Vietnam in the Climate Change Narratives: A Discursive News Values Analysis of English-Language News

Abstract

Climate change demands not only scientific and political responses but also effective communication in the public sphere. The reportage of climate issues has therefore been under a lot of research, yet few studies have examined how climate change is communicated in Vietnam’s English-language press. This study is an attempt to fill such a gap, applying Discursive News Values Analysis (DNVA) to a self-compiled corpus of 116 climate-related articles from a major English-language online newspaper in Vietnam – Sai Gon Giai Phong News (SGGP). The analysis identifies four prominent semantic domains: environmental effects, sustainable development, institutional cooperation, and regional specificity. The most frequently constructed values are Eliteness, Impact, and Timeliness, which renders Personalization, Consonance, and Unexpectedness notably infrequent. The qualitative analysis reveals that SGGP frequently frames Vietnam as a proactive and solution-driven actor. However, climate discourse is largely elite-driven, privileging institutional voices while side-lining the perspectives of ordinary citizens. Coverage is also highly localized, with emphasis on the Mekong Delta and Ho Chi Minh City. Equally notably, Impact is constructed through a dual narrative of both consequences and future-oriented strategies, portraying Vietnam as vulnerable yet resilient. These findings contribute to the growing literature on DNVA in Southeast Asia and point to the need for more inclusive, people-centred approaches to climate communication in Vietnamese media and beyond.