Media(ted)discourses and climate change: a focus on political subjectivity and (dis)engagement

Opinion

Anabela Carvalho

Published Online: Feb 09 2010

DOI: 10.1002/wcc.13

How to cite this article
Download citation
Contact the editor about this article
Authors: submit updates and notes
Comment on this article
Share

Full article on Wiley Online Library: HTML PDF

Can't access this content? Tell your librarian.

Research has shown that the media are the main source of information and the main factor shaping people's awareness and concern in relation to climate change and therefore have an important role in setting the public agenda. As a key forum for the production, reproduction, and transformation of the meaning of public issues, the media influence understandings of risks, responsibilities, as well as the functioning of democratic politics. This article argues that the media also matter to citizens' perception of their (potential) political agency or their political subjectivity. Media representations construct particular ‘subject positions’ for individuals and cultivate dispositions to action or inaction. The article discusses the importance of citizens' political engagement with climate change and points out some aspects of media(ted) discourses that may constrain the perceived possibilities of participation in the politics of climate change. While engagement with climate change has multiple dimensions and a number of barriers have been identified through empirical studies, this article offers a critique of the role of the media in political engagement with the problem and suggests avenues for future research. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

References

1 Fairclough, N. Media Discourse. London: Edward Arnold; 1995; 214.
2 Cabecinhas, R, Lázaro, A, Carvalho, A. %22Media uses and social representations of climate change%22. In: Carvalho, A, ed. Communicating Climate Change: Discourses, Mediations and Perceptions. Braga: Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade, Universidade do Minho; 2008; 170–189, 200. Available at: http://www.lasics.uminho.pt/ojs/index.php/climate_ change (Accessed April 6, 2009).
3 Corbett, J, Durfee, J. Testing public (un)certainty of science: media representations of global warming. Sci Commun 2004; 26: 129–151. DOI: 10.1177/1075547004270234.
4 Wilson, K. Mass media as sources of global warming knowledge. Mass Commun Rev 1995; 22: 75–89.
5 Sampei, Y, Aoyagi‐Usui, M. Mass‐media coverage, its influence on public awareness of climate‐change issues, and implications for Japan`s national campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Glob Environ Change 2009; 19: 203–212. DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2008.10.005.
6 Boykoff, M, Boykoff, J. Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press. Glob Environ Change 2004; 14: 125–136. DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2003.10.001.
7 McCright, A, Dunlap, R. Challenging global warming as a social problem: an analysis of the conservative movements counter‐claims. Soc Probl 2000; 47: 499–522.
8 Carvalho, A, Burgess, J. Cultural circuits of climate change in UK broadsheet newspapers, 1985–2003. Risk Anal 2005; 25: 1457–1469. DOI: 10.1111/j.1539‐6924.2005.00692.x.
9 Lorenzoni, I, Nicholson‐Cole, S, Whitmarsh, L. Barriers perceived to engaging with climate change among the UK public and their policy implications. Glob Environ Change 2007; 17: 445–459.
10 Ockwell, D, Whitmarsh, L, ONeill, S. Reorienting climate change communication for effective mitigation: forcing people to be green or fostering grass‐roots engagement? Sci Commun 2009; 30(3): 305–327. DOI: 10.1177/1075547008328969.
11 Beck, U. The Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Newbury Park, CA: Sage; 1992; 272.
12 Irwin, A. Citizen Science: A Study of People, Expertise and Sustainable Development. London: Routledge; 1995; 216.
13 Smith, G, Wales, C. Citizens juries and deliberative democracy. Polit Stud 2000; 48: 51–65. DOI: 10.1111/1467‐9248.00250.
14 Powell, MC, Colin, M. Meaningful citizen engagement in science and technology: what would it really take? Sci Commun 2008; 30: 126–136. DOI: 10.1177/1075547008320520.
15 Blok, A. Experts on public trial: on democratizing expertise through a Danish consensus conference. Public Underst Sci 2007; 16: 163–182. DOI: 10.1177/0963662507062469.
16 Höppner, C. What`s the matter with public engagement in climate change? Disjunctions, tensions and blind spots in the UK (in review).
17 Burgess, J, Clark, J, Davies, G, Eames, M, Staley, K, et al. Deliberative mapping: a novel analytic‐deliberative methodology to support contested science‐policy decisions. Public Underst Sci 2007; 16: 299–322. DOI: 10.1177/0963662507077510.
18 Climate change in the American mind: Americans` Climate Change Beliefs, Attitudes, Policy Preferences, and Actions. Yale Project on Climate Change, George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, 2009. Available at: http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/images/ files/Climate_Change_in_the_American_Mind.pdf (Acc‐ essed April 21, 2009).
19 The Hansard Society. Audit of Political Engagement 5, 2008. Available at: http://www.hansardsociety.org. uk/blogs/publications/archive/2008/03/27/audit‐of‐pol itical‐engagement‐5‐march‐2008.aspx (Accessed April 21, 2009).
20 Dalton, RJ. Citizen Politics in Western Democracies: Public Opinion and Political Parties in the US, UK, Germany and France. 2nd rev. ed. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House; 1996; 338.
21 Norris, P. A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in Post‐Industrial Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2000; 420.
22 Shane, PM. Democracy Online: The Prospects for Political Renewal through the Internet. New York and Abingdon: Routledge; 2004; 279.
23 Lippman, W. Public Opinion. 1st ed., 1922. New York: Free Press; 1997; 288.
24 Entman, RM. Democracy without Citizens: Media and the Decay of American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press; 1989; 232.
25 Putnam, RD. Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon %26 Schuster; 2001; 541.
26 McLeod, JM, Scheufele, DA, Moy, P. Community, communication, and participation: the role of mass media and interpersonal discussion in local political participation. Polit Commun 1999; 16: 315–336. DOI: 10.1080/105846099198659.
27 Moy, P, Xenos, MA, Hess, VK. Communication and citizenship: mapping the political effects of infotainment. Mass Commun Soc 2005; 8: 111–131. DOI: 10.1207/s15327825mcs0802_3.
28 Shah, D, Schmierbach, M, Hawkins, J, Espino, R, Donavan, J. Nonrecursive models of Internet use and community engagement questioning whether time spent online erodes social capital. Journal Mass Commun Q 2002; 79: 964–987.
29 Tolbert, CJ, McNeal, RS. Unraveling the effects of the Internet on political participation? Polit Res Q 2003; 56: 175–185. DOI: 10.1177/106591290305600206.
30 Simone, M. CODEPINK alert: mediated citizenship in the public sphere. Soc Semiotics 2006; 16: 345–364. DOI: 10.1080/10350330600664904.
31 Putnam, RD. Bowling alone: America`s declining social capital. J Democracy 1995; 6: 65–78.
32 Zavestoski, S, Shulman, S, Schlosberg, D. Democracy and the environment on the internet: electronic citizen participation in regulatory rulemaking. Sci Technol Human Values 2006; 31: 383–408. DOI: 10.1177/0162243906287543.
33 Pajnik, M. Citizenship and mediated society. Citizenship Stud 2005; 9: 349–367. DOI: 10.1080/13621020500211321.
34 Newton, K. Mass media effects: mobilisation or media malaise? Br J Polit Sci 1999; 29: 577–600.
35 Wahl‐Jorgensen, K. Mediated citizenship(s): an introduction. Soc Semiotics 2006; 16: 197–203. DOI: 10.1080/10350330600664763.
36 Laclau, E, Mouffe, C. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London: Verso; 1985; 208.
37 Giddens, A. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press; 1984; 402.
38 Lewis, J, Wahl‐Jorgensen, K, Inthorn, S. Images of citizenship on television news: constructing a passive public. Journal Stud 2004; 5: 153–164. DOI: 10.1080/1461670042000211140.
39 Höppner, C. Manoeuvring the public: opinion polls on climate change in the UK press (in review).
40 Avaaz. Available at: http://www.avaaz.org/ (Accessed April 27, 2009).
41 Cottle, S. Reporting demonstrations: the changing media politics of dissent. Media Cult Soc 2008; 30: 853–872. DOI: 10.1177/0163443708096097.
42 Lipschutz, R. Global Civil Society and Global Environmental Government: The Politics of Nature from Place to Planet. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press; 1996; 365.
43 Mertes, T, ed. A Movement of Movements: Is Another World Really Possible? London and New York: Verso; 2004; 288.
44 Downing, JDH. Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; 2000; 440.
45 Atton, C. Alternative Media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; 2002; 172.
46 Atkinson, J, Dougherty, DS. Alternative media and social justice movements: the development of a resistance performance paradigm of audience analysis. West J Commun 2006; 70: 64–88. DOI: 10.1080/10570310500506953.
47 Tsoukas, H. David and Goliath in the risk society: making sense of the conflict between Shell and Greenpeace in the North Sea. Organization 1999; 6: 499–528. DOI: 10.1177/135050849963007.
48 Gitlin, T. The Whole World is Watching. Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press; 1980; 240.
49 Juris, JS. Violence performed and imagined. Militant action, the black bloc and the mass media in Genoa. Crit Anthropol 2005; 25: 413–432. DOI: 10.1177/0308275X05058657.
50 McFarlane, T, Hay, I. The battle for Seattle: protest and popular geopolitics in the Australian newspaper. Polit Geogr 2003; 22: 211–232. DOI: 10.1016/S0962‐6298(02)00090‐2.
51 Opel, A, Pompper, D, eds. Representing Resistance: Media, Civil Disobedience, and the Global Justice Movement. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press; 2003; 296.
52 Wagner, T. Reframing ecotage as ecoterrorism: news and the discourse of fear. Environ Commun 2008; 2: 25–39. DOI: 10.1080/17524030801945617.
53 Milne, K. Manufacturing Dissent: Single‐Issue Protest, the Public and the Press. London: Demos; 2005; 77.
54 Ivie, RL. Prologue to democratic dissent in America. Javnost—The Public 2004; 11: 19–36.
55 Carvalho, A, Pereira, E. %22Communicating climate change in Portugal: a critical analysis of journalism and beyond%22. In: Carvalho, A, ed. Communicating Climate Change: Discourses, Mediations and Perceptions. Braga: Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade Universidade do Minho; 2008; 126–156, 200. Available at: http://www.lasics.uminho.pt/ojs/index.php/climate_ change (Accessed 6 April 2009).
56 Olausson, U. Global warming—global responsibility? Media frames of collective action and scientific certainty. Public Underst Sci 2009; Prepublished 21 January, 18(4): 421–436. DOI: 10.1177/0963662507081242.
57 Cartea, PAM, Blanco, MA. La representación del cambio climático en la sociedad española: de la conciencia a la acción. Seguridad y Medio Ambiente 2008; 109: 30–47.
58 Fairclough, N. New Labour, New Language? London: Routledge; 2000; 192.
59 Szerszynski, B, Toogood, M. %22Global citizenship, the environment and the media%22. In: Allan, S, Adam, B, Carter, C, eds. Environmental Risks and the Media. London: Routledge; 2000; 218–228, 278.
60 Szerszynski, B, Urry, J. Cultures of cosmopolitanism. Sociol Rev 2002; 50: 461–481. DOI: 10.1111/1467‐954X.00394.
61 Beck, U. Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge: Polity Press; 2006; 216.
62 Shanahan, J, McComas, K. Nature Stories: Depictions of the Environment and Their Effects. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press; 1999; 198.
63 Haarstad, H. Collective political subjectivity and the problem of scale. Contemp Polit 2007; 13: 57–74. DOI: 10.1080/13569770701246237.
64 Shearman, D, Smith, JW. The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy. Davenport, CT: Praeger; 2007; 208.
65 Mouffe, C. The Return of the Political. London: Verso; 1993; 240.
66 Cabecinhas, R, Lázaro, A, Carvalho, A. %22Lay representations on climate change%22. In: Proceedings of IAMCRs 25th conference. Cairo: IAMCR; 2006; 504–508.

Resources

Further Readings

Boykoff M, Boykoff J Climate change and journalistic norms: A case-study of US mass-media coverage Geoforum 2007; 38: 1190-1204. DOI:10.1016/j.geoforum.2007.01.008
Carvalho A Representing the politics of the greenhouse effect: Discursive strategies in the British media Critical Discourse Studies 2005; 2(1): 1-29. DOI: 10.1080/17405900500052143
Moser SC, Dilling L eds. Creating a climate for change: Communicating climate change and facilitating social change 2007. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 576 pp.
Smith J Dangerous news: Media decision making about climate change risk Risk Analysis 2005; 25(6): 1471-1482. DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2005.00693.x
Weingart P, Engels A, Pansegrau P Risks of communication: Discourses on climate change in science, politics, and the mass media Public Understanding of Science 2000; 9: 261-283. DOI:
10.1088/0963-6625/9/3/304