analysis of a relatively large number of media texts on biofuels and to measure
and visualize (changes in) the discourse structures on biofuels we have made use of a particular
software package called T‐Lab. 1 . As a content analysis software package T‐lab is characterized by its
ability to inductively (from the ‘bottom up’) find discourse structures and map out the main
dimensions of a discourse, without working with predefined coding schemes which can restrict at
the outset the focus of attention of the researcher (Cf. Franzosi, 1989; Roberts, 1989).
At its very core, T‐Lab operates through a distinction between Context Units (CU’s – fixed
chunks of text which serve to divide the total body of input text, e.g. paragraphs) and Lexical Units
(LU’s – the different words themselves or categorizations of words, e.g. lemma’s, semantic classes or
dictionary categorizations). Through this fundamental distinction an occurrence matrix (LUm × CUn)
and a co‐occurrence matrix (LUn × LUn) can be constructed, which together serve as the basis for all
of T‐Lab’s operations. This gives each paragraph text (CU) and each word (LU) a particular profile.
Each CU is characterized according to the profile of occurrences of each LU within it. Each LU is
characterized both according to the profile of its occurrences in every CU ánd according to its profile
of co‐occurrences with all other LU’s. Keeping these basics in mind, theories based on linguistics and
statistics, which regulate T‐Lab’s operations, translate in more complex transformation rules and
organize the relationships between ‘data’ and their representation (for a more detailed account of T‐
Lab’s operations see Lancia 2002 and Lancia 2008).
Three of T‐Lab’s functions are employed in this research: analysis of frequencies, word
mapping and (most importantly) thematic cluster analysis.
1
http://www.tlab.it/en/presentation.php
5
Analysis of frequencies refers to both occurrence analysis (frequencies of words) and
chronological profiles of the number of newspaper articles. The latter is a count of how many articles
are in the sample at different times (annually and quarterly). This is important, since a chronological
profile of the number of articles in the investigated sample can be used a proxy for how the ‘amount
of media coverage’ changed as time progressed.
Word mapping is used to present charts with relevant words surrounding biofuel. An
association chart on a single word gives an impression of the contextual use of that word in terms of
which other words the term under consideration often co‐occurs. To analyze the ‘contextual
meaning’ of a word, the software reviews that word’s co‐occurrence profile with respect to all other
sample words. This kind of analysis is based on co‐occurrence and cannot be used to show how
contextual meaning vary in different CU‘s (e.g. through time).
Thematic cluster analysis identifies through correspondence analysis a number of ‘thematic
clusters’ and ‘factorial axes’. The clusters divide the media discourse into a number of ‘themes’ that
represent the content of the media discourse. Thematic clusters are internal homogeneous and
external heterogeneous. The factorial axes devising these clusters can be considered ‘classification
principles’ (Burt 1940) and are a way of laying bare the structure of the media discourse. These
factors are calculated by putting together similar things in order to distinguish from different things.
Understanding a factorial axis is to interpret what is similar on the one side of the axis and different
from the other side in order to express concisely and exactly the opposition between the two
extremes (Benzecri 1984). While the axes are the result of the formal statistical analysis, interpreting
the factorial axes is the task of the researcher. 2
T‐Lab operates with a text corpus; a sample of text to serve as raw data for input. So, before
the actual analysis can start, a representative sample for media coverage concerning biofuels in the
Netherlands 2000‐2008 must be obtained to constitute this text corpus. For this research, we draw
on the Dutch LexisNexis database to get a sample from the five largest Dutch daily newspapers. This
database allows for a Boolean search feature in order to find a sophisticated selection of newspaper
articles. The selection of articles for the sample was based on the following criteria: ‘biofuel’ (in
general), a specific biofuel for transport/mobility purposes (biodiesel, bio‐methanol, bio‐ethanol,
ppo, E85) or a different biofuel or energy crop including a relation to transport/mobility (biogas,
palm oil, jatropha) needs to be mentioned in the headline of the article. This ensures a small, but
selective sample of 266 relevant articles on biofuels for transport and mobility purposes. Each article
is time‐coded by year and quarter of publication.
4.2 Interviews
Interviews were conducted with key practitioners, who serve as both ‘helicopters’ and as ‘key
players’. The interviewees hold different positions in the Dutch biofuel field. The T‐Lab analysis was
finished before conducting the interviews, so that the interviewed candidates were confronted with
the formal research findings. In total five in‐depth interviews were conducted:
2
T‐Lab finds its clusters in the following way. A hierarchical ascending algorithm starts with every single LU and
aggregates them until finally regrouping the whole set according to Ward’s method (Ward 1963). Apart from
this hierarchical algorithm, there is also a ‘partition criterion’ to guide clustering, meaning that the number of
found clusters is partly determined in advance. The thematic clusters T‐Lab finds have high internal (within
cluster) homogeneity and high external (between cluster) heterogeneity. Every paragraph of the sample
articles is divided as belonging to one (or more) of the obtained clusters. Or, as Lancia (2002) puts it: “The
elementary contexts (CU’s) are assumed as ‘objects’ to be classified (clustering) and the ‘thematic cores’ are
assumed as their characteristics”. Interpreted visually, the thematic core is the centre of a cluster, while
characteristic words are positioned around it.
User a fleet manager at a large industry park, who manages a fleet partly on biodiesel
Entrepreneur commercial director and founder of a biodiesel company and plant
Policy officer secretary of an executive public‐private body dealing with sustainable mobility
and biofuels in the Netherlands
NGO employee a political lobbyist and biofuels expert for a well known development NGO
Scientist an influential production ecologist / agricultural scientist specialized in biofuels
The one‐on‐one in‐depth interviews were conducted in a semi‐structured way. Four topics served as
starting point for the interviews: 1‐ background and previous/present activities concerning biofuels,
2‐ thoughts on biofuels (attitude, sustainability, developments, future possibilities), 3‐ thoughts on
media coverage and public perception (discuss analytical results and their views), 4‐
experiencing/dealing with resistance (discuss resistance experienced in practice). Form their varying
positions in the Dutch biofuels field, it was expected that their views would differ. Their take on the
public discourse and resistance to biofuel technologies, however, is by no means assumed to be
representative for their ‘group’ as whole (e.g. all users, all entrepreneurs etc.). However, the degree
to which their views differ offers an exploration of a variety of possible attitudes, underlying frames,
views on media discourse and experiences with resistance to biofuel technologies.
5. Results
5.1 Analysis of frequencies
Figure 1 shows the number of newspaper articles in the sample. The first graph shows the number of
articles annually; the second graph shows the number of articles quarterly.
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2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
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Figure 1: Number of articles
On the y‐axis the overall peak (for number of articles published per year or per quarter of a year) of each line is indexed at 100. The thick
black line (Sample N=266) is most important: it indicates the temporal distribution of the different articles in the sample, which was
analyzed for this paper. The thin red, green and blue lines are ‘reference samples’ showing a similar pattern of temporal distribution for
larger samples. These lines show similar patterns with the black line (the smaller sample used in this article). Hence, the smaller sample
can be assumed to be representative. Note that while this graphs continues into 2009, the sample used in this paper only covers the 2000‐
2008 period.
The graphs show a significant increase in media coverage. They show a general increase up to the 2nd
quarter of 2008 and a drop in the number of published articles after that. Another interesting
observation is the presence of a number of peaks. Reading the article headlines reveals the topics
discussed during these times. There is a little peak in 2001 (2nd quarter) due to newspaper articles on
both a discussion in Dutch parliament concerning tax exemptions for biodiesel and on the European
Committee proposing the idea to oblige refineries to blend biofuel in order to cut greenhouse gas
emissions. There is a second peak in 2005 (3rd quarter) due to decisions of Dutch government
concerning possible obligatory blending and certain tax exemptions. The largest peak is in 2008 (2nd
quarter). By then biofuels are very heavily contested; especially the way energy crop cultivation
drives up food prices and causes hunger in the third world is a hot media item. After this last ‘media
boom’, there has been a rapid decrease in media attention.
5.2 Co‐word maps
The occurrence scores for each word present an initial indication of what the sample articles are
about. An association chart of the word ‘biofuels’ can be constructed by T‐Lab in order to find out
which concepts are associated with biofuels in the newspaper articles (figure 2).
Word Occurrence Cosine
Coefficient
generation 140 0.292
second 125 0.242
European 241 0.222
production 294 0.215
use 167 0.211
fuels 176 0.195
environment 162 0.189
biofuel 635 0.176
food 138 0.166
diesel 201 0.165
the Netherlands 255 0.159
report 53 0.154
gasoline 271 0.153
government/ 77 0.153
administration
food prices 88 0.150
fossil 88 0.147
stimulate 59 0.146
Figure 2: ‘Biofuels’ Association Chart
The words in the graph are all closely related to the word ‘biofuel’ in the text corpus. The higher a word’s cosine coefficient with respect to
LU LU
the word ‘biofuels’, the closer that word is positioned to the centre. (This cosine coefficient can be calculated by ; so dividing the
LU LU
number of times both words occur in the same CU by the multiplication of the square root of the total occurrence of each of these words)
Figure 2 shows that the concept of ‘generation’ is important in discussing biofuels. The word
‘second’ is also closely related, so together these words stress the importance of the concept
‘second generation biofuels’. In the past years European policy focused mainly on first generation
biofuels by setting raw volumetric targets, while Dutch policies were more focused on the
technological development of more advanced second‐generation biofuels. In the chart there are
general terms of ‘use’, ‘production’ and ‘stimulation’. The terms ‘fossil’, ‘fuels’, ‘gasoline’ and ‘diesel’
refer to the kind of fossil fuels, which can be (partly) replaced by biofuels. A number of concepts
relate to policy or government; ‘government/administration’ refers to the Dutch national
government and the high cosine coefficient of the word ‘European’ stresses the importance of the
EU in determining policy. ‘Report’, ‘environment’, ‘food’ and ‘food prices’ refer mainly to biofuel
criticism concerning environmental effects and competition with food.
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5.3 Thematic cluster analysis 1: content of media discourse
Through cluster analysis, a set of ‘thematic clusters’ and ‘factorial axes’ can be distilled which
subsequently represent content and structure of the media discourse. In the biofuels case, this
results in 6 clusters relationally distinguished by 5 factors. T‐Lab automatically names a cluster after
the word with the highest Chi‐square test value within it. In table 1, the six thematic clusters are
presented listing the Chi‐square test values of the most important LU’s in each cluster. Figure 3
shows the distribution of clusters in both the full sample as well as annually. Finally, figure 4 shows
the ‘dominance’ of clusters in another format using time‐line graphs.
Tabel 1. Six clusters in the Dutch biofuel media discourse. A high Chi‐square value means the corresponding lexical unit is
central to a cluster.
CLUSTER No. 1 – ENVIRONMENT CLUSTER No. 2 – BIODIESEL CLUSTER No. 3 – CAR
Word χ2 Word χ2 Word χ2
environment 364,249 biodiesel 980,776 car 336,483
European 282,284 diesel 408,517 gasoline 287,379
Committee 174,343 oil 191,119 bio‐ethanol 241,698
biofuels 102,958 rapeseed 156,735 E85 185,074
Cramer 95,435 rapeseed oil 156,156 the Netherlands 160,853
biodiversity 87,446 plant 142.35 Driving 146.68
at‐the‐cost‐of 83,911 excise 111,127 fuels 122.41
palm oil 82,069 fat 80,439 Ford 111,249
minister 77,272 PPO 80,439 oil companies 101,696
nature 70,402 ton 74,059 fossil 87,971
criteria 68,081 pure 67,722 Argos 81,906
sustainable 65,988 Germany 64,104 Nedalco 71,566
target 65,405 regular 52,258 gas stations 66,053
Dimas 57,015 litre 41,502 Volvo 57,745
biomass 55,684 deep frying oil 37,278 euro 57,732
secretary 54,276 Emmen 32,338 _YEAR_2006 54.57
use 48.32 alcohol 30,013 emission / exhaust 52.22
policy 45,626 algae 29,224 Saab 43,859
Brussels 44,273 port 28,408 _QUART_2006Q2 42,015
natural resources 41,905 mill 27,718 CO2 40,563
CLUSTER No. 4 – FOOD CLUSTER No. 5 – ETHANOL CLUSTER No. 6 – GENERATION
overall for each year
CLUSTERS 1
11,10% ENVRONMENT
19,18% CLUSTERS 2
BIODIESEL
12,31% CLUSTERS 3
CAR
15,95% CLUSTERS 4
FOOD
23,38% CLUSTERS 5
ETHANOL
18.07% CLUSTERS 6
GENERATION
Figure 3: Percentage of corpus paragraphs in each Cluster
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Figure 4: Cluster Dominance
Percentage of elementary contexts belonging to each cluster multiplied by the number of articles. This is an indication for the amount of
media coverage each cluster gets during a period of time. On the y‐axis the overall peak is indexed at 100 for the cluster with the most
media coverage at a specific time (in this case the cluster ‘food’ at respectively ‘year: 2008’ and at ‘quarter: 2 quarter 2008’)
nd
The six different clusters can be interpreted as follows:
Cluster 1) ‐ ‘Environment’ ‐ is mostly about environmental issues concerning biofuels.
Surprisingly there are as many political terms in this cluster as there are environmental terms. This
can be explained by the fact that biofuels were imposed politically for partly replacing fossil fuel in
order to reduce the strain on the environment. These measures were imposed on the Netherlands
and other European nation states through EU policy (hence the terms European, target, Brussels, EU
Commissioner Dimas). There are also Dutch political terms relating mainly to a debate on more
stringent sustainability criteria (the ‘Committee Cramer’ advised the government on criteria for
more sustainable biofuels). This cluster was relatively dominant in 2005 due to Dutch government
announcing national policy in trying to comply with the European directive on biofuels. This cluster
was also dominant in 2008 when negative environmental side effects of biofuel cultivation (along
with competition with food) become a major issue.
Cluster 2) ‐ ‘Biodiesel’ ‐ is about biodiesel as a specific biofuel. It is by far the biggest of the
biofuels in the EU and the Netherlands. The words of this cluster include places of production
(Germany as large producer) and feedstock (rapeseed, fat, deep frying oil and algae as a promising
source of biodiesel for the future). This cluster is dominant between 2000‐2005, when there is not
much media coverage on biofuels and tax exemptions in the Netherlands are a minor topic.
Cluster 3) ‐ ‘Car’ ‐ is about practical options and issues of biofuels in the Netherlands. It is
concerned with different cars able to drive biofuels (mostly ethanol) and mentions mainly
companies active in the Netherlands trying to get a transition going towards more biofuel
applications. In this context, the Netherlands is sometimes positioned as a ‘laggard’ compared to
frontrunners as Germany, Sweden and other European countries. This cluster is quite dominant
throughout 2000‐2004 and 2005‐2006 when different companies get involved in the expanding
Dutch biofuel market (due to policy measure in order to comply with the EU directive).
Cluster 4) ‐ ‘Food’ ‐ is about global humanitarian effects of biofuels on developing countries.
Especially the alleged competition with food is the main issue here. The words in this cluster present
this logic clearly: Cultivation’ of biofuel ‘crops’ and ‘demand’ for biofuels ‘increased’ ‘food prices’
causing ‘hunger’ for ‘poor’ ‘people’ of this part of the ‘world’. This is the most dominant cluster
overall, with especially much media coverage on this issue during 2007 and culminating in a giant
peak of criticism in the 2nd quarter of 2008 due to biofuels’ alleged contribution to the 2008 food
crisis.
Cluster 5) ‐ ‘Ethanol’ ‐ is media coverage on ethanol policy and use worldwide. Globally
ethanol is most commonly used biofuel. Especially the United States and Brazil produce vast
amounts of ethanol, dwarfing European ethanol and biodiesel production (hence there are many
cluster terms relating to these countries). The words referring to Brazilian or US political leaders
(Lula, Bush, Obama) indicate that biofuels politically important in Brazil and the USA. A notable
feature of this cluster is its focus on different aircraft manufacturers and related actors on flying on
biofuels. This cluster shows no real peaks, but rather a general smooth increase in media coverage.
Cluster 6) ‐ ‘Generation’ ‐ is a technological cluster on developments and how technological
advanced biofuels (2nd generation biofuels from lignocellulosic materials as ‘hay’, ‘grass’ and ‘wood
chips’ or 3rd generation biofuels from ‘algae’) can be made commercially viable (‘Algaelink’
‘company’, ‘factory’). Much of the media coverage is also concerned with explaining the difference
between 1st and 2nd (and sometimes 3rd) generation biofuels to the public and how these alternatives
work. The clusters ‘environment’ and especially ‘food’ harbor large amounts of biofuel criticism. In a
sense, this cluster is the opposite and includes many CU’s, which are very positive and hopeful
concerning the future use of biofuels (though also a number of articles stating that technological
developments is not the only solution). Like the ‘ethanol’ cluster, the ‘generation’ cluster shows no
real peaks either, bur rather a general increase in media coverage. 3
Finally, another way of showing the content of the discourse is by quotations. T‐lab identifies
color‐codes sections of the corpus that belong 100% to a specific cluster. A selected quote for each
cluster is shown in table 2.
3
Notably, when only media coverage of 2008 is taken into account the sixth cluster splits and gives way to a
small cluster called ‘algae’.
13
Table 2: Characteristic article quotations
Cluster 1: “GHG emissions have to go down because of Kyoto. The state secretary is talking with parliament about his environmental policy today.
‘Environment’ He is hoping for biofuels to be one of the solutions even though the Netherlands are laggards on in this matter compared to surrounding
European countries.”
Cluster 2: “Sunoil Biodiesel is going to build the First Dutch biodiesel plant in Emmen (Dutch city). Biodiesel is an environmentally friendly fuel
‘Biodiesel’ extracted mainly from plant oils. This plant oil is processed to get a fuel, which is largely free from soot and sulfur emissions.”
Cluster 3: “Filling up with bio‐ethanol is only possible if a car is equipped with a so‐called flexi‐fuel system. The liter price for bioethanol is a few
‘Car’ dimes higher compared to gasoline. Especially the excise on green fuels is a heavy burden according to suppliers.”
Cluster 4: “The number of people living in poverty has grown to 100 million because of increased food prices; estimates the World Bank. Worldwide
‘Food’ food riots have broken out. Local members of government describe the high food‐ and fuel prices as ‘the first economic crisis of
globalization’.”
Cluster 5: “Technically, driving on ethanol is no problem at all. In Brazil and in the US too, cars have been fueled by pure ethanol for over 20 years.
‘Ethanol’ By now they number many millions.”
Cluster 6: “Expensive, indeed … But there are advanced techniques in development so that in the long term various cellulosic waste steams (wood
‘Generation’ and grass) can be used to produce ethanol. Introduction of biofuels from wheat and rapeseed now, will make the development of these
technologies easier.”
5.4: Thematic cluster analysis 2: Factorial axes as underlying structure of the media discourse
Another feature of cluster analysis is that T‐lab shows the thematic clusters in a 2d space (figure 5).
This scatter plot shows the positions of the thematic clusters and relevant words with respect to 2 of
the 5 factors. Although any set of 2 factors can be chosen in T‐lab, in this case figure 5 shows the
most prominent factors which together account for 51% of the variance. 4
4
The distribution of variance accounted for by the five factors is as follows: factor 1 (30,07%); factor 2
20,68%); factor 3 (18,28%); factor 4 (16,55%); factor 5 (14,43%).
biodiversity 1,3
Cramer
nature commission
criteria environment
at‐the‐cost‐of target European state secretary
sustainable
palm oil minister 0,8
CLUSTER 1: biodiesel
biomass CLUSTER 2:
ENVIRONMENT rapeseed
rapeseed oil
excise
agricultural land BIODIESEL
consequences
agriculture 0,3 regular
emission
food production CLUSTER 6: The Netherlands
crops bio‐energy oil companies
farmers GENRATION fuel fossil alcohol
cultivation to drive
developing countries E85
‐1,7 ‐1,2 ‐0,7 ‐0,2 0,3 0,8 1,3
population to eat prices ‐0,2 CLUSTER 3: CAR
Nedalco
meat food prices countries CLUSTER 4: FOOD fuels car
gasoline
demand Ford
food growingpeople world litre
hunger rich poor increasing corn
FAO increased
India agricultural product new Shell
Ziegler euro
China water
‐0,7 largest
American
billion CLUSTER 5: ETHANOL
dollar
USA kerosene
ethanol
‐1,2 KLM
Brazil built
Brazilian
Virgin
president Airbus
to fly
Lula
Obama
‐1,7
Paulo Boeing
São methane gas
Cosan
ethanol industry
Bush
dollar cent
‐2,2
Figure 5: Thematic Cluster Chart
The axis are the outcome of statistical analysis and, by itself, do not represent meaning. It is the task
of the researcher to interpret the axes and give meaning to them so that the relational positions of
the thematic clusters ‘make sense’. In this case, the first factorial axis (horizontal axis in figure 5) can
be interpreted as follows. The right side is coverage about biofuels in the Netherlands and the
innovative activities companies in the Dutch biofuel field, but there is also some coverage on ethanol
in the USA or Brazil. These topics tend to be more ‘neutral’ (e.g. the ‘biodiesel’ and ‘ethanol’ clusters’
or even ‘positive’ about biofuels (‘generation’ cluster) and talk about the technical and economics
dimensions of projects and fuels. The left side can be represented as issue coverage with mostly a
critical tone and a more negative attitude towards biofuels. Most of this coverage is very
‘opinionated’ and about the fierce protest with regard to competition with food (‘food’ cluster) and
the effects of energy crop cultivation on developing countries in terms of social conditions and the
environment (‘environment’ cluster). Another point of coverage on left side is also attention for
more vivid political debates in the EU and the Netherlands on biofuel sustainability and
environmental effects. Hence, factor 1 can be interpreted as a fundamental structure (or ‘frame’ in
terms of frame analysis) dividing between a ‘techno‐economic’ frame vs. a ‘socio‐ecological’ frame.
In case of the second factorial axis (vertical axis in figure 5), the top part is concerned with
the Dutch (‘biodiesel’ cluster) and European situation (‘environment’ cluster), while the bottom part
is more concerned with the situation including other parts of the world. All the way below (‘ethanol
cluster’) is event coverage about activities concerning biofuels for aviation and ethanol in the US or
Brazil (mostly this coverage was not very ‘opinionated’ in character). Also below the origin is the
food cluster; mainly about developing countries. So, this factor effectively represents a distinction
between a frame that emphasizes ‘the regional’ and a frame that emphasizes ‘the global’.
15
5.5 Interviews
In table 3 and 4 each of the five practitioners is quoted on a number of relevant aspects, which gives
a quick impression of the outcomes of the interviews.
Table 3: Practitioners’ quotes (User, Entrepreneur & Policy Officer –those with a positive attitude towards biofuels)
Translated quotes of key practitioners on what they do, their views on biofuels and corresponding media coverage and resistance
relation to biofuels general attitude media coverage encountered resistance
User [ + + ] [ ? ]
“I am fleet manager at “We are completely “It’s all snapshots…(It’s) “…(Fleet should require) no large
…industrial park… I dependent…from ‘the Arabian Important to keep people adaptations. Because, whatever you
also used to be team World’…(we) need alternatives. conscious (of sustainability)… ask me, to me the money is always
leader of …transport Personally I think this is really people are now more open to most important. That may sound
group” important…and also for the this then 10 years ago…It strange, but that’s how I’ll be
“We have … environment it is very important… (biofuel) is topical (in the media) judged…Complaints I got were all a
agricultural tractors I’m sure it (biofuel) helps, at least when it is price dependant” (fuel little bit ludicrous like: ‘hey, we’re
and trucks on for a cleaner environment… And price and food price) getting hungry when this tractor rolls
biodiesel” then I don’t want to talk about by’. Never like ‘stop with this crap’; no
the disadvantages of ‘but there not at all…I have no experience of
could have been grain’ (for drivers being negative”
food)…that is not an argument “The last half year we’ve not had
for us… I think to myself; Dutch biodiesel, because we can only tank at
government; why are you not the in‐house pump here…that guy (still)
subsidizing this (biodiesel)?... has his (biodiesel) pump broken…like
everybody pretty much knows him… there are undoubtedly more
that it (biofuel) is actually good” (biofuel) producers in the Netherlands,
who are burdened by this (US biofuel
export policy)”
Entrepreneur [ + ] [ ‐ ‐ ]
“I am chemical “ It’s all what‐if‐stories … with “I’s much too one‐sided…the “Our (biodiesel producers) voice is so
engineer and I present technology, but media are absolutely not small compared to the overwhelming
have…experience in technology progresses. That is making a ‘nuanced’ case! … roars of the large corporations (e.g. big
fossil oil and gas…and often overlooked … We have to back then (in 2004) nobody even oil, car manufacturers and especially
plastics” get to a ‘total concept’ … By far knew what biodiesel was … peak food industry) … they are just using this
“I got into biodiesel… I the largest part of food in 2005/2006, because of sustainability discussion … to serve
wrote a business plan production is used for luxury European directive … very hot in their own economic interests … really
and found goods; shampoo, cream, livestock 2007/2008 (because of alleged hammering on (food vs fuel) … they
investors…and behold: feed … to divert attention from food competition) … with a have very powerful lobbies”
a biodiesel plant” the real problem: meat … people steep decline after halfway 2008 “I expected more support from Dutch
are going hungry and we are (mostly because of economic government, for sustainability … It is
being blamed?! It can’t get crisis)” very hard. We are being competed
crazier than that!” away by cheap American biodiesel”
Policy Officer [ + ] [ ? ]
“I’m secretary of the “I am, so to speak, a moderate “(media coverage very one “Because of subsidies by the US
platform Sustainable enthusiasts concerning biofuels, sided) not true … (media government, (biodiesel) could be
Mobility. This is a but under certain conditions … If coverage very nuanced) not true offered below the European production
public‐private platform we aim too high, we will have either; it’s somewhere in price. There are now many idle
where a wide range of mainly negative side effects. It is between. If you read everything factories, because they cannot offer
departments, hard to say where the optimum thoroughly, you will be well their products competitively
companies, research exactly is … but all options have informed, but if you just skim anyway…(for ethanol) competing with
agencies, NGO’s and certain negative side effects … to everything, you will probably Brazil is impossible at a high cost for
municipalities say ‘no biofuel at all’ is not a encounter mainly negative primary recourses…”
participate … We are (good) solution aspects … The only thing you “Environmental organizations surely
an executive body … can say is that the pro‐lobby has belong in this row, because they do
I’m not a policymaker, hardly been heard” research and distribute their studies on
but close to it so I side effects as wide as they can ... you
know how (biofuel) notice this resistance in the attitude of
policy has developed in NGO’s. But also (in the attitudes and
the last years” activities) of certain people from within
the oil industry … certain farmers …
certain public servants, even high up …
so this (resistance) is not necessarily
one‐sided ”
Table 4: Practitioners’ quotes (NGO Lobbyist & Scientist – those with a negative attitude towards biofuels)
Translated quotes of key practitioners on what they do, their views on biofuels and corresponding media coverage and resistance
relation to biofuels general attitude media coverage encountered resistance
NGO Lobbyist [ ‐ ] [ + + ]
“I work at Oxfam “You can eat a year from one “I must compliment the media … “Part of resistance is 1‐dimensional …
Novib; the tank (of corn ethanol) … 30 it was always a balanced very one‐sided …people who do not
division…influencing million people are going hungry account … it’s a complicated believe in trade … anti‐globalist types
policy… It is my job to because of biofuels! … There are story … not easy to explain, but have used the biofuel discussion to
look through the many negative aspects. In the end they were not afraid to publish bring their ideological story into the
political game playing it is more about land use than … even though it’s not black‐ world with renewed vigor”
and to consolidate a about food (directly)” and‐white” “(There are also those lobbying against
position” “If you meet these (sustainability) “that wave phenomenon, first biofuels) who see their supply of raw
“ I got a call from criteria, then you should have a positive and then negative … in materials endangered (cosmetics and
Economic Affairs…they chance in the market … Well, (the 2004/2005 … a ‘solution for food industry) … ‘lipstick but no (fuel)
needed someone from situation now) is just how it is; so everything’ … about 2007/2008 combusting?’ … tricky … (I’m not
a development (make sure) … you can arrange … with food crisis attention for campaigning) on their behalf ”
organization for this your labor (responsibly) and we negative aspects … a sort of
committee (for are paying the right price” mantra; ‘but it has problems
sustainability criteria forests and food’ … that was the
on bio‐energy)…I I’ll peak … less in 2008/2009“
have look…It has been
an addiction (ever
since)”
Scientist [ ‐ ‐ ] [ ‐ ]
“I’m rooted in “Guys, quit it; energy from “We try to communicate these “People have no clue (about real
agriculture… and biomass is the most low‐grade kind of fundamental arguments, feedstock competition and ecological
production ecology… application possible … We are but mostly to policy(makers) … I disadvantages to biofuels) … We try to
we simulate the already struggling to feed the think people have no idea … you communicate this … if you really get
growth of crops with world. So this will only cause can’t blame them for that (they room for this (argument) people get …
computer models ... I more hunger and misery in the have not been properly informed Foremost this message has to get to
can do analyses about world … this will require huge yet)…because it’s so government (policy) and they need to
food production ... and amounts of land ... (biofuel) complicated” act further”
about environmental (in)efficiency will throw us back in “In 2005 we thought that it
impact” the dark ages! … (sufficient) (attention for biofuel) would
“I don’t make the freshwater and nutrients we do blow over… we were wrong …
choices (on land use); not have … It is very questionable they were first considered ‘the’
as a researcher, I just whether biofuel is (potentially) a green alternative … in
make these choices ‘sustainable’ source of energy, I 2007/2008 it was very hot
more insightful (for don’t think it is” (negatively portrayed)… I
policy)” suppose that now (2009) this
peak is over”
The following conclusions can be drawn from the interviews.
Perceived shifts in biofuel media coverage
Concerning the amount of media coverage, all interviewees say they have noticed a general
increase. In their view, there is hardly any media coverage at first. They say that it first increases
steadily (around 2005) and then steeply in 2007/2008 because of the issue of competition with food.
Most of them also mention the decline in coverage since late 2008. Some think there is a small peak
17
between 2004 and 2006 because of policy measure at the overarching EU‐level because of the
implications of the 2003 directive and how the Dutch government deals with this. This replicates the
results from the quantitative text analysis (with regard to the amount of coverage).
The practitioners also mention that the image of biofuels in the eye of the public has
changed considerably for the worse over the last few years. One of the interviewed mentions that
“Before… (the food crisis) … biofuels were THE green alternative”. Or, as another one of the
practitioners puts it: “When we started in 2004/2005 people saw biofuels as ‘a solution for
everything’; good for climate, good for trade, good for farmers; pretty much good for everything. The
undertone was much more positive then … Only when the food crisis came along, was there attention
for the negative side effects. What I read in the papers was a sort of mantra; when a piece on
biofuels appeared in the media there was always the notion ‘but it has problems; forests and food’.
I’m talking about 2007/2008, when this is always mentioned”
When asked about relevant themes and to impose categorizations, the interviewees all
identify competition with food as an important issue. They also mention a variety of other themes
such as technology (represented in the generation cluster) and a detailed distinction between
different environmental issues (although this distinction is not found in the cluster analysis, they are
included in a single cluster that deals with environmental issues). None really mentions the
informative character of media in distinguishing between ethanol and biodiesel and in making the
difference between 1st and 2nd generation biofuels clear to the public.
Cognitive pluralism
The practitioners have very different attitudes towards biofuel applications (ranging from very
positive to extremely negative concerning biofuels’ corresponding sustainability properties). Typical
for new and contested technologies is the variety of interpretative cognitive frames between
stakeholders, which may or may not converge at a later stage (also see Geels & Raven 2007). Some
of the interviewees think about the economic benefits of biofuels for Europe or the Netherlands and
point to the promise of 2nd and 3rd generation biofuels. For example the entrepreneur states:
“Personally, I am a big supporter and believer in algae … the advantage of algae for biofuel is that it
is free of all issues; ‘competition with food’ doesn’t play, ‘land use’ doesn’t play and algae eat for
example CO2 from flue gas exhaust” and “people like ‘what‐if scenarios’ … IF we would not do
anything, then with present technology we would require all agricultural soil for biofuels in 50 years.
BUT technology progresses! That is something many people tend to forget … With biofuel we are not
yet where we want to be, but please accept that innovation goes step by step, We need to make
money from 1st gen biofuels in order to invest in research of 2nd gen technologies. We build 2nd gen
facilities and again we should make money in order to invest research of 3rd gen and so on”. Other
practitioners want far stricter sustainability criteria with greater respect to the needs of poor people
in developing countries or reject these fuels altogether for fundamental ecological reasons. For
example the scientist states that “The 2nd generation biofuels? They call it ‘advanced technology’.
What they are in fact doing is trying to bash large complicated molecules to small and simple
molecules. I’d say; ‘go the other way; then you’re advanced; then you’re a man’ … neither should you
expect miracles from algae; surely their theoretical efficiency is higher, but every time we use
biological material (for the fundamentally low grade application of energy), it will claim nutrients;
which are too valuable (and which we will not have in abundance)” and “Government should play an
active, decisive, and guiding role … If policymakers don’t come to their senses (and continue to
stimulate biofuel applications), I think that this means increasing the gap between the world’s rich
and poor instead of decreasing it. It will cause misery and not aid in solving world food problems”.
The interviews confirm the differences in frames also found in the quantitative analysis, i.e
along a ‘techno‐economic vs. socio‐ecological’ axis. The same applies for the second axis along which
media coverage varies: ‘regional vs. global’. The advocates of biofuels (the user, the entrepreneur,
and to a lesser extent the policy officer) show a tendency to focus on (the economic and
technological promises of) biofuel applications for the EU and the Netherlands. For example, the
policy officer states: “The Netherlands would also like to reap the economic benefits of these new
energy technologies; as a source of innovation and new economic activity”. The entrepreneur states:
“Every country can choose; does the Netherlands feel that biofuels are of strategic importance? If the
answer is ‘yes’, than we should act accordingly and safeguard the security of energy supply, so that
the next (Dutch) generation does not inherit an enormous problem”. The fleet manager makes an
even sharper distinction: “Economically, it is very important for ‘the Western world’ to be become
less dependent on oil. The ‘Arabian world’; the oil suppliers, are the ones we completely depend
upon. To make improvements we need alternatives. Personally, I think this is very important from an
economic point of view”. On the other hand, the biofuel critics (the NGO‐lobbyist and the scientist)
focus on global (social and environmental) effects. For example the scientist states that “We have
only one world, … to provide in all our needs; it will have to suffice … (the volumes of biomass we
need for large scale biofuel application are tremendously vast) … if we would only use biomass for
energy applications on a very limited scale as a catalyst for development, for example in desolate
rural parts of Africa, then I would say ‘sure, why not? Let’s do it’ ”. The NGO‐ lobbyist states that “I
think the debate outside of Europe is much more interesting … if we (Europeans) start to subsidize
and trade, we are in a position to impose our conditions and they (poor developing countries)
eventually have to agree (whether they like it or not)”.
Politics involved
Policy is an essential aspect of biofuel discourse; in the media the way governments deal with issues
is very often the topic of coverage. This is apparent through the presence of the policy actors as
words in the cluster ‘environment’. It is also apparent in the many comments of the practitioners on
how policy should be conducted.
Overall, there is a critical attitude towards Dutch policy. According to some Dutch
government does not impose the strict enough measures to support biofuels on the one hand. On
the other hand, when they do stimulate, they are unclear or very wrong about sustainability criteria.
Most experts had more respect and appreciation for decisive Swedish, German or American policy
than for ‘fluctuating’ or ‘indecisive’ Dutch policy. The NGO‐lobbyist states that “At least the Swedes
are making a stand. That’s not the case for the Dutch; they never managed to really make a stand …
Germany has a much more consistent policy than the Netherlands. That is the problem; every new
secretary reviews and changes energy policy … that is just not the way to go for policy … (compared
to other European countries) we are now serious laggards in clean energy”. The entrepreneur states
that “Industry, producers and investors (in biofuel) al feel that (Dutch) government is very unreliable;
how are we supposed to invest when your policy is so unreliable (and fluctuating)?”
Most of the practitioners have their own agenda and go through considerable lengths to
either propagate or obstruct further biofuel implementation. Their efforts are hardly targeting public
opinion directly, but are mostly aimed at influencing policy. Most of the practitioners engage in
particular ‘governance activities’, such as taking part in a committee advising the Dutch
environmental secretary or in realizing cooperation between companies to get more political
leverage.
Resistance in practice
The interviewed practitioners are confronted with resistance to biofuel technologies in different
ways. Most of them were not directly concerned about lack of public acceptance or the negative
image of biofuels in the media (though some practitioners were clearly annoyed by it, while others
saw it as additional leverage in their governance activities). Overall, the practitioners were much
more concerned about the effects of media criticism on policy and, hence, socio‐political acceptance
in terms of Wustenhagen et al (2007). Though it remains unclear how this lack in sociopolitical
acceptance exactly translates policy.
Two of the practitioners expressed their concern of how corporations and lobbyists
(supporting for example the food industry, cosmetics, big oil or car manufacturers) mobilize the
19
competition with food discourse for their own gain. Others mention NGO campaigning against
biofuels as determining in setting the critical tone. One practitioner mentioned some obstructions in
biofuel implementation when for example cooperation of a civil servant, who is a member of an
environmental NGO or who shares this negative sentiment, is required.
There was also some concern (from the side of practitioners with a positive attitude towards
biofuels) about cheap imported American and Argentinean biodiesel, with which Dutch domestic
producers cannot compete. This is in fact mentioned as quite a formidable obstacle in building
domestic biofuel production capacity (however, this is less a matter of acceptance and more a
matter of international markets).
6. Discussion
A number of issues need some further elaboration. Mostly, these issues are concerned with the set
of newspaper articles or the applied approach to text analysis as a means finding shifts in media
discourse.
The first important point is the relationship between Discourse Analysis (DA) on the one
hand and Content Analysis (CA) on the other. There is disagreement between scholars as to whether
DA and CA are ontologically, epistemologically and methodologically compatible at all. DA is often
concerned with shifts while CA assumes stasis. The two also tend to be dichotomized, with CA as
quantitative\formal and DA as non‐quantitative\informal (Herrera and Braumoeller 2004). However,
many scholars (cf. Lowe, 2004; Neuendorf, 2004; Hardy et al, 2004) do believe that a significant
amount of overlap between the methodologies exists and that there is indeed merit in soundly
combining the two. The belief that this is indeed true lies at the heart of the investigative efforts in
this paper. Both qualitative methods (interviews) and quantitative methods (text analysis) were
combined in this research, which resulted in many similar findings with regard to the biofuel
discourse. Since the obtained analytical results were readily interpretable and meaningful, the idea
that Content Analysis is indeed more than ‘just counting words’ and that (along with a distinctive
human interpretation step) it can be used in a meaningful and inductive way, has emerged stronger.
Another point of discussion is that in this paper the clusters (in combination with the factors
constituting them) might also be called ‘media‐discourses’. They are sub‐discourses in a sense of the
larger entity of the all‐encompassing biofuel media discourse. Especially T‐Lab’s categorizations
‘food’, ‘environment’ and ‘generation’ have in fact been identified by the practitioners as being
amongst the most important issues at hand. These three ‘issue clusters’ might be labeled as
‘discourses’ according to the first part of Hajer’s (2005) definition; they are “ensembles of ideas,
concepts and categories through which meaning is given to social and physical phenomena”.
Following a similar rationale, the clusters ‘biodiesel’, ‘car’ and ‘generation’ together were
interpreted as the (initially) dominant discourse.
The second part of Hajer’s definition states that discourses are “produced and reproduced
through an identifiable set of practices”. One of the DA methods used in this paper was conducting
interviews with key practitioners. This gave several clues about how some of the identified media‐
discourses were reproduced (e.g. the competition with food discourse was also mobilized by
corporate actors defending their own interests). However, identifying actor practices was not the
primary object of investigation of this paper, so this part of the research could be further expanded.
These actor practices, in combination with underlying cognitive frames, are actually what make
these discourses the dynamically stable entities that they are. Just careful reading of newspaper
articles will not enable one to find any real underlying media practices, let alone practices of actors
in the field in getting their side of the story to print media. This is where CA of newspaper articles
necessarily stops and other methods from the broader field of DA take over.
A statistical limitation of the CA algorithms (which are hard coded in the software used) is
the fact that T‐Lab’s clustering through Ward’s method always leads to clusters of about equal size
(similar problems occur in other academic fields, such as economics, where explanatory factors need
are endowed with a particular weight factor). The results of the case study show that the overall
sizes of the different clusters are indeed about equal. However, the case study also shows that the
relative dominance of each of the cluster varies substantially through time. So, this ‘about equal size
criterion’ does not have to be met for each year when one imposes an additional temporal
categorization in the data. This allows for the peaks in cluster dominance (if we were dealing with a
sample of articles unchanging in content through time this ‘about equal size criterion’ might have
caused more severe problems; here the shifts in dominance provide valuable clues). Hence, the
clustering algorithm can be applied (and might be especially suitable) to highly dynamical cases.
Some other methodological points of discussion have to do with the particular set of
newspaper articles analyzed for this paper. For proper discourse analysis a larger time frame than
just 8 years (2000‐2008 here) is desirable and perhaps even a requirement. Most discourse studies
analyze periods of several decades, where there are alternating periods of stability and discursive
shift (Mohr 1998). This was not possible here, since the media of the 1990’s and before paid little
attention to biofuels. Compared to previous historical enquiries, the newspaper articles constituting
this paper’s sample have a limited time scope (e.g. Gamson & Modigliani’s celebrated 1989 paper on
U.S. nuclear power media coverage deals with the period 1945‐1989). Compared to other content
analytical research in the field of new energy technologies, the time span is similar, but the article
sample size in this paper (N=266) is smaller (e.g. for Qu et al.(2009) N=2806, for Alphen et al. (2007)
N= 306). Significant patterns were found in this research despite the fact that a smaller sample
usually makes it more difficult for software to find relevant regularities. Though small it may be; this
sample is very selective and assumed to be representative for newspaper coverage, since its profile
through time is very similar to that of much larger samples (see figure 1).
7. Conclusion
This study aimed to open the black box of resistance to new energy technologies by analyzing media
discourse. More specifically, the goal of this paper was to investigate how biofuel media discourse
evolved during the 2000‐2008 period in the Netherlands, articulate shifts in content and structure of
this discourse, and start to explore how this affected biofuel practices. To investigate this, two
methods were applied; both of which provided interesting and interpretable insights. First, the text
analysis effectively enabled categorizing the entirety of biofuel media discourse. Second, the
‘interviews with key‐practitioners’ showed a rich variety of differing opinions and underlying
cognitive frames. Both the newspaper analysis and the interviews suggest that there has been a
clear discursive shift. The steeply increasing analytical dominance scores of clusters ‘environment’
and ‘food’ are backed by the conducted interviews. As one the interviewed practitioners puts it: “I
think the most important overall change is that initially the media and the debate focused only on
opportunities and what good things biofuels could do within Europe and that the indirect effects on
the rest of the world were underestimated. Now, however, the reverse is true and the balance has
tipped too far to the other side”. So, this serious discursive shift has altered the way biofuels are
represented, which has changed from ‘riches’ (focusing on economic and technological
opportunities for Europe and the Netherlands) to ‘rags’ (focusing on negative side effects for
environment and developing countries). In Sum, combining text analytical methods with practitioner
interviews proved highly compatible and can be viewed as an effective way of opening the black box
of resistance.
From the research findings, a number of conclusions might be drawn concerning the
character of biofuel discourse; both in terms of its contents and in terms of its structure. With regard
to the contents, the newspaper analysis categorized biofuel media discourse by identifying a number
of thematic clusters. The development of these thematic clusters through time emphasises the
dynamic character of the biofuels discourse and how elements of resistance against biofuels
emerged to the heart of the discourse. Interviews show how practitioners are confronted with
various forms of resistance (e.g. actors mobilize particular discourses).
The research findings also give clues with regard to the underlying structure of the biofuel
discourse. The most fundamental analytical result lies in the interpretation of the two factorial axes
21
along which media coverage was found to vary. Media coverage can be categorized by the
distinction ‘techno‐economic vs. social‐ecological’ and by the distinction ‘regional vs. global’. The
differences between practitioners’ cognitive frames were shown to vary in the same dimensions
(strengthening the idea that the combination of quantitative text analysis and interviews, as applied
here, indeed works). Both practitioners and media coverage with a techno‐economic / regional
frame have more confidence in technological solutions and show a positive attitude towards biofuel
applications. On the other hand, both practitioners and media coverage with a social‐ecological /
global frame were fierce in criticizing and resisting biofuel applications for having negative side
effects for the environment and people in developing countries.
This study can potentially contribute in number of ways. First of all, the findings here raise
some questions and provide possibilities for further academic research. Investigating (media)
discourse on biofuels abroad might show similarities and differences between countries. This raises
the question whether media coverage and cognitive frames in other countries show similar
dynamics and properties. Do discourses and forms of resistance transform at country borders? It
would also be interesting to see how these dimensions vary in the case of other new and sustainable
energy technologies. Do we find similar dynamics and properties of discourses and resistance across
technologies or do they differ, of so, in what ways? The methodology applied in this research might
also be used to analyze more elaborately broader (and longer lasting) vivid environmental debates
(e.g. sustainability or climate change). Instead of analyzing general audience media, expert discourse
(such as found in scientific papers or in web forums) might also analyzed. Another field of future
research is to combine discourse analysis with social network software to identify coalitions of
resistance in new energy technology fields.
Finally, the methods applied in this study may also be used in appraisal practices and
technology assessment activities. They can potentially improve socio‐technical debates surrounding
contested technologies by articulating their underlying structures and make them more transparent.
They might make actors more aware of how the media present the debate at large. Even more
importantly, this might allow actors to recognize the socio‐cognitive frames through which their
thinking is structured and better understand how this is different from other participators.
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