Frame alignment and environmental advocacy: the influence of NGO strategies on policy outcomes in China

ABSTRACT

The link between environmental frames and policy outcomes in China is explored. Environmental nongovernment organizations’ (ENGOs) issue interpretation and presentation affect environmental policy changes. The notion of ‘frame alignment’ is introduced, and it is argued that it can serve to link ENGOs’ advocacy needs and frame resonance among different stakeholders, thus successfully promoting advocacy. Based on in-depth interviews and analysis of news reports over a span of 10 years, it is found that where ENGOs are able to align their issue frames with those of the central state and media, the resulting frame resonance smooths policy change. In contrast, where ENGOs adopt conflict frames critical of state authorities, the absence of alignment leads to a slim chance of policy change. The findings shed light on why some ENGOs successfully create linkage and achieve their desired outcomes while others fail to do so.     

Effect on herbicide adsorption of organic forestry waste products used for soil remediation

Organic soil amendments can be useful for improving degraded soil, but this increase in organic matter (OM) may influence adsorption of herbicides subsequently applied to the treated soil, even though the particle size of amendments and their nature differ from typical soil OM. In this study, a batch equilibrium method was used to measure adsorption of five herbicides following application to two organic media, wood pulp and sawdust, comparing these with two cropping soils. Herbicide adsorption, quantified by distribution coefficients (k_d), was much higher in the two organic media than in the cropping soils. The increases in adsorption were strongly correlated to the percentage of organic carbon. When the k_d was normalized to adsorption coefficients corrected for OM content (k_oc), variation in results between the media was greatly reduced, indicating that OM is an important factor influencing adsorption in these media. The results of this study suggest that herbicides will be less effective when applied to soils in which sawdust and wood pulp have been added. Using organic amendments to remediate soil will increase adsorption of pesticides, reducing their bio-availability and efficacy, but also reducing their tendency to leach into root zones of deep-rooted crops and into groundwater.     

Democratic Debate and Mediated Discourses on Climate Change: From Consensus to De/politicization

Starting from a risk conflicts perspective, this article challenges two common assumptions of existing research on climate change in public and media discourses. It argues that the evaluation of these discourses on the extent to which these either accurately reflect a scientific consensus or contribute to achieving social consensus insufficiently takes account of the exclusionary mechanisms it starts from. A conceptual and empirical framework is subsequently put forward which allows one to evaluate mediated discourses in terms of the extent to which democratic debate and citizenship are encouraged. Such analysis can reveal the discursive strategies underlying processes of politicization and depoliticization. This perspective is illustrated by an analysis of a local case study: the “Sing for the Climate” campaign. We conclude by calling for a broad systematic research agenda revealing the extent to which de/politicizing discourses are found to influence public and media discourses.     

Media and Climate Change: Four Long-standing Research Challenges Revisited

This paper suggests some further avenues of empirical and theoretical investigation for media research on climate change. “Old” suggestions, whose significance, as we see it, needs to be further reinforced, are included, as are “new” ones, which we hope will generate innovative research questions. In order to integrate the analysis with knowledge generated by media research at large, we revisit four research challenges that media scholars have long grappled with in the investigation of journalism: (1) the discursive challenge, i.e. the production, content and reception of media discourse; (2) the interdisciplinary challenge, i.e. how media research might engage in productive collaboration with other disciplines; (3) the international challenge, i.e. how to achieve a more diverse and complex understanding of news reporting globally; and (4) the practical challenge, i.e. how to reduce the theory–practice divide in media research.     

Sentiment analysis of the Twitter response to Netflix's Our Planet documentary

The role of nature documentaries in shaping public attitudes and behavior toward conservation and wildlife issues is unclear. We analyzed the emotional content of over 2 million tweets related to Our Planet, a major nature documentary released on Netflix, with dictionary and rule-based automatic sentiment analysis. We also compared the sentiment associated with species mentioned in Our Planet and a set of control species with similar features but not mentioned in the documentary. Tweets were largely negative in sentiment at the time of release of the series. This effect was primarily linked to the highly skewed distributions of retweets and, in particular, to a single negatively valenced and massively retweeted tweet (>150,000 retweets). Species mentioned in Our Planet were associated with more negative sentiment than the control species, and this effect coincided with a short period following the airing of the series. Our results are consistent with a general negativity bias in cultural transmission and document the difficulty of evoking positive sentiment, on social media and elsewhere, in response to environmental problems.     

Official sources,news outlets,or search engines? Rumour validation on social media during Hurricanes Harvey and Irma

This study, based on data collected from a representative sample of adults in the United States, explores the social cognitive variables that motivated Americans to validate rumours on social media about Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, both of which struck in August/September 2017. The results indicate that risk perception and negative emotions are positively related to systematic processing of relevant risk information, and that systematic processing is significantly related to rumour validation through search engines such as Google. In contrast, trust in information about the hurricane is significantly related to validation through official sources, such as FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), and major news outlets such as The New York Times. Trust in information is also significantly related to systematic processing of risk information. The findings of this study suggest that ordinary citizens may be motivated to validate rumours on social media, which is an increasingly important issue in contemporary societies.     

Effects of nutrients on Microcystis growth more easily forming bloom

Different nutrient media experimentally were N, P and Fe-limited conditions and a serial of diluted BGll media. The cell change of morphology and life history, cell number, cell color and cell area of Microcystis were analyzed quantitatively. First, the effects of nitrogen, phosphorus and iron depletion were distinctively different. Phosphorus and iron depletion caused more special division cells,slowly growth increasing, the easier change of bigger cell area. Second, the nitrogen and iron depletion could make the color of alga from green to brown. Finally, according to the resource competition and Monod equation, Microcystis kinetics of phosphorus and iron were also examined. Ks and μmax of phosphorus absorption were 0.0352 μmol/L, 0.493 d^-1 respectively; iron absorption: 0.00323 μmol/L, 0.483d^-1. In a word, some evidences of the Microcystis bloom dominance in certain nutrient conditions were indicated in the experiments. The dominances were determined as the reviving under the adverse circumstances through the special division, the various nitrogen resources,and the lower kinetics of phosphorus and iron than that of most of other algae. The conclusions provided the scientific basis for preventing and managing Microcystis bloom in freshwater.     

滤料中重金属迁移特性及其在BAF中的应用

以含重金属的干污泥为添加剂,自行研制出生物滤料,并以此滤料为对象进行浸出试验研究.结果表明,在浸出时间为24 h和30 d时,Cd、Cr、Cu和Pb在pH=1时浸出量最大,当pH≥3时,Cd、Cr、Cu和Pb的浸出量迅速下降,说明强酸性条件是影响重金属迁移特性的重要因素.XRD分析表明,原料中的重金属经过一系列的物相转化和反应过程,固定在Si—O等玻璃结构网格中,在晶体结构中以Pb₂O(CrO₄)、CdSiO₃、CuO等稳定的形态存在;在曝气生物滤池（BAF）中应用自制滤料进行脱氮（同步硝化反硝化）效能研究,当原水C/N为11.5和25.5左右时,对NH⁺₄-N和TN的去除率可分别达到85.5%、90.3%、46.6%和49.6%,高于江西陶粒、广州陶粒和山西活性炭的去除率;试验结果对重金属固化、迁移特性机理研究和自制滤料广泛应用有进一步促进作用.     

组合型生态浮床的动态水质净化特性

研究开发了一种由水生植物、水生动物及微生物膜构建的组合型浮床生态系统.通过中试研究,考察了该浮床对富营养化湖泊水体在动态条件下的净化效果.结果表明,水体交换时间为7d时TN、TP、高锰酸盐指数的去除率分别为53 .8%、86 .0%和35 .4%.污染物的直接净化主体为人工介质和水生植物单元,但在生态浮床中引入河蚬增加水生动物单元,通过食物链的“加环"作用,提高了颗粒性有机物的可溶化和无机化（氨化）以及可生化性,改善了植物吸收以及人工介质单元生物膜中微生物的基质条件,促进微生物的生长和活性,提高了浮床的净化效果.     

异质性企业环境责任与碳绩效的关系研究：媒体关注和环境规制的联合调节效应

“双碳”愿景下微观企业层面的环境责任受到更多关注。本文运用Python获取2014—2019年中国A股上市工业企业数据,分析了异质性企业环境责任对碳绩效的影响,探讨了媒体关注和环境规制在其中的联合调节效应。研究表明：履行前瞻型环境责任和反应型环境责任均对企业碳绩效有显著的增进作用;媒体关注可以正向调节前瞻型企业环境责任和碳绩效的关系,但在反应型企业环境责任与碳绩效间的调节作用不显著。进一步研究发现：环境规制与媒体关注在反应型企业环境责任和碳绩效间产生正向联合调节作用,而在前瞻型环境责任与碳绩效间的联合调节作用不显著。研究结果支持了政府和媒体对企业环境责任的正式和非正式治理效果,进而提高了企业碳绩效的作用逻辑,拓展了对企业碳绩效影响因素以及异质性企业环境责任的理论研究,将环境治理他治和自治相结合,为多元环境治理主体协同联动推进“双碳”目标顺利实现提供新思路和参考证据。