Economic Conditions,the Policy Cycle,and Media Visibility of Environmental Organizations

The extent to which social movements have access to the news media has important implications on the capability of social movements to communicate with and garner support from the public. Factors that shape movement organizations' media visibility thus deserve scholarly attention. This article deals with news coverage of environmental movement organizations (EMOs) in Hong Kong and focuses on the impact of economic conditions, the policy cycle, and the number of EMOs in society on media visibility of EMOs. Analysis of a data-set constructed based on archival data and official statistics illustrates that all three factors influence media visibility of EMOs through media attention to environmental issues, while the number of EMOs and economic conditions also affect media visibility of EMOs directly. In-depth interview data are then used to supplement the quantitative analysis by showing how movement activists perceive and respond strategically to the structural factors. Theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Nature Documentaries,Connectedness to Nature,and Pro-environmental Behavior

We investigate the effects of nature documentaries on pro-environmental cognition and behavior. Of central interest is the concept of connectedness to nature, which describes an individual's sense of being connected to nature. Based on previous research showing that a direct nature experience in zoos can increase connectedness to nature, we questioned whether watching a nature documentary could increase connectedness to nature and pro-environmental behavior. An experiment using one control group (watching a documentary about Einstein's theory of relativity) and one treatment group (watching a nature documentary) revealed that a mediated nature experience is not sufficient to elicit an increase in connectedness to nature. However, we found that exposure increased actual donation behavior for animal and environmental protection organizations. It is important to note that nature documentary exposure increased pro-environmental donation behavior only in those already having a strong sense of connectedness. We discuss real-world implications for donation-accepting, non-profit organizations.     

Sources and Framing of Fracking: A Content Analysis of Newspaper Coverage in North Carolina,New York,and Pennsylvania

Research across several decades has mapped the way complex environmental issues with complicated policy implications are often differentially framed within the media, public, and policy agendas with major implications for how they are understood, discussed, and decided. Building on this work, this this study compared news coverage of the debate over natural gas “fracking” in New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina between the period 2008 and 2013. Examining state newspapers, the analysis evaluated the types of sources used, the assertions of these sources, and how the issue of fracking was framed. From a general perspective, this study reveals how differences in framing of an environmental and scientific controversy can be attributed to the locally relevant sources used in reporting, as well as the political, economic, and social factors that might be unique to a state. Specific to the debate over natural gas “fracking,” this study adds to our understanding of how such state-based factors influence the portrayal of the issue in the news media.     

In Flanders Fields: De/politicization and Democratic Debate on a GM Potato Field Trial Controversy in News Media

In May 2011, a highly mediatized direct action in the form of a “field liberation” took place in Flanders, Belgium, against a field trial of genetically modified potatoes. This direct action and its aftermath revealed the conflictual and antagonistic nature of the genetically modified organisms debate in Flanders. Consequently, it serves as a particularly suitable case to investigate the post-political thesis with regard to environmental discourse and politics. The aim of this paper is to investigate in what ways news media in their reporting contribute to processes of depoliticization and, resultantly, impede a democratic debate on the issues at stake. This paper attempts to provide an answer to this question based on a critical discourse analysis of the reporting by Flanders’ two generalist, elite newspapers, De Standaard and De Morgen and the alternative online news site DeWereldMorgen. The findings reveal the existence of three ideological cultures, which are characterized by different degrees of de/politicization. We conclude by discussing how this study adds to our understanding of the relation between the depoliticization of environmental discourse, democratic debate and twenty-first-century news media.     

Wilderness and the Media Politics of Place Branding

It is 30 years since the Australian environmental movement enlisted the term “wilderness” to protect Tasmania's remote Franklin River from hydroelectric development. Environmentalists deployed “wilderness” strategically during the conflict to build public support for their no-dam campaign, aided by national and international media who used the term liberally, while Tasmanian news media and pro-development elites acknowledged the term's inherent political qualities by suppressing its use. Our interest is in the political and media framing of “wilderness” since the concept was “branded” by government and industry at the turn of the twenty-first century. Drawing on continuing environmental conflict over Tasmania's remote Tarkine region as a case study, we ask to what extent media portrayals of “wilderness” have changed since the Franklin dam was stopped and the Tasmanian World Heritage Wilderness Area was created in 1982. Using content analysis of related articles in the local media and qualitative analysis of international travel journalism about Tasmania published over an extended period, we find that place branding has contributed to the routinization of “wilderness” and to a shift in the focus of mediated conflict from “wilderness” to “tourism.” The Tasmanian experience demonstrates that while the actions of the environmental movement can valorize place, branding can depoliticize contested natural areas. Yet brands that incorporate or allude to “wilderness” may have the unanticipated consequence of valorizing “wilderness” transnationally, in a manner that the environmental movement would struggle to emulate.     

Food for Thought: Audience Engagement with Sustainability Messages in Branded Content

Branded platforms are a growing “gray-zone” of marketing and media messages, in which corporations and news journalists partner to create content that supports strategic corporate goals while aligning with a publication’s scope of editorial coverage. As corporations are key influencers of and contributors to environmental communication, this trend has the potential to change environmental dialogue. In this article, we closely examine messages about food and sustainability, created in partnership by Chipotle Mexican Grill and the Huffington Post news site. We illustrate how use of a branded platform expanded the scope of environmental topics, issues, and frames that Chipotle addresses, how frames identified here connect to frames in coverage of science-related issues, as identified by other scholars, and discuss how branded platforms allow corporations to draw attention to polarizing environmental issues while protecting stakeholder relationships and brand reputation.     

Capitalistic Agency: The Rhetoric of BP's Helios Power Campaign

In this essay, we use rhetorical analysis to examine how British Petroleum's (BP) Helios Power media campaign both encourages and embodies capitalistic agency as the means to enact pro-environmental behavior. This form of agency limits the scope of environmentalism. Capitalistic agency can be conceptualized as the capacity to enact, or the process of enacting, capitalistic ends as well as the inherent constraining of agency that is not oriented toward the production of capital. Helios Power, launched in 2007, is BP's most recent American television, radio, internet advertising, and branding campaign. We examine the campaign website which heavily incorporates green marketing, including background images of wind turbines, environmental buzzwords throughout the text, green color schemes, and a section dedicated to conservation advocacy. By rhetorically aligning BP with environmentalism, providing customers a means of participation with environmentalism, and constraining profit-hindering conservation behaviors, Helios Power provides a vivid illustration for understanding the impact of capitalistic agency on society's perception of and progress toward environmental sustainability.     

Effects of environmental illiteracy and environmental awareness among middle school students on environmental behavior

This study proposes and employs a structural model to examine the effects of environmental literacy, environmental awareness, environmental attitudes, and environmental behavior among middle school students in Eski?ehir on their purchase of environmentally friendly products. In the proposed structural model, environmental illiteracy and environmental awareness were the exogenous latent variables, while pro-environmental attitude, pro-environmental behavior, and the purchase of environmentally friendly products were the endogenous latent variables. The latent variable of environmental illiteracy did not have a statistically significant effect on environmental attitudes and purchase of environmentally friendly products, whereas environmental awareness had a positive effect on pro-environmental attitudes and the purchase of environmentally friendly products. These findings indicate that students with environmental awareness also develop positive attitudes toward the environment, and the presence of a positive attitude toward the environment leads them to display pro-environmental behaviors and adopt a positive attitude toward environmentally friendly products.     

Mediating the Science: Symbolic and Structural Influences on Communicating Climate Change Through New Zealand's Television News

Climate change presents scientists, politicians, and media producers with a challenge of articulating to diverse stakeholders both the complexity of issues and the urgency of action. Analyses of how climate change is represented and constructed in broadcast media are useful to capture a reflection of contemporary values. We use an analysis of news frames and production values as well as a limited “circuit of culture” approach to explore climate change communication as both a news product and cultural phenomenon. Our focus is New Zealand, a country which ratified the Kyoto agreement but which is currently noncompliant. Using qualitative framing analysis and in-depth interviews with leading media producers, politicians, and scientists, we examine how climate change is produced, represented, and consumed by New Zealanders via their broadcast media.     

Environmental literacy in practice: education on tropical rainforests and climate change

Environmental literacy is a key concept to promote individual behavioral changes toward a more sustainable lifestyle to consciously react to environmental challenges such as climate change. Promoting knowledge, attitudes and behaviors provides a reasonable basis to prepare adolescents for their future. A recently proposed environmental literacy model comprises three-dimensional knowledge, environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behavior. The present study applies this model by implementing an intervention focusing on tropical rainforests and climate change in a botanical garden, combining student-centered activities with self-dependent learning. Data from 283 10th graders quantify individual knowledge, attitudes and behavior scores. Knowledge acquisition, a positive development of the Inclusion of Nature in One's Self concept and increasing pro-environmental behavior intentions were found by comparing an intervention group with a test–retest group. In conclusion, our botanical garden’s intervention evidently furthered appreciative tendencies and even encouraged environmental literacy.     

个人规范对农户亲环境行为的影响分析——基于拓展的规范激活理论框架

农户的亲环境行为可在一定程度上缓解农业环境污染,为改善农业环境,探寻农户实施亲环境行为的原因所在,将农户环境污染感知、环境关心和社会规范加入规范激活理论框架对其进行拓展,在此基础上,通过构建结构方程模型和层次回归模型,利用陕西、山西、甘肃、安徽和江苏5省的实地调查数据,对农户的亲环境行为进行分析。结果表明:农户的亲环境个人规范、环境污染感知和环境关心均可对其亲环境行为产生直接的正向影响,且个人规范对行为的影响程度最大;结果意识、责任归属、农户的环境污染感知和环境关心均可对其亲环境的个人规范产生直接的正向影响,且其影响程度从高到低依次为:结果意识、责任归属、环境污染感知和环境关心;农户的环境污染感知和环境关心可同时对其亲环境行为产生直接和间接影响作用,而结果意识和责任归属仅可对其亲环境行为产生间接影响作用;社会规范可正向调节个人规范对农户亲环境行为的影响。     

The Nature of Time: How the Covers of the World's Most Widely Read Weekly News Magazine Visualize Environmental Affairs

Scholars of environmental communication acknowledge the importance of visual representations in shaping perceptions and actions in relation to environmental affairs. Unlike with other media, including newspapers, television and film, research on the visualization of nature and environmental issues in magazines is rare. This study focuses on the covers of Time magazine, one of the world's most influential news weeklies. A dataset that includes all relevant covers from 1923 to 2011 is examined using a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis to analyze the visual representation of nature and environmental issues. The results show that the presence of environmental issues and nature on the covers has increased over the decades. Furthermore, Time takes an advocacy position on some environmental issues, but it is a shallow one that is weakly argued through less-than-engaging imagery and fails to offer much in the way of solutions or agency to the reader.     

Who is the Adolescent Environmentalist? Environmental Attitudes,Identity, Media Usage and Communication Orientation

There has been an increase in scholarly attention to adolescents’ environmental attitudes; however, only a small number of empirical studies address the Adolescent Environmentalist’s (AE) personal and collective identity, media usage, and communication orientation. In this study, we investigate differences in young people (aged 12–17) who identify themselves as environmentalists, or the AEs, and those who do not drawing from a national sample of 1096 youth. Results show AEs significantly differ from their peers. The AEs have a different environmental value set, report greater self-confidence and influence among peers, support the stronger display of citizenship behaviors, follow certain news topics more, use and discuss the news more with a variety of others, and report engaging in more dialogue and persuasion.     

Eating Meat and Climate Change: The Media Blind Spot—A Study of Spanish and Italian Press Coverage

There is strong evidence that a meat and dairy-based diet is a very important contributor to climate change. However, the correlation between the production and consumption of livestock and anthropogenic climate change has received minimal media coverage. The literature for English-speaking countries shows a sort of media blind spot for meat in that the news media barely address, or do not address, the responsibility of individuals' dietary choices with regard to this issue. In this paper, we provide data for press coverage in Southern Europe from a sample of the top 10 Spanish and Italian newspapers for a seven-year period (2006–2013). Data from our samples correlate with findings from previous studies. However, our comparative study suggests that there are also meaningful differences between both countries studied while their alleged Mediterranean dietary background makes no difference in terms of ethical or dietary sensitivity.     

Media Access and Political Efficacy in the Eco-politics of Climate Change: Canadian National News and Mediated Policy Networks

We use a discourse network analysis approach to answer two questions about national news coverage of climate change policy debate in Canada during the period 2006–2010. First, what is the media visibility of actors relevant to policy development and advocacy on climate change? Second, given the political and economic context of climate policy-making in Canada, does greater or lesser media visibility reflect effectiveness in climate policy advocacy? Multiple interpretive frameworks characterize Canadian political discourse about climate change, with fragmentation between the federal government, opposition political parties, provincial governments, and environmental organizations. Contrary to expectations, environmental organizations had high levels of media visibility while the relative invisibility of fossil fuel corporations was notable in the media coverage of Canadian climate discussions. Our findings challenge optimistic accounts of the relationship between media power and political power, and suggest that media power does not necessarily translate to political efficacy.     

Developments in the Framing of Climate Change as a Public Health Issue in US Newspapers

News media are major channels for the transmission of information to the public and deliver news about the latest developments regarding health issues such as climate change. How the media frame such information may enhance public understanding and enable appropriate responses by individuals and communities. This study follows up on previous research examining media portrayals of climate change in US newspapers from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2008. Here, we content analyze 270 news stories on climate change as a public health issue from five US newspapers between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2012. Findings indicate that the total number of articles about climate change declined while emphasis on the public health dimension of climate change increased. The types of generic news frames (i.e., dramatic/substantive) most frequently used did not considerably change across the two time periods, however. To explain this, we discuss ways in which people may assess and spark change in news framing of public issues to better reach and influence a range of audiences.     

Mobilizing Facebook Users against Facebook's Energy Policy: The Case of Greenpeace Unfriend Coal Campaign

This research analyzes Greenpeace International Unfriend Coal protest campaign against Facebook's energy policy (2010–2011), as a case study in the organization's approach to campaigning on climate change issues. In the context of Greenpeace protest history and social movement research, we focus on the online mobilization tactics used by Greenpeace, and how they differed from previous campaign practices. The findings are based on a content analysis of all statuses posted on the campaign Facebook page (N = 119), and six semi-structured interviews with key Greenpeace personnel. The analysis reveals that Greenpeace used Facebook extensively both for disseminating information and context about the campaign, and as a platform for mobilizing and facilitating broad public engagement. Greenpeace seized the affordances of the Facebook platform and introduced new means of online mobilization and engagement. These e-tactics proved effective for engaging diverse transnational supporters in the campaign. The implications for environmental non-governmental organizations and the broader environmental movement are discussed.     

Making Progress? Reproducing Hegemony Through Discourses of “Sustainable Development” in the Australian News Media

While numerous studies have investigated discourses of “sustainable development” in a variety of institutional and academic contexts, media discourses on this issue have remained largely unexamined. But considering the intertwined nature of media and society, the construction of sustainable development in the news may be an important factor shaping future ecological and social outcomes. Proceeding from the thesis that the news is a site in which hegemony may be reproduced, this paper critically analyses discourses used to construct sustainable development in news texts published over the 10-year period 2004–2013 across the eight most widely circulated newspapers in Australia. The findings show that sustainable development news is confined to a narrow range of discourses that largely serve to perpetuate the status quo, which is broadly consistent with the media hegemony thesis. Finally, I discuss the implications of these findings, propose possible explanations, and explore avenues for future research.     

Routine Reporting of Environmental Risk: The First Traces of Micropollutants in the German Press

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the emergence of a new environmental issue in the German press. Since the 1990s, scientists have detected traces of pharmaceuticals, hormones and chemicals in all segments of the water cycle. These micropollutants have negative effects on aquatic life and might affect human health. Their sources are manifold and include private households. Yet although micropollutants of are direct concern to media audiences, they are a challenging topic for news reporting. Although this issue is systemic and fraught with uncertainty, it does not easily translate into news stories. Our content analysis of 444 articles (1995–2015) reveals that the societal risk was rarely presented as a stand-alone topic. Instead, the issue was mostly covered as part of local routine reporting and framed as a challenge for experts to solve. Over time, the reporting became more managerial, while media framings of micropollutants gained more substance and scope. We contend that local routine reporting should receive more attention as a public forum for addressing emerging environmental concerns.