Espacio Abierto Volumen 26, nº 2 (Abril Junio 2017)
THE COMPLEX THREEFOLD RELATIONSHIP: ENVIRONMENT,
SOCIETY AND MEDIA.
Ivan
Fortunato.
Federal University of ABC. Itapetininga, Brasil and at the Federal
University of São Carlos, Sorocaba, Brasil.
Antonio R.
Almeida Jr.
Received:
01/15/2017
Accepted: 2/21/2017
Accepted: 2/21/2017
ABSTRACT
Environmental issues involve huge material interests.
In most cases, they result from changes in production that lead to neglected or
unforeseen environmental consequences. These transformations have several
origins: increase of the scale of production; installation of new production plants;
changes in technology; social and labor pressures, economic instability,
competition, among others. Any fluctuation in public opinion about the conduct
of environmental issues can result in changes in environmental laws, in more rigorous
inspection processes and punishment for environmental transgressions, favoring
certain interests and making others unfeasible.
Keywords: Environment, Society, Media
The expansion of capitalism, industrialization and
consumerism has resulted in a serious environmental situation (Chesnay &
Serfati, 2003; Leff, 2016; 2006). Climate change, for example, is prominent in
the social agenda, but habitats destruction, pollution, competition for new
resources, extinction of species, epidemics etc. can no longer be ignored. Migrations
caused by environmental reasons also occur in several regions and scales,
disrupting the lives of the uprooted and of those who receive those who move.
The negative consequences of capitalist and industrial developments that were
underestimated or unforeseen are now revealed through local, regional, national
and international complex social conflicts (Klare, 2012).
Capitalist industrialization also dominates
communicative processes. During the twentieth century, the culture was
immensely affected and became, to a large extent, the result of this
industrialization (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1985; Debord, 1997; Türcke, 2010).
There is a symbolic and cultural transformation similar to the transformation
of the environment. This finding is at the basis of the reflection about the current
communication, but it needs to be constantly updated, since both communication
technologies and their uses have evolved rapidly (McChesney, 2008). These
developments occur in social and productive troubled settings.
The Environment and Media Laboratory of ESALQ-USP[1]
has carried out several researches, using the advertisement model of Herman and
Chomsky (1988) as a theoretical basis to interpret the coverage of
environmental issues by Brazilian communication outlets and other countries.
After conducting these investigations for many years, it is noticeable that
several environmental issues suffer systematic distortions in their coverage
and that the communication companies “filters” seems to us a fair and adequate
way to explain these distortion phenomena (Lopes, 2010). In the case of Brazil,
and perhaps of other semi peripheral countries, it is necessary to understand
that there are foreign interests that constrain the national communication enterprises.
These interests constitute an extra source of distortion and, at times, may be
decisive for the elaboration of news about environmental issues (Almeida Jr.
& Andrade, 2009).
The environmental perception of people and populations
about the risks, safety, contamination, and economic importance of a particular
productive activity, to a large extent, is dependent on the circulation of
information about these issues. This can be seen, for example, in the research
in which the necessary complex perception about the environmental crisis is
either fragmented or unclear, becoming almost meaningless for the population
(Fortunato & Penteado, 2013; Penteado & Fortunato 2010). Thus, this
very same dependence exists on the imagination as to what actions are valid and
reasonable to contain or solve environmental problems. Media messages have an
immediate and direct responsibility in the spread of this imagination. While
recognizing the difficulties inherent in any attempt to describe and explain
this responsibility, such a condition is undeniable.
Several authors have indicated systematic distortions
in the coverage of environmental issues by mass media. For example, Shanahan &
McComas (1999) show that media messages cultivate in the audience perspectives
contrary to environmentalism, they also tend to retard social mobilization, and
promote ignorance about environmental issues. Boykoff (2011) shows the
existence of different quantities and forms of environmental coverage depending
on the country in which the news is produced. Noble (2009) reports that the
coverage of climate issues was affected by large corporate campaigns aimed at
controlling public opinion on these issues, also trying to deny the existence
of climatic problems caused by human activities.
These distortions in the relationship between
communication and environment, so well debated in the literature, have already
been the subject of critical research, indicating that awareness campaigns
become pseudo-awareness, especially when mega-industries seek to support such
campaigns (see Fortunato & Penteado, 2011). Or even worse, when politics
makes use of the media to support such awareness (Penteado & Fortunato,
2011). In other words, it is a matter of maintaining the control of
environmental discourse and, at the same time, keeping business without
promoting deeper changes in the social system. Thus, it seems possible to state
that in many situations, the coverage of environmental issues also presents
important distortions that requires scientific attention for their evaluation
and interpretation. These systematic distortions depoliticize the debate and
lead the public to wrong conclusions about environmental problems. In many
cases, mass media do not function as a public space, but as a private space,
guided by interests that can be clearly defined.
The idea that media messages have extensive cultural
repercussions is not new (Leiss et al., 1997, Kilbourne 1999, Debord 1997,
Türcke, 2010). Nor is it a new finding that there are systematic distortions in
media messages. Mattelart (2000) reports that as early as the nineteenth
century Flaubert made blunt criticisms of journalism and newspapers of his day
and that he was not the only one to do so. For example, we can think of
corporate communication (marketing, advertising, public relations etc.) as a
disruptive element for culture, often stimulating undesirable behaviors for
social interaction (Leiss et al., 1997). Even children’s activities are
strongly affected by this disturbance (Linn, 2006; Steinberg & Kincheloe,
2001). The practices of TV, radio, the internet and all other communication media
are not free from the scrutiny of critics, who formulate precise,
wellarticulated and, in many cases, irrefutable arguments (Macedo &
Steinberg, 2007). These criticism focus on the cultural and symbolic elements
of media messages.
The attempt to manage the environmental crisis has led
governments, private corporations and NGOs to develop communication campaigns
and techniques that are intended to guide ongoing change processes (Beder,
2002; Gomes & Almeida Jr., 2013). However, the seriousness of the
environmental situation is such that many authors describe it as a crisis of
civilization (Chesnay & Sefarti, 2003; Leff, 2016, 2006), which, in order
to be equated, it will require profound transformations in the relations of
human beings with nature, technologies and institutions. Consequently, there
was a strong growth in the coverage of environmental issues by the media. Hence,
it is not surprising the concomitant appearance of many studies that focus on
assessing the environmental coverage of the press, television, radio, movies, internet
etc. These evaluations cover a wide range of topics such as intercultural
comparisons (Boykoff, 2011); “green” corporate image (Delmas & Burbano,
2011); “green” public relations (Beder 2002); climate change (Noble, 2009).
Often, the conclusions of these studies are not
complimentary, pointing to systematic biases that distort coverage of
environmental issues. The broad economic, cultural, and political interests
that intertwine with environmental issues have been identified as responsible
for these biases (Cox, 2013). Many experienced researchers see the media as
agencies to disseminate the views of major state and private actors that are
unable to provide responsible and free coverage of environmental problems, and,
as such they tend to promote discourses generated by business and “environmentalists”
at their service (McChesney, 1997).
Despite their importance, these studies on the
coverage of environmental issues remain fragmented and need to be stimulated,
since it is a fundamental issue for solving the environmental crisis. If
communication media are not the main formulators of environmental discourses,
they are determinants in the reproduction of these discourses. The observation
of biases implies that this reproduction is not done in a balanced way, and
they do not respect the informational and scientific quality of the discourses.
The diffusion of discourses is guided by other criteria that need to be
revealed and even denounced.
These problematic values reproduced and stimulated
by the media present a real civilizing challenge, exposing future generations
to potentially disastrous influences from educational, environmental and social
points of view. Its hegemony and consequent uncritical internalization have, in
the long term, the capacity to compromise political stability and democracy in
many countries. Therefore, we must welcome the economic, political and cultural
critiques of these messages as they enable us to reflect on the facts and
eventually about media, political and social control or, at least, about some
opposition to the most problematic materials. Given these serious problems, we
may think that the media messages themselves and their institutions need to be
placed as objects of environmental research, as well as issues for researches
about economics, public health, culture and politics.
At the end, we hope that the papers gathered here
account for motivating the continuous search for broader and more complex
responses to this environment-media-society relationship.
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[1] It
stands for Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz – Universidade de São
Paulo. It is located at Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil.
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