Ecological Resistance and Political Discourse in Local Media: The Thracian Press’ Representation of the İğneada Nuclear Power Plant Project

Energy has played a driving role in the historical development of human civilization. Control over energy resources has brought with it power and prosperity. However, traditional energy policies have disrupted the global ecological balance, triggering the climate crisis. This contradiction has fostered the emergence of organized environmental awareness worldwide and also laid the groundwork for environmental communication and environmental journalism being developed as disciplines while raising public awareness of ecological issues and influencing political decisions. This study aims to examine local media’s role and approach to the debates surrounding the planned İğneada Nuclear Power Plant Project in Türkiye, focusing on local dynamics within the context of the literature on environmental journalism. This research employs both qualitative and quantitative content analysis, as well as a critical discourse analysis, with a sample consisting of 121 news articles selected from nine local newspapers published in Edirne, Kırklareli, and Tekirdağ. The findings indicate the examined newspapers to have adopted an opposing stance toward the project and 80% of the news articles to have a negative tone. Furthermore, the local press has been determined to function more as a megaphone amplifying the opposition’s political discourse and civil society organizations’ actions to the public rather than producing original content on the subject.