Introduction

An Inconvenient Truth (Gore 2006) has been recognized as an influential documentary movie that has raised anthropogenic climate change awareness around the globe (Kellner 2010). The documentary won the 79^th Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song and therefore become the first documentary to win two Oscars (AMPAS 2006). Moreover, the movie also has brought Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. to be a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2007 along with International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for their efforts to raise global awareness about man-made climate change and to develop the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change (Prize 2007).

Prior to the release of the movie, there was a wide gap on mainstream media and public debate about the causes of the climate change, whether it was man-made, or just part of the natural phenomenon (Pooley 2010) (Doak 2008). However, the movie has successfully brought the issue from scientific and political debate into public household (Castells 2009).

Then, what has made An Inconvenient Truth so powerful? There have been many documentaries on climate change but why this piece has always been standing out? And how the documentary developed a certain frame to win the public debate over the issue of climate change? Reflecting from those questions, it becomes interesting to examine the movie through framing analysis as it may answer some of those questions and offer some critical perspectives. As it has been argued that documentary film is among the mediums in which a battle of the minds and souls is being waged through a battle of images and frames (Vogelaar and College 2011).

Theoretical Approach

I believe that we cannot escape ourselves from framing every phenomenon that we encounter every day, because framing is a process of making sense the world we perceive. Without it, we will be in complete insanity. We never understand the world we live in, and therefore we never know how to deal with it. I always associates the way we frame every single thing to the process of making a picture. I had observed that there had never been any photographers or cameramen that could grab identical pictures or footages of a same event. It becomes plausible as they capture the event in different angle, usually with different cameras, and different settings. Thus, framing becomes attractive as it offers varied angles in examining a particular phenomenon. It also has been argued that there is no single framing agreed definition (Kitzinger 2007).

That similar process also applies in mass media context. Robert M. Entman argues that to frame is to select some aspects of perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendations (Entman 1993).

In this case study, I would like to use four questions that are frequently posed by framing researchers: How is the problem defined? How are key players portrayed? Who is presented as responsible? What solutions are proposed? All of those questions plays in an opposing state against other version of framing towards an issue (Kitzinger 2007).

Methodology

It is not easy to frame the documentary in detail as it has too many aspects. While in general, it consists of audio and visual. Furthermore, the audio has three aspects: narration, natural sound, and music. The visual has two aspects: footages and graphics. All of those aspects can be analyzed through framing. In order to make this case study more concise and focus, I will merge all of those aspects as "the text". I also will not elaborate every single issue on the movie, especially the scientific finding details. I will only focus to some aspects, which ‘I frame’ as the important aspects that reflects the way this movie has framed the anthropogenic climate change as "an inconvenient truth".

Analysis

How is the problem defined?

The movie is based on Al Gore presentation about anthropogenic climate change. Therefore, the story is based on Al Gore's frame. It is clearly one-sided story. Al Gore believes that climate change has been caused by human who have produced huge amount of greenhouse gases. He argues that the gases have thickened the Earth atmosphere and consequently traps a huge amount of infrared radiation that used to get away from the Earth to the universe. This phenomenon has made Earth getting warmer and has created global warming. As the global warming is perceived as anthropogenic, therefore, he argues, human has moral responsibilities to address the problem.

Al Gore emphasizes that people fundamental way of thinking has misled the way people view and address climate change. He argues that there are three causes of this problem: (1) people tend not to think about the crisis; (2) there has been a wide gap of understanding between scientist, to politicians and the public over the climate change issue; (3) there has been a false belief that people have to choose between a healthy economy and a healthy environment.

He argues that all of those problems were caused by scientific findings misrepresentation on mainstream media. To support his argument, he puts forward a study by Dr Naomi Oreskes who had studied 928 peer-reviewed science journal articles about global warming in 10 years. The study revealed that there wasn't any article against the anthropogenic thesis. Furthermore, Al Gore shows another study that indicated the cause of doubt over anthropogenic climate change. The study took 636 articles about global warming that had been published in 14 years on four most influential mass media in the US: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, and the Wall Street Journal. And it found out that 53 percent of those articles had published conflicting scientific findings about the cause of climate change.

How are key players portrayed?

Al Gore, the protagonist

The dominant figure in the documentary is Al Gore himself. He portrays himself as the protagonist. He narrates his story from his college time, going back to his childhood and his family, and finally his political career period. He draws the connection between all of those stories. He focuses on some major events that have deeply affected him and finally pushed him to put climate change as his number one priority throughout his career. All of those stories are distributed in relatively even interludes in between his main presentation. This kind of framing has enable people to understand the reason behind his effort in addressing climate change crisis.

Firstly, he tells a story of his first encounter with the idea of global warming during one of his undergraduate classes in Harvard University in 19860s. He was taught by Roger Ravelle who told him that the concentration of CO2 in the Earth atmosphere was going up at a significant rate and therefore, anthropogenic global warming was unavoidable. That scientific finding was a result of Ravelle research with Charles David Keeling by daily measuring the atmosphere level of CO2 in Hawaii since 1958 to 1960s. “It was startling to me”, Al Gore narrates (Gore 2006).

Secondly, he tells a story about his effort to bring up the anthropogenic climate change issue to the congress in 1970s in which he was failed. He thought that the congress would be startled too. He was wrong. Subsequently, he tells a story about a car accident that occurred to his son. The event had led him to deeply thinking of his priority in life.

“This turned my whole world upside down and shook it until everything felt out. My way of being in the world, it just changed everything for me. How should I spend my time on this Earth? I really dug in trying to learn about much more deeply. I went to Antarctica, went to the South Pole, North Pole, the Amazon. [I] went to places where scientist would help me understand parts of the issue that I didn’t really understand in depth. The possibility of losing what was most precious to me. I gained an ability (sigh) maybe I didn’t have before, but when I felt it, I felt that we could really loose it [Earth], that something we take for granted may not be here for our children (Gore 2006).

Thirdly, he tells a story about his presidential race defeat in 2000. “Well it was a hard blow. But, what would you do? You have made the best of it. It brought in to clear focus the mission that I had been pursuing for all these years. And I started to give slideshows again" (Gore 2006).

Fourthly, he tells a story about his frustration in bringing scientific findings about the anthropogenic climate change to influence politicians in the US. He has found out that many politicians still negate the scientific findings. In this sequence, the documentary presents footages of some US leading politicians such as Ronal Reagan and George Bush Sr. who believe that there was no such an anthropogenic climate change. It was just a hoax. And the climate change itself is a natural phenomenon. Al Gore believes that if an issue is not on the tips of their constituents’ tongues, it’s easy for them to ignore it, “To say well…we deal with that tomorrow” (Gore 2006).

Fifthly, he then tells a story about his experiences in China to talk to the public and China scientists about the issue. He believes this story is important because China and the US are among those two countries that has produced the largest amount of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Moreover, US hesitancy to engage with global effort in addressing climate change was basically under a main reason that it had provided imbalance quantitative emission commitments for developing countries, more importantly China (Gore 2006).

Sixthly, Al Gore draws a connection between three stories: his childhood, his sister (Nancy) addiction to smoking and her death because of lung cancer; and his father decision stop from drinking. He believes that the death of his sister would be never happening if only during her life time there was a consensus that smoking may cause lung cancer. This is relevant to his father who stopped to drink after consensus had been developed that alcohol may be harmful for health (Gore 2006). He brings up those stories as a metaphor to the climate change crisis issue.

Seventhly, he tells a story about his effort in disseminating the anthropogenic climate change issue around the globe, “At least a thousand times”, he narrates. And he believes that there has been a reason why since he was a young, he has been given a privilege to know and understand the Earth problem. “And I have, faith that pretty soon, enough mind would change that we cross a threshold,” he narrates (Gore 2006).

Besides Al Gore, there are two scientists who are portrayed as the protagonist: Roger Ravelle and Charles Robert Keeling. Al Gore sees them, especially Ravelle, as his heroes. Al Gore argues that their research in measuring CO2 level in the atmosphere has been recognized as the fundamental scientific finding of global warming that was caused by human activity. There are a lot of scientists who has supported the thesis based on their own findings. But Ravelle and Keeling, in this movie, has been crowned as the symbol of the anthropogenic climate change scientists group.

The skeptics: the antagonist

Al Gore repeatedly reiterates that climate change crisis is a moral issue. Therefore, I argue that, based on Al Gore way of framing, those who are not supporting concrete efforts to tackle the crisis could be defined as the immoral. He has mentioned three opponents of the anthropogenic climate change: (1) the skeptics from scientific community; (2) politicians; (3) business sector. The skeptics that have been widely represented on the movie are mostly politicians in the Congress and Senate and US administration under Republican leadership. From the politician category, he mentions George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Phillip Cooney.

Cooney has been specifically targeted because of his role in editing out scientist official assessment of global warming that has mentioned the dangers of global warming. At that time, Cooney had worked for Bush administration as the chair of Council on Environmental Quality. Al Gore makes him a clear example of how the skeptics have played the game of doubt over the issue.

Who is presented as responsible?

There are two parties who are regarded responsible for the ensuing climate change. Firstly, people who have produced and injected a huge amount of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Secondly, US politicians who are seemingly hesitant to agree on the idea of anthropogenic climate change and therefore has made the global effort to tackle the problem to become very hard to achieve. A certain business sector also has been targeted. Al Gore indicates that they have conducted systematic efforts in maintaining doubt over climate change issue. In doing so, they try to influence the discourse through media representation and the influence of lobbyist group in the US Congress, Senate, and administration.

What solutions are proposed?

At the end of the movie, Al Gore proposes practical solutions that can be done. These are some of the solutions:

· Buy energy efficient appliances;

· Weatherize your house;

· Recycle;

· Buy a hybrid car;

· Walk or ride bicycle;

· Mass transit;

· Switch to renewable sources of energy;

· Vote for leaders who pledge to solve this crisis;

· Write to congress. If they don’t listen, run for congress;

· Plant trees;

· Speak up in your community;

· Call radio shows and write newspaper;

· Insist that America freeze CO2 emission;

· Reduce our dependence on foreign oil;

· Help farmers grow alcohol fuels;

· Raise fuel economy standards;

Conclusion

The strength of this documentary is because it has put forward a clear message that there have been no scientific findings against anthropogenic climate change thesis. However, the scientific findings had been badly represented on mainstream media. Therefore, avoiding balance in climate change issue becomes more powerful to get a certain message across to the audience. Furthermore, it has been argued that "balance" norm in journalistic practice has created bias over climate change issue. Based on the norm, mainstream media tries to equally accommodate the conflicting sides. As a result, balanced reporting has become an aura of scientific uncertainty (Boykoff and Boykoff 2007). It had made public to become uncertain about the nature of climate change.

An Inconvenient Truth has been successful to get the message across because it breaks the "balance" norm by solely based on Al Gore's perspective. Therefore, he can easily convey his own message without any interference from skeptics. On the other hand, to empower Al Gore's credibility, the movie introduces Al Gore as a person who has deeply understood and involved in addressing anthropogenic climate change. His political experience in promoting anthropogenic climate change had given him a deep understanding about the nature of climate change debate in political realm. His long and deep personal study in finding out what the climate change is by relying to scientific findings has given him the credibility in telling audiences about this issue through scientific approach.

The magnitude of the movie has attracted many studies through many approaches, including frame analysis (Doak 2008) (Marzec 2009) (Vogelaar and College 2011). I have observed that each of the study focus on different aspects of the movie. Thus, it becomes problematic if we want to criticize other framing studies over the same movie as the framing itself offers very broad analytical approaches. Therefore, many researches might be varied in focusing their studies.

This essay has at least two limitations. Firstly, it doesn't elaborate every aspects of the movie that may range from music, images, footages, semantics, to Al Gore's non-verbal communication during the presentation. Secondly, it doesn't deeply penetrate into the ideological aspect behind this documentary. Then, some of these questions might be posed, "is the documentary truly morally driven or just a projection of left wing political campaign?" and "Is the movie another example of modern propaganda?" Further research can be done to answer all of those questions.