1st Edition

Media and the Environment

Edited By Anders Hansen
    1768 Pages
    by Routledge

    Most of what we understand about ‘the environment’, we know through the media, broadly defined, and related communication processes. Indeed, such processes have played a vital role in defining ‘the environment’ as a crucial concept, and in bringing environmental issues and problems to public and political attention. Thus, at least since the emergence and rise of the modern environmental movement in the 1960s, the mass media have been a central public arena for publicizing environmental issues and for contesting claims, arguments, and opinions about our use and abuse of the environment. (Moreover, the learned editor of this new Routledge collection avers, this applies not only to our beliefs and knowledge about those aspects of the environment which are regarded as problems or issues for public and political concern, but extends much deeper to the very ways in which we—as individuals, cultures, and societies—view, perceive, value, and relate to our environment and nature generally.)

    A rapidly expanding body of research and scholarship from a diverse range of disciplines across the humanities, sciences, and social sciences has sought to address key questions about all aspects of media, mediation, and communication roles in social, political, and cultural definitions of ‘the environment’. Such questions have focused in particular on how the media and related communication processes are centrally implicated in the social and political definition, contestation, and resolution of major global environmental issues and problems—notably, most recently, climate change. But media and communication roles in relation to local and national environmental issues also continue to be an important focus for scholarly research on what is increasingly recognized as the emerging and consolidating domain of ‘environmental communication’.

    Addressing the need for an authoritative and comprehensive reference work to enable users to navigate this increasingly complex area of research and study, and to answer key questions about the central role of media and communication in relation to the environment and environmental issues, Media and the Environment is a new title from Routledge’s acclaimed Critical Concepts in the Environment series. Edited by Anders Hansen, it is a four-volume collection of foundational and the very best cutting-edge scholarship. The collection brings together core texts charting the history and development of environmental communication, along with research examining the three major strands of the communication process: the sources and production of communication about the environment; the study of representations of the environment in news, entertainment media, advertising, film, and popular culture; and the study of how communication about the environment impacts on and interacts with public and political beliefs about the environment, as well as political action regarding the environment. The collection’s final part provides a series of case studies from the field of environmental communication praxis, examining how activists, NGOs, local government, and large corporations have sought to use communication as a key tool in the political processes of environmental change.

    Supplemented with a full index, and including an introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the assembled texts in their historical and intellectual context, Media and the Environment is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital research resource.

    Volume I: Environment, Media and Environmental Communication

    1. A. C. Schoenfeld, R. F. Meier, and R. J. Griffin, ‘Constructing a Social Problem: The Press and the Environment’, Social Problems, 1979, 27, 1, 38–61.

    2. A. Downs, ‘Up and Down with Ecology: The Issue Attention Cycle’, The Public Interest, 1972, 28, 3, 38–50.

    3. S. Hilgartner and C. L. Bosk, ‘The Rise and Fall of Social Problems: A Public Arenas Model’, American Journal of Sociology, 1988, 94, 1, 53–78.

    4. W. A. Gamson and A. Modigliani, ‘Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach’, American Journal of Sociology, 1989, 95, 1, 1–37.

    5. A. Hansen, ‘The Media and the Social Construction of the Environment’, Media Culture & Society, 1991, 13, 4, 443–58.

    6. J. Cracknell, ‘Issue Arenas, Pressure Groups and Environmental Agendas’, in A. Hansen (ed.), The Mass Media and Environmental Issues (Leicester University Press, 1993), pp. 3–21.

    7. J. A. Hannigan, ‘Social Construction of Environmental Issues and Problems’, Environmental Sociology, 2nd edn. (Routledge, 2006), pp. 63–78.

    8. J. G. Cantrill, ‘Perceiving Environmental Discourse: The Cognitive Playground’, in J. G. Cantrill and C. L. Oravec (eds.), The Symbolic Earth: Discourse and Our Creation of the Environment (University of Kentucky Press, 1996), pp. 76–94.

    9. S. Cottle, ‘Ulrich Beck, "Risk Society" and the Media: A Catastrophic View?’, European Journal of Communication, 1998, 13, 1, 5–32.

    10. P. Macnaghten and J. Urry, ‘Rethinking Nature and Society’, Contested Natures (Sage, 1998), pp. 1–31.

    11. J. Shanahan and K. McComas, ‘Narratives, Communication and the Environment’, Nature Stories: Depictions of the Environment and Their Effects (Hampton Press, 1999), pp. 51–77.

    12. R. Cox, ‘Study and Practice of Environmental Communication’, Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere, 3rd edn. (Sage, 2012), pp. 11–37.

    13. S. C. Moser, ‘Communicating Climate Change: History, Challenges, Process and Future Directions’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews-Climate Change, 2010, 1, 1, 31–53.

    Volume II: Producing Environmental Communication: sources, communicators, media and media professionals

    14. S. Dunwoody, ‘The Scientist as Source’, in S. M. Friedman, S. Dunwoody, and C. L. Rogers (eds.), Scientists and Journalists: Reporting Science as News (The Free Press, 1986), pp. 3–16.

    15. S. M. Friedman, ‘The Journalist's World’, in S. M. Friedman, S. Dunwoody, and C. L. Rogers (eds.), Scientists and Journalists: Reporting Science as News (The Free Press, 1986), pp. 17–41.

    16. A. Anderson, ‘Source-Media Relations: The Production of the Environmental Agenda’, in A. Hansen (ed.), The Mass Media and Environmental Issues (Leicester University Press, 1993), pp. 51–68.

    17. A. Hansen, ‘Journalistic Practices and Science Reporting in the British Press’, Public Understanding of Science, 1994, 3, 2, 111–34.

    18. S. Friedman, ‘And the Beat Goes On: The Third Decade of Environmental Journalism’, in S. Senecah, S. Depoe, M. Neuzil, and G. Walker (eds.), The Environmental Communication Yearbook, Vol. 1 (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004), pp. 175–87.

    19. H. P. Peters, D. Brossard, S. de Cheveigne, S. Dunwoody, M. Kallfass, and S. Miller, ‘Science-Media Interface: It's Time to Reconsider’, Science Communication, 2008, 30, 2, 266–76.

    20. B. Trench, ‘Science Reporting in the Electronic Embrace of the Internet’, in R. Holliman, E. Whitelegg, E. Scanlon, S. Smidt, and J. Thomas (eds.), Investigating Science Communication in the Information Age: Implications for Public Engagement and Popular Media (Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 166–80.

    21. K. T. Andrews and N. Caren, ‘Making the News: Movement Organizations, Media Attention, and the Public Agenda’, American Sociological Review, 2010, 75, 6, 841–66.

    22. A. Hansen, ‘Greenpeace and Press Coverage of Environmental Issues’, in A. Hansen (ed.), The Mass Media and Environmental Issues (Leicester University Press, 1993), pp. 150–78.

    23. K. M. DeLuca and J. Peeples, ‘From Public Sphere to Public Screen: Democracy, Activism, and the "Violence" of Seattle’, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 2002, 19, 2, 125–51.

    24. J. Doyle, ‘Picturing the Clima(c)tic: Greenpeace and the Representational Politics of Climate Change Communication’, Science as Culture, 2007, 16, 2, 129–50.

    25. B. Hutchins and L. Lester, ‘Environmental Protest and Tap-Dancing with the Media in the Information Age’, Media Culture & Society, 2006, 28, 3, 433–51.

    26. L. Lester and B. Hutchins, ‘Power Games: Environmental Protest, News Media and the Internet’, Media Culture & Society, 2009, 31, 4, 579–95.

    27. A. Davis, ‘Public Relations and News Sources’, in S. Cottle (ed.), News, Public Relations and Power (Sage, 2003), pp. 27–42.

    28. J. Lewis, A. Williams, and B. Franklin, ‘A Compromised Fourth Estate? UK News Journalism, Public Relations and News Sources’, Journalism Studies, 2008, 9, 1, 1–20.

    29. S. Beder, ‘The Public Relations Industry’, Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism (Green Books, 2002), pp. 107–23.

    30. S. A. Nohrstedt, ‘Communicative Action in the Risk-Society: Public Relations Strategies, the Media and Nuclear Power’, in A. Hansen (ed.), The Mass Media and Environmental Issues (Leicester University Press, 1993), pp. 81–104.

    31. W. F. Harlow, B. C. Brantley, and R. M. Harlow, ‘BP Initial Image Repair Strategies after the Deepwater Horizon Spill’, Public Relations Review, 2011, 37, 1, 80–3.

    32. J. Greenberg, G. Knight, and E. Westersund, ‘Spinning Climate Change: Corporate and NGO Public Relations Strategies in Canada and the United States’, International Communication Gazette, 2011, 73, 1–2, 65–82.

    VoluME III: Covering the Environment: news media, entertainment media, advertising, and cultural representations of the environment

    33. M. T. Boykoff, ‘We Speak for the Trees: Media Reporting on the Environment’, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 2009, 34, 431–57.

    34. S. Cottle, ‘Mediating the Environment: Modalities of TV News’, in A. Hansen (ed.), The Mass Media and Environmental Issues (Leicester University Press, 1993), pp. 107–33.

    35. E. Einsiedel and E. Coughlan, ‘The Canadian Press and the Environment: Reconstructing a Social Reality’, in A. Hansen (ed.), The Mass Media and Environmental Issues (Leicester University Press, 1993), pp. 134–49.

    36. R. Howard-Williams, ‘Consumers, Crazies and Killer Whales: The Environment on New Zealand Television’, International Communication Gazette, 2001, 73, 1–2, 27–43.

    37. P. Maeseele, ‘On News Media and Democratic Debate: Framing Agricultural Biotechnology in Northern Belgium’, International Communication Gazette, 2011, 73, 1–2, 83–105.

    38. G. Wall, ‘Science, Nature, and the Nature of Things: An Instance of Canadian Environmental Discourse, 1960–1994’, Canadian Journal of Sociology, 1999, 24, 1, 53–85.

    39. C. Remillard, ‘Picturing Environmental Risk: The Canadian Oil Sands and the National Geographic’, International Communication Gazette, 2011, 73, 1–2, 127–43.

    40. S. Dunwoody and R. J. Griffin, ‘Journalistic Strategies for Reporting Long-term Environmental Issues: A Case Study of Three Superfund Sites’, in A. Hansen (ed.), The Mass Media and Environmental Issues (Leicester University Press, 1993), pp. 22–50.

    41. P. Widener and V. J. Gunter, ‘Oil Spill Recovery in the Media: Missing an Alaska Native Perspective’, Society & Natural Resources, 2007, 20, 767–83.

    42. C. Trumbo, ‘Constructing Climate Change: Claims and Frames in US News Coverage of an Environmental Issue’, Public Understanding of Science, 1996, 5, 3, 269–83.

    43. M. T. Boykoff and J. M. Boykoff, ‘Balance as Bias: Global Warming and the US Prestige Press’, Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions, 2004, 14, 2, 125–36.

    44. L. Antilla, ‘Climate of Scepticism: US Newspaper Coverage of the Science of Climate Change’, Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions, 2005, 15, 4, 338–52.

    45. A. Carvalho and J. Burgess, ‘Cultural Circuits of Climate Change in UK Broadsheet Newspapers, 1985–2003’, Risk Analysis, 2005, 25, 6, 1457–69.

    46. D. Brossard, J. Shanahan, and K. McComas, ‘Are Issue-Cycles Culturally Constructed? A Comparison of French and American Coverage of Global Climate Change’, Mass Communication & Society, 2004, 7, 3, 359–77.

    47. A. Dirikx and D. Gelders, ‘Global Warming through the Same Lens: An Exploratory Framing Study in Dutch and French Newspapers’, in T. Boyce & J. Lewis (eds.), Media and Climate Change (Peter Lang, 2009), pp. 200–10.

    48. L. Lester and S. Cottle, ‘Visualizing Climate Change: Television News and Ecological Citizenship’, International Journal of Communication, 2009, 3, 920–36.

    49. J. Shanahan and K. McComas, ‘Television’s Portrayal of the Environment’, Nature Stories: Depictions of the Environment and their Effects (Hampton Press, 1999), pp. 79–114.

    50. K. A. McComas, J. Shanahan, and J. S. Butler, ‘Environmental Content in Prime-time Network TV’s Non-News Entertainment and Fictional Programs’, Society & Natural Resources, 2001, 14, 6, 533–42.

    51. G. Mitman, ‘Domesticating Nature on the Television Set’ and ‘Epilogue’, Reel Nature: America’s Romance with Wildlife on Film (Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 132–56, 203–8.

    52. C. Podeschi, ‘The Nature of Future Myths: Environmental Discourse in Science Fiction Film, 1950–1999’, Sociological Spectrum, 2002, 22, 3, 251–97.

    53. A. M. Todd, ‘Primetime Subversion: The Environmental Rhetoric of the Simpsons’, in M. Meister and P. M. Japp (eds.), Enviropop: Studies in Environmental Rhetoric and Popular Culture (Greenwood Press, 2002), pp. 63–80.

    54. N. Starosielski, ‘Movements that are Drawn: A History of Environmental Animation from The Lorax to FernGully to Avatar’, International Communication Gazette, 2011, 73, 1–2, 145–63.

    55. M. Howlett and R. Raglon, ‘Constructing the Environmental Spectacle: Green Advertisements and the Greening of the Corporate Image’, Environmental History Review, 1992, 16, 4, 53–68.

    56. A. Hansen, ‘Discourses of Nature in Advertising’, Communications, 2002, 27, 4, 499–511.

    57. J. B. Corbett, ‘A Faint Green Sell: Advertising and the Natural World’, in M. Meister and P. M. Japp (eds.), Enviropop: Studies in Environmental Rhetoric and Popular Culture (Praeger, 2002), pp. 141–60.

    Volume IV: Social and Political Implications of Environmental Communication

    58. A. Mazur, ‘Nuclear Power, Chemical Hazards, and the Quantity of Reporting’, Minerva, 1990, 28, 3, 294–323.

    59. J. M. Gutteling, ‘Mazur’s Hypothesis on Technology Controversy and Media’, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 2005, 17, 1, 23–41.

    60. J. C. Besley and J. Shanahan, ‘Media Attention and Exposure in Relation to Support for Agricultural Biotechnology’, Science Communication, 2005, 26, 4, 347–67.

    61. D. Arlt, I. Hoppe, and J. Wolling, ‘Climate Change and Media Usage: Effects on Problem Awareness and Behavioural Intentions’, International Communication Gazette, 2011, 73, 1–2, 45–63.

    62. C. R. Ader, ‘A Longitudinal-study of Agenda-Setting for the Issue of Environmental-Pollution’, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 1995, 72, 2, 300–11.

    63. S. Mikami, T. Takeshita, M. Nakada, and M. Kawabata, ‘The Media Coverage and Public Awareness of Environmental Issues in Japan’, International Communication Gazette, 1995, 54, 3, 209–26.

    64. S. N. Soroka, ‘Issue Attributes and Agenda-setting by Media, the Public, and Policymakers in Canada’, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 2002, 14, 3, 264–85.

    65. L. Xinsheng, E. Lindquist, and A. Vedlitz, ‘Explaining Media and Congressional Attention to Global Climate Change, 1969–2005: An Empirical Test of Agenda-Setting Theory’, Political Research Quarterly, 2011, 64, 2, 405–19.

    66. R. L. Holbert, N. Kwak, and D. V. Shah, ‘Environmental Concern, Patterns of Television Viewing, and Pro-environmental Behaviors: Integrating Models of Media Consumption and Effects’, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2003, 47, 2, 177–96.

    67. J. E. Good, ‘The Cultivation, Mainstreaming, and Cognitive Processing of Environmentalists Watching Television’, Environmental Communication-A Journal of Nature and Culture, 2009, 3, 3, 279–97.

    68. M. Nisbet, ‘Communicating Climate Change: Why Frames Matter for Public Engagement’, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, March–April 2009.

    69. M. C. Nisbet and J. E. Kotcher, ‘A Two-Step Flow of Influence? Opinion-Leader Campaigns on Climate Change’, Science Communication, 2009, 30, 3, 328–54.

    70. E. W. Maibach, M. Nisbet, P. Baldwin, K. Akerlof, and G. Diao, ‘Reframing Climate Change as a Public Health Issue: An Exploratory Study of Public Reactions’, BMC Public Health, 2010, 10, 299.

    71. J. B. Corbett and J. L. Durfee, ‘Testing Public (Un) Certainty of Science: Media Representations of Global Warming’, Science Communication, 2004, 26, 2, 129–51.

    72. J. Burgess and C. M. Harrison, ‘The Circulation of Claims in the Cultural Politics of Environmental Change’, in A. Hansen (ed.), The Mass Media and Environmental Issues (Leicester University Press, 1993), pp. 198–221.

    73. C. Butler and N. Pidgeon, ‘Media Communications and Public Understanding of Climate Change: Reporting Scientific Consensus on Anthropogenic Warming’, in T. Boyce and J. Lewis (eds.), Media and Climate Change (Peter Lang, 2009), pp. 43–58.