Environmental Risks and the Media explores the ways in which environmental risks, threats and hazards are represented, transformed and contested by the media. At a time when popular conceptions of the environment as a stable, natural world with which humanity interferes are being increasingly contested, the medias methods of encouraging audiences to think about environmental risks - from the BSE or 'mad cow' crisis to global climate change - are becoming more and more controversial.
Examining large-scale disasters, as well as 'everyday' hazards, the contributors consider the tensions between entertainment and information in media coverage of the environment. How do the media frame 'expert', 'counter-expert' and 'lay public' definitions of environmental risk? What role do environmental pressure groups like Greenpeace or 'eco-warriors' and 'green guerrillas' play in shaping what gets covered and how? Does the media emphasis on spectacular events at the expense of issue-sensitive reporting exacerbate the public tendency to overestimate sudden and violent risks and underestimate chronic long-term ones?
Arvustused
'greatest strenght of the book is the depth and range of articles and topics presented' 'strongly recommended to those with an interest in environmental issues and/or media sociology generally.'
'Sifting through the chapters is rewarding, producing essays that are on target.' - Allan Mazur, Syracuse University
List of figures and tables vii List of contributors viii Foreword xii Ulrich Beck Acknowledgements xv Introduction: the media politics of environmental risk 1(26) Stuart Allan Barbara Adam Cynthia Carter PART I Mapping environmental risks 27(64) TV news, lay voices and the visualisation of environmental risks 29(16) Simon Cottle Interest group strategies and journalistic norms: news media framing of environmental issues 45(10) M. Mark Miller Bonnie Parnell Riechert Claims-making and framing in British newspaper coverage of the `Brent Spar controversy 55(18) Anders Hansen The burrowers: news about bodies, tunnels and green guerrillas 73(18) Maggie Wykes PART II Denaturalising risk politics 91(52) Environmental pressure politics and the `risk society 93(12) Alison Anderson `Industry causes lung cancer: would you be happy with that headline? Environmental health and local politics 105(12) Peter Phillimore Suzanne Moffatt The media timescapes of BSE news 117(13) Barbara Adam Reporting risks: problematising public participation and the Human Genome Project 130(13) Peter Glasner PART III Bodies, risks and public environments 143(56) Selling control: ideological dilemmas of sun, tanning, risk and leisure 145(15) Justine Coupland Nikolas Coupland Exclusionary environments: the media career of youth homelessness 160(11) Susan Hutson Mark Liddiard The female body at risk: media, sexual violence and the gendering of public environments 171(13) C. Kay Weaver Cynthia Carter Elizabeth Stanko `Landscapes of fear: public places, fear of crime and the media 184(15) John Tulloch PART IV Globalising environments at risk 199(42) Communicating climate change through the media: predictions, politics and perceptions of risk 201(17) Kris M. Wilson Global citizenship, the environment and the media 218(11) Bronislaw Szerszynski Mark Toogood Mediating the risks of virtual environments 229(12) Joost van Loon Bibliography 241(24) Index 265
Stuart Allan is Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of the West of England, Bristol. Barbara Adam is Reader in the School of Social Science at Cardiff University. Cynthia Carter is Lecturer in the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University.
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