Keywords
How to Cite
Abstract
Today, as ecological issues are escalating, providing detailed information not only on TV, radio, and social media but also in written press gains significant importance. This article specifically discusses the issue of writing articles on ecological topics in foreign press.
References
https://aicontentfy.com/en/blog/power-of-writing-for-environmental-and-sustainability-movement
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 74
narily successful in creating a relentless drumbeat of doubt in the public
mind. Ross Gelbspan June 2000
The media furnishes our consciousness with the people, places
and events that we call reality (Stein, 1972). Most of us depend on the
media to help make sense of the deluge of information presented to us,
especially information about environmental risks, technologies, and
initiatives (Hannigan, 1995). The news media play a very important
role in a democratic society, thus media power has been a critical issue
in American politics since colonial times (Gilens and Hertzman, 2000:
. Therefore we need to question whether or not media presents us
with an objective story, especially when the story, like global warming,
is controversial.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has
identified that we are experiencing and causing climate change, yet so-
ciety is still presented with the “statistical fuzziness” of the issue by the
media. Collective actors operating outside the political system or out-
side large organizations normally have fewer chances to influence the
content and views presented by the media (Habermas, 1996). As David
Edwards states in his article in The Ecologist issue of June 2000, “The
mass media is made up of profit-seeking corporations owned by
wealthy individuals and a handful of transnational parent companies.”
In other words, the mass media may prefer not to depict the corporate
devastation of the environment because of the consequences it may
have on their business.
After so many years of knowledge, countries around the world,
especially the United States, are still in debate on how to address this
problem. Countries have their own vested interests that shape their pol
-
icy demands. For instance, third world countries want the same oppor
-
tunities that the United States had in growing their economy. These
third world countries are just beginning to use diesel fuels, coal and
automobiles. The conglomerate of developed countries are trying to
prevent the use of these materials, because they have learned through
their mistakes and their developments that they will further cause envi
-
Volume 23 Number 10 2003 75
ronmental degradation. On the other hand, the United States who is con
-
sidered the most powerful country is still holding back from
implementing very strict enforcements and strategies to slow down the
global warming effects. In the first few months of the Bush administra
-
tion, the Kyoto Protocol has been dismissed as unfair to the economy of
the United States.
The vested interests of all these countries shape their policies just
as the vested interests of media controllers may shape the news that is
displayed to the public. In addition, the media controllers typically rep
-
resent the major industries present in the area (Gilens and Hertzman,
: 370). The role that media plays in constructing the norms and
ideas in society is researched to understand how the social construction
of global warming and other environmental issues develop in the
United States. This knowledge is integral to changing the global warm-
ing framework.
To identify if a biased view of global warming exists in the US
media, two questions need to be answered: 1) how does the U.S. media
coverage of global warming differ from other countries, and 2) what
would contribute to the difference in coverage? These questions are an-
swered by first providing an overview of the theoretical perspective of
media and the environment. The second section reviews the develop-
ment of the strong scientific consensus regarding global warming. In
the third section, global warming in the media and an overview of some
case studies are detailed specifically on the United States. In the fourth
section, the method is outlined for the content research of articles
printed in The New Zealand Herald, Helsingin Sanomat, The New York
Times and Washington Post as well two international scientific jour
-
nals, Science and Nature for the year 2000. Lastly, the results are pre
-
sented for the content research of articles and the differing economies,
major industries and environments in New Zealand, Finland and United
States. In conclusion, how and why the global warming debate has not
changed and why it is important that it does is summarized.
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 76
Theoretical Perspective
The means by which citizens act together to pursue their common in
-
terests has long been a topic of both intellectual inquiry and the moti
-
vation of political practice. The important role played by a democratic
civil society in the maintenance, legitimacy, and stability of demo
-
cratic society has been recently examined by a number of authors (Bar
-
ber 1984, Habermas 1984, 1987, 1996, Putnam 1995, 2000, Fiorina
and Skocpol 1999). The underlying idea is that civil society forms a
site independent of the imperatives of the market economy or bureau
-
cratic state organizations. Thus it provides a site in which free citizens
can associate with one-another (Cohen & Arato 1992:139, Calhoun
:24, 1994:392-393, Habermas 1991). Through open communica
-
tion, citizens develop an ethical life and exercise their citizenship
through the formation and maintenance of the public sphere (Haber-
mas 1987:142, Offe 1990:76). The public sphere thus provides society
with a self-reflexive capacity to renew its social institutions and to
adapt to changing circumstances (Habermas 1984, 1987, 1998:252).
One crucial component of civil society is the formation of a free
and independent media. A democratic and open society is premised on
the free flow of information among its citizenry. This debate is largely
shaped by the operation of the media industries. These institutions
“collect information, make decisions about the selection and presenta
-
tion of ‘programs’ and to a certain extent control the entry of topics,
contributions, and authors into the mass-media dominated public
sphere (Habermas 1996:376).” By creating an open and democratic
decision-making process, a social situation is created which allows for
testing the validity of the information on which collectively binding
decisions are made. Such a decision-making process can lead to the
generation of new meanings, understandings, and relationships that
can, in turn, lead to joint problem solving in the social order. Thus an
open media is vital to the functioning of a self-reflexive society (Schil
-
ler 1989, Croteau and Hoynes 2001, Habermas 1996: 378).
However, the dominant model of the public media is one that is
characterized by “the manipulative deployment of media power to pro
-
Volume 23 Number 10 2003 77
cure mass loyalty, consumer demand, and compliance with systemic
imperatives (Habermas 1992:452)”. The result of this process is the re
-
moval of the public from making informed decisions about their own
future. Thus it is important to examine the impacts of the institutional
structure of the mass media in order to first understand how this pro
-
cess occurs, and then, to develop strategies to modify the media along
more democratic and open lines.
In meeting existence, the human community forms symbolic ex
-
pressions of meaning within which our consciousness exists. To create
a comprehensible world, humans use symbolic expressions of mean
-
ing. They bind up lived experience into coherent phenomena and make
reality comprehensible. Through this, the perceived world is brought
into existence. Taken together, these expressions of meaning create an
intersubjective cultural tradition that is expressed in a common lan-
guage. This common language creates a horizon of understanding
within which our social institutions exist. Thus the maintenance and
change of the taken-for-granted reality is the locus of political struggle.
Changes in social structures are brought about through a redefinition
of what constitutes the common sense embodied in the everyday prac-
tices of society. Thus the key to the realization of power in society is
through the ability to define what constitutes the common sense reality
that applies to a field of practice. Accordingly, Bourdieu sees that con-
trol over the symbolic definition of reality forms political power:
“Knowledge of the social world and, more precisely, the categories
that make it possible, are the stakes, par excellence, of political strug
-
gle, the inextricably theoretical and practical struggle for the power to
conserve or transform the social world by conserving or transforming
the categories through which it is perceived (Bourdieu 1985:729).”
This allows us to see the symbolic dynamics of the political commu
-
nity as being based on the interaction between the dominant world
view and its challengers.
This competition is best described by the notion of cultural he
-
gemony developed by Gramsci (1971). For Gramsci, the successful
mobilization and reproduction of the active consent of the dominated
groups by the ruling class is made possible through the construction of
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 78
a common sense that explains and legitimates the ruling of dominant
groups. These dominant groups form a hegemonic bloc that exercise
moral and cultural leadership by maintaining a definition of the situa
-
tion in which the hegemonic bloc’s particular interests are accepted as
the general interest. The mass media, and in particular, the news media
serve as an important institution for the reproduction of hegemony.
The media help to define social reality through the “active work of se
-
lecting and presenting, of structuring and shaping; not merely the
transmitting of an already-existing meaning, but the more active labor
of making things mean (Hall, 1982: 64).” The news media accom
-
plishes this through a systematic sorting and encoding of selected
events. This active construction results in some events presented as
meaningful, and others are ignored or marginalized.
Media and the Environment
Without media coverage it is unlikely that an important problem will
either enter the arena of public discourse or become part of political is-
sues. As previously stated, most of us depend on the media to help
make sense of the deluge of information presented to us, especially in-
formation about environmental risks, technologies, and initiatives
(Hannigan, 1995). Media is key to forming a framework for global
warming, as well as keeping this important problem out of the public
discourse. As noted by Schudon (1982): “The power of media lies not
only (and not even primarily) in its power to declare things to be true,
but in the power to provide the form in which the declaration appears.
News in a newspaper or on television has a relationship to the “real
world”, not only in content but in form; that is, in the way the world is
incorporated into unquestionable and unnoticed conventions of narra
-
tions, and then transfigured no longer for discussion, but as a premise
of any convention at all.”
Just as Kuhn (1996) states that changing the perspective or
dominant paradigm changes the picture sketched by the empirical evi
-
dence, the transfer of information from media to individuals also
changes the picture of reality. Considerable evidence since the 1970’s
has shown that journalists play a key role in shaping our picture of the
Volume 23 Number 10 2003 79
world as they go about their daily task of choosing and reporting the
news (Bryant and Zillmann, 1986). According to Schiller (1973), the
American media mangers are mind managers that create a false sense
of reality and produce a consciousness that cannot comprehend or will
-
fully reject the actual conditions of life, personal or social. In Schiller’s
book The Mind Managers, he quotes Paulo Freire who states that ma
-
nipulation of human minds “is an instrument of conquest”, and is one
of the means by which “the dominant elites try to conform the masses
to their objectives.” Schiller continues to describe the United States as
a divided society in which manipulation is one of the chief instruments
of control in the hands of a small governing group of corporate and
governmental decision-makers.
According to many researchers, the media is a great and impor-
tant influence in our society. Media can promote and inhibit social
change of which values and attitudes toward the environment and envi-
ronmental policy has changed (Neuzil and Kovarik, 1996). Therefore,
the media should be addressed in understanding the lack of knowledge
about global warming in our society and the lack of importance attrib-
uted to global warming.
Who determines what we see and hear in the media? How is this
information filtered? Who provides the information to the media?
Why is a story covered? These are all important questions to under
-
standing the extent of environmental coverage by the media. We begin
to answer these questions by identifying those factors that are involved
in filtering the news stories, which include the following gatekeepers
that may represent industry perspectives: reporters/journalists, adver
-
tisers, and corporate owners.
Gatekeepers
Each day journalists go through the same routine with the news. First,
they decide which news to cover and report. Second, all the available
reports are assessed, on which a typical day a newspaper will reject
over 75% of the potential news. Once the information passes through,
the journalists need to assess what type of treatment these topics will
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 80
receive. Some are used at length and prominently displayed. Others re
-
ceive only brief attention (Bryant and Zillmann, 1986).
Choices for information can be left to the message senders, like
government officials, interest group leaders, etc., those eager to foster
their own agendas, or the choices can be left to the gatekeepers: the
print and broadcast journalists, advertisers, and media owners. A gate
-
keeper in the media is inclusive of those individuals that play a major
role in deciding what makes news or articles. In essence, no single
party, interest group, or news organization should serve as the sole
gatekeeper, and to keep a variety of news there should be a variety of
newspapers and magazines and writers and editors (Graber, McQuail
and Norris, 1998).
Obviously these gatekeepers are looking foremost for fresh sto-
ries, a story that has not been told yet. Second, they will typically look
for stories that are in the realm of economic, social, and governmen-
tal/political agendas. The gatekeepers for news stories consist of the
reporters/journalists who are basically told from the lead gatekeepers,
advertisers and corporate owners, what and how to cover news stories.
Reporters/Journalists
Reporters determine what is newsworthy by determining if the story
consists of the following qualities: publicly recognized, important, and
interesting. Thus the news that consists of extraordinary qualities will
above others likely gain the media attention (McAdam, McCarthy and
Zald, 1996). In addition, news clips, which fit more easily into existing
formats, are favored over longer, more nuanced stories, which deal
with underlying causes and conditions (Hannigan, 1995) like global
warming.
Although journalists claim that the news is a mirror held up to
society, it is actually a highly selective account of events. News is a
version of reality shaped in significant part by journalistic norms and
conventions. In addition, journalists are shaped by pressures by those
who have a vested interest in the topic or the newspaper/magazine.
Volume 23 Number 10 2003 81
Several norms or conventions exist in the journalism field that
help to identify what type of article a journalist will publish. These
norms include: the company the journalist works for, the objectivity
versus subjectivity of the journalist, and whether or not the journalist is
a guardian or messenger.
A spectrum exists in the journalism field, whereby newspapers
and magazines can be liberal, conservative, or “in-between”. For in
-
stance, The Washington Post was judged the most liberal of the major
U.S. news organizations, and The New York Times was placed on the
right. Therefore, left-of-center and right-of-center journalists have ex
-
hibited different tendencies in their news decisions (Graber, McQuail,
and Norris, 1998). For example, in a story involving reduction of car
-
bon dioxide to offset global warming, the left-of-center journalists are
more likely to emphasize the resultant improvements (but may be a lit-
tle more conservative if the topic affects the shareholders of the com-
pany) whereas the right-of-center journalists are more likely to focus
on the costs to business due to these standards.
Objectivity is the defining norm in journalism today. U.S. jour-
nalists expressed the highest level of support for the norm, thus would
appear to greatly govern journalists’ thinking. But in a study conducted
by Thomas Patterson and Wolfgang Donsbach on the understanding of
objectivity in a five-country survey of journalists, U.S. journalists are
not in agreement with the definition of objectivity. The journalists sur
-
veyed defined objectivity in four different ways:
An equally thorough questioning of the position of each side in a
political dispute.
Going beyond the statements of the contending sides to the hard
facts of a political dispute.
Expressing fairly the position of each side in a political dispute.
Not allowing your own political beliefs to affect the presentation
of the subject (Graber, McQuail, and Norris, 1998).
Since the 1970’s, American journalists have embraced a more
interpretive reporting style. This new style replaces the traditional de
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 74
narily successful in creating a relentless drumbeat of doubt in the public
mind. Ross Gelbspan June 2000
The media furnishes our consciousness with the people, places
and events that we call reality (Stein, 1972). Most of us depend on the
media to help make sense of the deluge of information presented to us,
especially information about environmental risks, technologies, and
initiatives (Hannigan, 1995). The news media play a very important
role in a democratic society, thus media power has been a critical issue
in American politics since colonial times (Gilens and Hertzman, 2000:
. Therefore we need to question whether or not media presents us
with an objective story, especially when the story, like global warming,
is controversial.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has
identified that we are experiencing and causing climate change, yet so-
ciety is still presented with the “statistical fuzziness” of the issue by the
media. Collective actors operating outside the political system or out-
side large organizations normally have fewer chances to influence the
content and views presented by the media (Habermas, 1996). As David
Edwards states in his article in The Ecologist issue of June 2000, “The
mass media is made up of profit-seeking corporations owned by
wealthy individuals and a handful of transnational parent companies.”
In other words, the mass media may prefer not to depict the corporate
devastation of the environment because of the consequences it may
have on their business.
After so many years of knowledge, countries around the world,
especially the United States, are still in debate on how to address this
problem. Countries have their own vested interests that shape their pol
-
icy demands. For instance, third world countries want the same oppor
-
tunities that the United States had in growing their economy. These
third world countries are just beginning to use diesel fuels, coal and
automobiles. The conglomerate of developed countries are trying to
prevent the use of these materials, because they have learned through
their mistakes and their developments that they will further cause envi
-
Volume 23 Number 10 2003 75
ronmental degradation. On the other hand, the United States who is con
-
sidered the most powerful country is still holding back from
implementing very strict enforcements and strategies to slow down the
global warming effects. In the first few months of the Bush administra
-
tion, the Kyoto Protocol has been dismissed as unfair to the economy of
the United States.
The vested interests of all these countries shape their policies just
as the vested interests of media controllers may shape the news that is
displayed to the public. In addition, the media controllers typically rep
-
resent the major industries present in the area (Gilens and Hertzman,
: 370). The role that media plays in constructing the norms and
ideas in society is researched to understand how the social construction
of global warming and other environmental issues develop in the
United States. This knowledge is integral to changing the global warm-
ing framework.
To identify if a biased view of global warming exists in the US
media, two questions need to be answered: 1) how does the U.S. media
coverage of global warming differ from other countries, and 2) what
would contribute to the difference in coverage? These questions are an-
swered by first providing an overview of the theoretical perspective of
media and the environment. The second section reviews the develop-
ment of the strong scientific consensus regarding global warming. In
the third section, global warming in the media and an overview of some
case studies are detailed specifically on the United States. In the fourth
section, the method is outlined for the content research of articles
printed in The New Zealand Herald, Helsingin Sanomat, The New York
Times and Washington Post as well two international scientific jour
-
nals, Science and Nature for the year 2000. Lastly, the results are pre
-
sented for the content research of articles and the differing economies,
major industries and environments in New Zealand, Finland and United
States. In conclusion, how and why the global warming debate has not
changed and why it is important that it does is summarized.
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 76
Theoretical Perspective
The means by which citizens act together to pursue their common in
-
terests has long been a topic of both intellectual inquiry and the moti
-
vation of political practice. The important role played by a democratic
civil society in the maintenance, legitimacy, and stability of demo
-
cratic society has been recently examined by a number of authors (Bar
-
ber 1984, Habermas 1984, 1987, 1996, Putnam 1995, 2000, Fiorina
and Skocpol 1999). The underlying idea is that civil society forms a
site independent of the imperatives of the market economy or bureau
-
cratic state organizations. Thus it provides a site in which free citizens
can associate with one-another (Cohen & Arato 1992:139, Calhoun
:24, 1994:392-393, Habermas 1991). Through open communica
-
tion, citizens develop an ethical life and exercise their citizenship
through the formation and maintenance of the public sphere (Haber-
mas 1987:142, Offe 1990:76). The public sphere thus provides society
with a self-reflexive capacity to renew its social institutions and to
adapt to changing circumstances (Habermas 1984, 1987, 1998:252).
One crucial component of civil society is the formation of a free
and independent media. A democratic and open society is premised on
the free flow of information among its citizenry. This debate is largely
shaped by the operation of the media industries. These institutions
“collect information, make decisions about the selection and presenta
-
tion of ‘programs’ and to a certain extent control the entry of topics,
contributions, and authors into the mass-media dominated public
sphere (Habermas 1996:376).” By creating an open and democratic
decision-making process, a social situation is created which allows for
testing the validity of the information on which collectively binding
decisions are made. Such a decision-making process can lead to the
generation of new meanings, understandings, and relationships that
can, in turn, lead to joint problem solving in the social order. Thus an
open media is vital to the functioning of a self-reflexive society (Schil
-
ler 1989, Croteau and Hoynes 2001, Habermas 1996: 378).
However, the dominant model of the public media is one that is
characterized by “the manipulative deployment of media power to pro
-
Volume 23 Number 10 2003 77
cure mass loyalty, consumer demand, and compliance with systemic
imperatives (Habermas 1992:452)”. The result of this process is the re
-
moval of the public from making informed decisions about their own
future. Thus it is important to examine the impacts of the institutional
structure of the mass media in order to first understand how this pro
-
cess occurs, and then, to develop strategies to modify the media along
more democratic and open lines.
In meeting existence, the human community forms symbolic ex
-
pressions of meaning within which our consciousness exists. To create
a comprehensible world, humans use symbolic expressions of mean
-
ing. They bind up lived experience into coherent phenomena and make
reality comprehensible. Through this, the perceived world is brought
into existence. Taken together, these expressions of meaning create an
intersubjective cultural tradition that is expressed in a common lan-
guage. This common language creates a horizon of understanding
within which our social institutions exist. Thus the maintenance and
change of the taken-for-granted reality is the locus of political struggle.
Changes in social structures are brought about through a redefinition
of what constitutes the common sense embodied in the everyday prac-
tices of society. Thus the key to the realization of power in society is
through the ability to define what constitutes the common sense reality
that applies to a field of practice. Accordingly, Bourdieu sees that con-
trol over the symbolic definition of reality forms political power:
“Knowledge of the social world and, more precisely, the categories
that make it possible, are the stakes, par excellence, of political strug
-
gle, the inextricably theoretical and practical struggle for the power to
conserve or transform the social world by conserving or transforming
the categories through which it is perceived (Bourdieu 1985:729).”
This allows us to see the symbolic dynamics of the political commu
-
nity as being based on the interaction between the dominant world
view and its challengers.
This competition is best described by the notion of cultural he
-
gemony developed by Gramsci (1971). For Gramsci, the successful
mobilization and reproduction of the active consent of the dominated
groups by the ruling class is made possible through the construction of
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 78
a common sense that explains and legitimates the ruling of dominant
groups. These dominant groups form a hegemonic bloc that exercise
moral and cultural leadership by maintaining a definition of the situa
-
tion in which the hegemonic bloc’s particular interests are accepted as
the general interest. The mass media, and in particular, the news media
serve as an important institution for the reproduction of hegemony.
The media help to define social reality through the “active work of se
-
lecting and presenting, of structuring and shaping; not merely the
transmitting of an already-existing meaning, but the more active labor
of making things mean (Hall, 1982: 64).” The news media accom
-
plishes this through a systematic sorting and encoding of selected
events. This active construction results in some events presented as
meaningful, and others are ignored or marginalized.
Media and the Environment
Without media coverage it is unlikely that an important problem will
either enter the arena of public discourse or become part of political is-
sues. As previously stated, most of us depend on the media to help
make sense of the deluge of information presented to us, especially in-
formation about environmental risks, technologies, and initiatives
(Hannigan, 1995). Media is key to forming a framework for global
warming, as well as keeping this important problem out of the public
discourse. As noted by Schudon (1982): “The power of media lies not
only (and not even primarily) in its power to declare things to be true,
but in the power to provide the form in which the declaration appears.
News in a newspaper or on television has a relationship to the “real
world”, not only in content but in form; that is, in the way the world is
incorporated into unquestionable and unnoticed conventions of narra
-
tions, and then transfigured no longer for discussion, but as a premise
of any convention at all.”
Just as Kuhn (1996) states that changing the perspective or
dominant paradigm changes the picture sketched by the empirical evi
-
dence, the transfer of information from media to individuals also
changes the picture of reality. Considerable evidence since the 1970’s
has shown that journalists play a key role in shaping our picture of the
Volume 23 Number 10 2003 79
world as they go about their daily task of choosing and reporting the
news (Bryant and Zillmann, 1986). According to Schiller (1973), the
American media mangers are mind managers that create a false sense
of reality and produce a consciousness that cannot comprehend or will
-
fully reject the actual conditions of life, personal or social. In Schiller’s
book The Mind Managers, he quotes Paulo Freire who states that ma
-
nipulation of human minds “is an instrument of conquest”, and is one
of the means by which “the dominant elites try to conform the masses
to their objectives.” Schiller continues to describe the United States as
a divided society in which manipulation is one of the chief instruments
of control in the hands of a small governing group of corporate and
governmental decision-makers.
According to many researchers, the media is a great and impor-
tant influence in our society. Media can promote and inhibit social
change of which values and attitudes toward the environment and envi-
ronmental policy has changed (Neuzil and Kovarik, 1996). Therefore,
the media should be addressed in understanding the lack of knowledge
about global warming in our society and the lack of importance attrib-
uted to global warming.
Who determines what we see and hear in the media? How is this
information filtered? Who provides the information to the media?
Why is a story covered? These are all important questions to under
-
standing the extent of environmental coverage by the media. We begin
to answer these questions by identifying those factors that are involved
in filtering the news stories, which include the following gatekeepers
that may represent industry perspectives: reporters/journalists, adver
-
tisers, and corporate owners.
Gatekeepers
Each day journalists go through the same routine with the news. First,
they decide which news to cover and report. Second, all the available
reports are assessed, on which a typical day a newspaper will reject
over 75% of the potential news. Once the information passes through,
the journalists need to assess what type of treatment these topics will
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 80
receive. Some are used at length and prominently displayed. Others re
-
ceive only brief attention (Bryant and Zillmann, 1986).
Choices for information can be left to the message senders, like
government officials, interest group leaders, etc., those eager to foster
their own agendas, or the choices can be left to the gatekeepers: the
print and broadcast journalists, advertisers, and media owners. A gate
-
keeper in the media is inclusive of those individuals that play a major
role in deciding what makes news or articles. In essence, no single
party, interest group, or news organization should serve as the sole
gatekeeper, and to keep a variety of news there should be a variety of
newspapers and magazines and writers and editors (Graber, McQuail
and Norris, 1998).
Obviously these gatekeepers are looking foremost for fresh sto-
ries, a story that has not been told yet. Second, they will typically look
for stories that are in the realm of economic, social, and governmen-
tal/political agendas. The gatekeepers for news stories consist of the
reporters/journalists who are basically told from the lead gatekeepers,
advertisers and corporate owners, what and how to cover news stories.
Reporters/Journalists
Reporters determine what is newsworthy by determining if the story
consists of the following qualities: publicly recognized, important, and
interesting. Thus the news that consists of extraordinary qualities will
above others likely gain the media attention (McAdam, McCarthy and
Zald, 1996). In addition, news clips, which fit more easily into existing
formats, are favored over longer, more nuanced stories, which deal
with underlying causes and conditions (Hannigan, 1995) like global
warming.
Although journalists claim that the news is a mirror held up to
society, it is actually a highly selective account of events. News is a
version of reality shaped in significant part by journalistic norms and
conventions. In addition, journalists are shaped by pressures by those
who have a vested interest in the topic or the newspaper/magazine.
Volume 23 Number 10 2003 81
Several norms or conventions exist in the journalism field that
help to identify what type of article a journalist will publish. These
norms include: the company the journalist works for, the objectivity
versus subjectivity of the journalist, and whether or not the journalist is
a guardian or messenger.
A spectrum exists in the journalism field, whereby newspapers
and magazines can be liberal, conservative, or “in-between”. For in
-
stance, The Washington Post was judged the most liberal of the major
U.S. news organizations, and The New York Times was placed on the
right. Therefore, left-of-center and right-of-center journalists have ex
-
hibited different tendencies in their news decisions (Graber, McQuail,
and Norris, 1998). For example, in a story involving reduction of car
-
bon dioxide to offset global warming, the left-of-center journalists are
more likely to emphasize the resultant improvements (but may be a lit-
tle more conservative if the topic affects the shareholders of the com-
pany) whereas the right-of-center journalists are more likely to focus
on the costs to business due to these standards.
Objectivity is the defining norm in journalism today. U.S. jour-
nalists expressed the highest level of support for the norm, thus would
appear to greatly govern journalists’ thinking. But in a study conducted
by Thomas Patterson and Wolfgang Donsbach on the understanding of
objectivity in a five-country survey of journalists, U.S. journalists are
not in agreement with the definition of objectivity. The journalists sur
-
veyed defined objectivity in four different ways:
An equally thorough questioning of the position of each side in a
political dispute.
Going beyond the statements of the contending sides to the hard
facts of a political dispute.
Expressing fairly the position of each side in a political dispute.
Not allowing your own political beliefs to affect the presentation
of the subject (Graber, McQuail, and Norris, 1998).
Since the 1970’s, American journalists have embraced a more
interpretive reporting style. This new style replaces the traditional de
MEDIA’S SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL
ISSUES: Focus on Global Warming - A Comparative Study
by Jaclyn Marisa Dispensa, and Robert J. Brulle, Drexel University
Abstract
Global warming has been a well recognized environmental issue in the
United States for the past ten years, even though scientists had identi
-
fied it as a potential problem years before in 1896. We find debate
about the issue in the United States media coverage while controversy
among the majority of scientists is rare. The role that media plays in
constructing the norms and ideas in society is researched to understand
how they socially construct global warming and other environmental
issues. To identify if the U.S. Media presents a biased view of global
warming, the following are discussed 1) the theoretical perspective of
media and the environment; 2) scientific overview and history of
global warming; 3) media coverage of global warming, and 4) res
MEDIA’S SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL
ISSUES: Focus on Global Warming - A Comparative Study
by Jaclyn Marisa Dispensa, and Robert J. Brulle, Drexel University
Abstract
Global warming has been a well recognized environmental issue in the
United States for the past ten years, even though scientists had identi
-
fied it as a potential problem years before in 1896. We find debate
about the issue in the United States media coverage while controversy
among the majority of scientists is rare. The role that media plays in
constructing the norms and ideas in society is researched to understand
how they socially construct global warming and other environmental
issues. To identify if the U.S. Media presents a biased view of global
warming, the following are discussed 1) the theoretical perspective of
media and the environment; 2) scientific overview and history of
global warming; 3) media coverage of global warming, and 4) res
MEDIA’S SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL
ISSUES: Focus on Global Warming - A Comparative Study
by Jaclyn Marisa Dispensa, and Robert J. Brulle, Drexel University
Abstract
Global warming has been a well recognized environmental issue in the
United States for the past ten years, even though scientists had identi
-
fied it as a potential problem years before in 1896. We find debate
about the issue in the United States media coverage while controversy
among the majority of scientists is rare. The role that media plays in
constructing the norms and ideas in society is researched to understand
how they socially construct global warming and other environmental
issues. To identify if the U.S. Media presents a biased view of global
warming, the following are discussed 1) the theoretical perspective of
media and the environment; 2) scientific overview and history of
global warming; 3) media coverage of global warming, and 4) re
Several norms or conventions exist in the journalism field that
help to identify what type of article a journalist will publish. These
norms include: the company the journalist works for, the objectivity
versus subjectivity of the journalist, and whether or not the journalist is
a guardian or messenger.
A spectrum exists in the journalism field, whereby newspapers
and magazines can be liberal, conservative, or “in-between”. For in
-
stance, The Washington Post was judged the most liberal of the major
U.S. news organizations, and The New York Times was placed on the
right. Therefore, left-of-center and right-of-center journalists have ex
-
hibited different tendencies in their news decisions (Graber, McQuail,
and Norris, 1998). For example, in a story involving reduction of car
-
bon dioxide to offset global warming, the left-of-center journalists are
more likely to emphasize the resultant improvements (but may be a lit-
tle more conservative if the topic affects the shareholders of the com-
pany) whereas the right-of-center journalists are more likely to focus
on the costs to business due to these standards.
Objectivity is the defining norm in journalism today. U.S. jour-
nalists expressed the highest level of support for the norm, thus would
appear to greatly govern journalists’ thinking. But in a study conducted
by Thomas Patterson and Wolfgang Donsbach on the understanding of
objectivity in a five-country survey of journalists, U.S. journalists are
not in agreement with the definition of objectivity. The journalists sur
-
veyed defined objectivity in four different ways:
An equally thorough questioning of the position of each side in a
political dispute.
Going beyond the statements of the contending sides to the hard
facts of a political dispute.
Expressing fairly the position of each side in a political dispute.
Not allowing your own political beliefs to affect the presentation
of the subject (Graber, McQuail, and Norris, 1998).
Since the 1970’s, American journalists have embraced a more
interpretive reporting style. This new style replaces the traditional de
-
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 82
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