Media, Politics, and the Environment
CCGL9012
Miklos Sukosd
Lecture 1, January 18, 2012
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1.
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Overview of the course topics and evaluation
The major environmental problems of the 21st century
The functions and power of media
Selection of environmental documentaries for the semester
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Population growth
Global warming
Sweet water shortage, falling water tables
Shrinking cropland per person: food crisis
Collapsing fisheries -- overfishing
Deforestation
Species extinction
[ + Pollution/contamination: sea/water, soil, air]
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Brown, Lester R. 2000. Challenges of the New Century. In: State of the World
2000: A Worldwatch Institute Report . New York: W. W. Norton and
Company, pp. 3-21.
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 To provide information: news and facts
 To provide frames: interpretation (causes) and evaluation (good-bad)
 To set agendas: what is important?
 To effect change among audience/user: media effects on attitude, behavior
 To educate audience/users: new scientific findings, paradigms
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 To represent issues problems, actors, groups, interest
 To mobilize (activists, supporters, donors)
 To entertain: movies, tv series, celebrities/gossip
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To provide forum for discussion among stakeholders
To affect public opinion —politicians—policy making
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We will watch and discuss these critical environmental documentaries during the semester:
 The Age of the Stupid (2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZjsJdokC0s
 Plastic Planet (2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7X-J1DhfjE
 No Impact Man (2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9Ctt7FGFBo
 The End of the Line (2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bedirwk95Oc
 Fuel (2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsP5EmMrTqk

Media, politics and the environment
Lecture 2, Feb 1, 2012
Miklos Sukosd
7

1. Agenda setting by the media
2. Criticism of the agenda setting approach
3. Framing in the media: the concept
4. Framing in the media: a case (urbanization in former farmland)
5. Questions regarding environmental journalism
6. Research project: environmental agenda setting and framing by Hong Kong media
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 What the media present: salience of issues, topics, topic areas in media and audience perception
 Causal relationship from media agenda to public agenda (audience cognition/perception)
 Case 1: Lonely people (few interpersonal contacts) follow political agenda more – stronger agenda setting role of the media
 Case 2: Classic Iowa referendum study: counties with newspaper and citizens’ committee: significantly different voting patterns, self-interest effect is reinforced by agenda setting
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1.
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Air pollution (including urban and marine traffic, factories in mainland)
Waste (including communal and e-waste)
Water pollution and sources (sea, drinking water, underground water tables)
Nature conservation (NT, Lamma, Lantau,
Cheung Chau)
Food safety (HK relies on food imports)
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6. Noise pollution (leads to stress; 1 million people affected by excess traffic noise; add construction work and AC/ventillation noise)
7. Light pollution (affects human lives, ecosystem, energy consumption)
+8. Climate change and global warming (public concerns, disappointment with government)
+9. Global population growth (leads to resource depletion; HK policy/political debates about immigration: mainland migrants, foreign domestic helpers
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Roots of media agenda are missing: policy
(legislative), political, public (civic, NGO, citizen) agendas
Methodological problems
Content analysis and polling
How many media sources?
Research opportunities: International comparative research project regarding environmental in several countries
Longitudinal research opportunities (long term media agendas)
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How to present/cover? The mode of coverage.
Missing aspect of the “objectivity approach”
 Each article about the same topic or story is different (journalists often call it “angles”)
 Framing key features: selection and salience
 Select some aspects of reality and make them salient; omit or lessen salience of other aspects
 Influence over human consciousness by communication of information/text
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- Promote particular problem definition (define problems)
- Causal interpretation (diagnose causes)
- Moral evaluation (make moral judgements)
-Treatment recommendation (suggest remedies)
- Communicators (sources, journalists)
- Text
- Receivers
- Cultural context
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Framing case:
Urbanization project in agricultural areas or suburbs
Background: legal re-classification of agricultural lands for housing development (China: forced evictions)
1. Development/progress frame
- Working opportunities subframe
- Local infrastructure development subframe
- China: national/regional/local economic growth
2. Critical democratic frame
- Who decided and how? Transparency of decision subframe
- Whose interest? subframe
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3. Environmental frame
- Peaceful conditions subframe
- Ecological subframe
- Environmental legal subframe
4. Real estate frame
- Prices/markets for buyers subframe
- Real estate trends and investment for professionals subframe
Framing power: cultural capital + financial power
Framing wars: conflicting and mutually exclusive frames (politicians; states in international conflict)
Framing coalitions: agreement on larger frames
Masterframes: incorporating elements of frames
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Questions regarding environmental journalism about agenda setting and framing
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 As an environmental problem
 As an environmental policy/political issue
 As a historical trend
 As a health issue
 As an issue of environmental activism
 As an educational issue
 As a matter of public attitudes
 As an emotional issue (humans or animals)
 Other frames?
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Research project: environmental agenda setting and framing by Hong Kong media
1 . List of all Hong Kong media
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Traditional media: television, radio, print press, online news portals
Social media: Facebook, Weibo, Twitter, YouTube, online discussion forums etc.
2. Conduct content analysis
3. Conduct framing analysis
4. Conduct public opinion polls to measure public perceptions of environmental issues
5. Compare media coverage and public perceptions to establish agenda setting and framing effects
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Media, Politics and the Environment
(CCGL 9012)
Week 3
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1.
2.
3.
Sustainable development
The ecological footprint
The tragedy of commons
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• SD: Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable
-- to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without comprimising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (1987:8).
• Origins: Report by Brundtland Commission (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987)
• UN report to concile environmental and development issues
(environmental damage, population, peace and security, social justice both within and across generations) that had been competitive or antagonistic
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 In essence, SD is a process of change in which exploitation of resources, the direction of investment, the orientation of technological development, and industrial change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations”
(1987:46).
 Deeper history: resource management concept in maximum sustainable yield (fishery, forest, game animals that can be sustained indefinitely)
 Intelligent operation of natural systems and human systems in combination
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Elasticity of concept: different meanings and interpretations
Environmentalists: intrinsic notions of nature are missing
Developing countries: stress on global redistribution
Western countries: developing countries cannot follow same path of industrialization
Business: sustained economic growth + ”green-painting”
Contestation over essence of SD
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 Central concept in environmental discourses + bandwagon effect
 Actors: many agents at many levels, international (IGO + global civil society) and subnational (NGO)
 SD never an accomplished fact, except in small huntergatherer and agricultural societies with low level of economic and technological development
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 Discourse: no limits to growth, capitalist economy
(competition de-emphasized though), anthropocentric,
”think globally, act locally”, self-conscious improvement, open-ended learning of humankind (like lifetime learning), progress in the environmental era
 Real life results? Small compared to liberalization of global trade and capital
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EF measures human demand on the Earth's ecosystems
Compares human demand with the Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate
Calculates the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes, and to absorb waste and make it harmless
EF make possible to estimate how much of the Earth (or how many Earths) it would take to support humanity with a given consumption rate
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For 2006, humanity's total ecological footprint was estimated at 1.4 planet Earths (lag due to availability of statistics)
This means that humanity uses ecological services 1.4 times as fast as Earth can renew them
EF calculated every year
Methods of measurement differ
Calculation standards are emerging to make results more comparable and consistent
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Originator of academic concept of EF William Rees
(environmental policy/sustainability expert, University of
British Columbia, Canada), 1992
Co-developer of EF concept and calculation method
Mathis Wackernagel (currently President of Global
Footprint Network)
Rees first formulation: "appropriated carrying capacity"
Rees: term EF "inspired by a computer technician who praised his new computer's small footprint on the desk”
Wackernagel and Rees book Our Ecological Footprint:
Reducing Human Impact on the Earth.
1996
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EF compares human demand on nature with the biosphere's ability to regenerate resources and provide services
New EF: the methods are converging
Footprint 2.0 (2003 by a team of researchers)
Footprint 2.0 theoretical and methodological improvements to the standard EF approach
Include the entire surface of the Earth in biocapacity estimates, allocate space for other (non-human) species, change the basis of equivalence factors from agricultural land to net primary productivity (NPP), and change the carbon component of the footprint, based on global carbon models
Well received by teachers, researchers, and advocacy organizations
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EF assesses biologically productive land and marine area required to produce the resources a population consumes, and absorb the corresponding waste, using present technology
Biological capacity or biocapacity: capacity of ecosystems to produce useful biological materials and to absorb waste materials generated by humans, using current technologies. Biocapacity is usually expressed in units of global hectares
Global hectare: the average productivity of biologically productive land and water in a given year
A global hectare of cropland, would occupy a smaller physical area than the much less productive marshland
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Biologically productive land and water: the land and water
(both marine and inland waters) area that supports photosynthetic activity and biomass accumulation used by humans. Non-productive areas not included. Biomass not of use to humans is also not included.
The total biologically productive area on land and water was approximately 13.4 billion hectares in 2005 on the planet
Biological capacity available per person : Dividing by the number of people alive in that year, 6.5 billion, gives 2.1 global hectares per person . This assumes no land is set aside for other species that consume the same biological material as humans.
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/gloss ary/ - biologicallyproductivelandandwater
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Per capita EF is a means of comparing consumption and lifestyles
Checking this against nature's ability to provide for this consumption
Goal: altering personal behavior
EF informs the public and policy makers by examining to what extent a nation uses more or less than is available within its territory
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To what extent the nation's lifestyle could be replicable worldwide?
EF can educate people about carrying capacity and over-consumption
Can also be applied to an activity such as manufacturing a product or driving of a car
EF in Hong Kong, China, US?
EF within HKU?
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EF: current lifestyles are not sustainable
Global comparison: inequalities of resource use on the planet
In 2006, average biologically productive area per person worldwide cca. 1.8 global hectares (gha) per capita.
US footprint per capita was 9.0 gha
Switzerland 5.6 gha per person
China 1.8 gha per person
WWF claims EF has exceeded the biocapacity (the available supply of natural resources) of the planet by 20%.
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NGO websites allow estimation of one's EF
EF widely used around the globe as an indicator of environmental sustainability
EF to explore the sustainability of individual lifestyles, goods and services, organizations, industry sectors, neighborhoods, cities, regions and nations
Since 2006, EF standards exist that define details of calculation procedures
Ecological Footprint Standards 2009, Global Footprint
Network www.footprintstandards.org
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EF accounting method at the national level is described in the Living Planet Report (WWF and GFN)
Differences in the methodology used by various EF studies
Examples: how sea area should be counted, how to account for fossil fuels, how to account for nuclear power
(many studies simply consider it to have the same ecological footprint as fossil fuels), which data sources used, how space for biodiversity should be included, and how imports/exports should be accounted for
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 Complete review commissioned by the
Directorate-General for the Environment
(European Commission) in June 2008 provides most updated independent assessment of the method
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Calculating EF for densely populated areas, such as a city or small country with a comparatively large population — e.g. New York and Singapore respectively
—perception as "parasitic"
These communities have little intrinsic biocapacity
Critics: dubious characterization since mechanized rural farmers in developed nations may easily consume more resources than urban inhabitants, due to transportation
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 EF an argument for autarchy?
 EF denies the benefits of trade?
 EF can only be applied globally?
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Replacing woodlands or tropical forests with monoculture forests or plantations may improve EF
EF rewards the replacement of original ecosystems with high-productivity agricultural monocultures by assigning a higher biocapacity to such regions?
If organic farming yields lower than those with conventional methods larger EF
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 Nuclear power: pre-2008 treated same manner as coal power
 Carbon dioxide per KW-Hr of produced power differs
 Problems of nuclear vs. fossil fuel waste?
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WHO: “3 million people are killed worldwide by outdoor air pollution annually from vehicles and industrial emissions, and 1.6 million indoors through using solid fuel." (BBC report
2004) Alex Kirby (13 December 2004,). "Pollution: A life and death issue" . BBC News . http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4086809.stm
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Coal power plant releases 100 times as much radiation as a nuclear power plant of the same wattage. Alex Gabbard.
"Coal Combustion: Nuclear Resource or Danger" . Oak Ridge
National Laboratory. http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-
34/text/colmain.html
.
Fossil fuel waste causes global warming, which leads to hurricanes, flooding, and other weather changes
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Limits of EF
Don’t use EF as only metric
Complement with other indicators, e.g., on biodiversity
Living Planet Report complements the biennial Footprint calculations with the Living Planet Index of biodiversity
Modified EF that takes biodiversity into account in
Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint
- cite_note-26 (Manfred Lenzen and Shauna Murray)
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Personal calculators http://www.earthday.org/footprint-calculator (or the same here: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators)
 http://www.ecologicalfootprint.com
 http://www.myfootprint.org
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Personal, school and event calculators http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/ecologicalfootprint/calculators/default.asp
Interactive site with global rankings and listings http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/?840
Calculator for kids http://www.zerofootprintkids.com/kids_home.aspx
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 http://www.cousteau.org/about-us/futuregen
 http://www.intergenerationaljustice.org/
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights#Fut ure_generations
 http://gadfly.igc.org/papers/orfg.htm
 http://www.sehn.org/pdf/Model_Provisions_M od1E7275.pdf
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 Concept by Garrett Hardin 1968
 Many rational individuals want to use available commons
 This leads to overuse and tragedy of commons
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In the long run, this is no one’s interest
 Tension between individual self-interest and community interest
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Pastureland and herdsmen
Herdsmen: as many animals as possible
Rational individual calculation: personal gain maximization
ALL THINK THIS WAY
Community loss: each animal degrades the common land
Result: less grass, no grass, erosion, weed domination
National parks: overuse by visitors vs. limitation of entry
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Pollution of the commons: sewage, chemicals, radioactive, heat
Individual rationality to let out pollutants as cleaning is expensive
Result: the common land, water, air is polluted
In the long run, no one’s interest
Solutions: regulation (law, positive and negative taxes)
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