Participatory Politics, Environmental Journalism and Newspaper Campaigns

Abstract

This article explores the extent to which approaches to participatory politics might offer a more useful alternative to understanding the role of environmental journalism in a society where the old certainties have collapsed, only to be replaced by acute uncertainty. This uncertainty not only generates acute public anxiety about risks, it has also undermined confidence in the validity of long-standing premises about the ideal role of the media in society and journalistic professionalism. The consequence, this article argues, is that aspirations of objective reportage are outdated and illequipped to deal with many of the new risk stories environmental journalism covers. It is not a redrawing of boundaries that is needed but a wholesale relocation of our frameworks into approaches better suited to the socio-political conditions and uncertainties of late modernity. The exploration of participatory approaches is an attempt to suggest one way this might be done.

A ‘superstorm’: when moral panic and new risk discourses converge in the media

“…Thus, the analysis of editorials was supplemented with new stories where these were needed for contextual clarity. At one level this approach is limiting because editorials comprised only a fraction of the total volume of coverage however media logic points to the importance of editorial policies in shaping the selection of news stories and features as well as the angle taken (see Howarth 2012). Intense competition for the coveted slots on the title's editorial column (Eilders 2002, Firmstone 2008) renders them important signifiers of issues prioritised by the editor.…”

“…NGOs argued that these were consequences of the liberalisation of controls and the expansion of scientific farming into new morally questionable areas. The scares also contributed to a climate of distrust and an unwillingness to trust reassurances based on government science (see Howarth 2012). This context provided the macro-ideological framework within which two polarised positions emerged around GM food.…”

“…Hypothetical discourses about what might happen and abstract knowledge debates about contested, uncertain science present particular challenges to journalists whose professional practices centre on the here, now and certain (see Kitzinger and Reilly 1997). Once these difficulties have been overcome and media engage critically, any potential they have to disrupt risk policies is undermined by discrepancies between short news cycles and long policy cycles which mean governments can usually wait for newspaper paroxysms to subside before resuming policy business as usual (see Howarth 2012).…”

Political Participation and Pleasure in Green Lifestyle Journalism

“…It has been noted more specifically how climate change "breaches some of journalism's established foci and demarcations" (Bødker & Neverla, 2012, p. 152). A culture of environmental risk renders traditional journalistic techniques-objectivity, neutrality, and factual accuracy based upon the expertise of authoritative sources-increasingly problematic Political Participation and Pleasure 3 (Allan, Adam, & Carter, 2000;Cottle, 1998;Howarth, 2012). In response, Howarth has argued for a more active, participatory media in environmental reportage, "widening engagement and highlighting issues of everyday relevance and disempowerment" (2012, p. 216).…”

Genetically modified crops 2.0: The decline of media controversy in digital journalism

“…These conservationist interventions have, therefore, contributed to the politicisation of science (Ansell, Maxwell, & Sicurelli, 2006). Uncertainty and new risks of biotechnological crops have made it more difficult for journalism and social communication to tackle the topic (Howarth, 2006), which is integrated into the set of environmental issues that give rise to societal fears, because their long-term impacts are unknown -problems like nuclear plant accidents, global warming or chemical pollution (Cox, 2006). So much so that scientists insist on the need for more impartial information and less propaganda (Arntzen, Coghlan, Johnson, Peacock, & Rodemeyer, 2003) because the debate on GM crops is a mixture of broader concerns, among which are intellectual property rights and corporate dominance over seeds (Qaim, & Zilberman, 2003).…”