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Environmental Risks and the Media
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?
- GenresNonfiction
294 pages, Paperback
First published November 11, 1999
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November 16, 2020
This book does suffer from being dated, as it was published in 2000 when BSE was the main crisis in Britain. Not plastic. Useful content includes the story of Greenpeace taking over an oil platform, Brent Spar, Anders Hansen, 'Claims-making and framing in British newspaper coverage of the 'Brent Spar' controversy' P.54, and a well written piece on making climate change readable. But so, so much could have been included which is not. So much waffle is included which is pointless to anyone except academics.
In a book titled Environmental Risks and the Media, I would have expected to see coverage of how media report whistleblowers in major industries; what the major threats are; whether journalists should go to protest marches prepared for tear gas or violence; and how to assess stories coming from pressure groups or fill in the gaps in the official statements. Which countries are most dangerous for environmental journalists; how deforestation is covered; do firms send journalists overseas to report or hire someone local; whether a spokesperson's statement should be delivered as given or stripped to see who benefits; how news organisations provide balance; how the public can judge whether the news is biased or simply the facts.
For example, in a quoted story about cars over ten years old and exhaust pollution, a motor manufacturer chairman, of Ford UK, is quoted as saying older cars should be scrapped because new cars would be much less polluting. Neither the academic writer nor the journalist asks what the motor manufacturer would have to gain by this, nor produces statistics on exhausts and particulate matter, but leaves it to one member of the public to say that their older car is still running fine. A third person says car sharing schemes would be better. P.35/ 36, Simon Cottle, 'TV news, lay voices, visualisation of risks'.
A highly useful portion shows the spoken content of a news report side by side with the text for a visual image shown at that moment. So left, BBC News, presenter speaks to camera, describes toxic waste spill; right, presenter in studio, still of dead fish, belly up. And so on through the report, with film clips, maps etc. P.39. Simon Cottle, 'TV news, lay voices, visualisation of risks'.
That's one of the more practical chapters. Another chapter dissects the word ecology and wonders why we want to use a word with logy in it. Never occurs to them to compare it with biology, mycology, ornithology, pharmacology, etc. and say that ology means the study of. (And you would not say ecoology or bioology.) No, they're off on a hack about some musing about logos being 'a stand in for ...language, law, logic, even reason or discourse.' Someone is trying to tell us they took Latin or Greek at school. We don't need to know, and the editor should have pulled them up on that. P.237, Joost van Loon, 'Mediating the risks of virtual environments'.
A chapter on protesters against motorways looks at how the people who took to tunnels or trees are covered, not much at the issues they highlighted.
An entire chapter is devoted to women being subjected to ads for sun tan products. Nobody asks if sun tan products contaminate water and pose a danger to aquatic organisms. We don't get a skin cancer statistical chart. But paid ads are worrying, you know, risky, and need a lot of dissecting, especially if they are aimed at women. I think. I don't even glance at ads. I bet many women don't. Chap 9, 145, Justine Coupland and Nikolas Coupland, 'Selling control'.
Another chapter looks at threats to women, perceived or real. And how women said they were affected. This chapter is all about men and media reporting making public spaces unsafe for women or making the women feel they have to stay at home. Not about actual risks from the natural environment, not even sunburn. Chap. 11, P.171, C. Kay Weaver, Cynthia Carter and Elizabeth Stanka, 'The female body at risk'. In their worry about the perception versus the reality, that most women encounter violence at home if they do at all, they omit pickpocketing, bag-snatching and other theft, and general unwanted physical contact or personal comment, and male control freakery, and don't say that women should dump impractical footwear that stops them running in any crisis. The remark that media reporting may contain gendered comment about women victims of violence being revealingly dressed or walking alone at night (P.171) is valuable, if only because I think developed world media (we do not hear about other nations' media) have grown up and more female reporters are narrating stories. Victim blaming may be gone from most responsible media. But on P. 181 we get 'Only 'beasts' hurt women. Yet we now know that most violence against women is perpetrated by 'nice guys' not 'beasts'.' No, nice guys do not harm women and even as an ironic comment that has no place in this book. Control freaks harm women. Say it for what it is.
Other chapters look at homelessness, and whether older people are afraid to leave the house. All fine for sociology but I don't see that it genuinely fits in a book about environmental risks, except if you could not find enough writing about the environment. There must be a compilation of statistics about horse riding and risk, or surfing and risk.
The most useful and best written chapter was by Kris M Wilson, P202 'Communicating climate change through the media.' 'Complexity is a serious problem for reporters with little or no science background and for news organisations that rely on general assignment reporters to cover climate change. At most US news organisations, science stories are usually covered by general assignment reporters who are expected to handle a wide range of stories, but who also lack any scientific training. Lacking both training and experience, they are less able to evaluate what they are reporting (Nelkin 1987). Science-trained journalists can be more critical about shoddy research methods and are less likely to take what they are told at face value than their untrained colleagues (Dunwoody 1986b). ' P.208. I agree. But this book is 20 years old and uses comments 13 years older. Can that situation still be true in today's world of computers, internet and smartphones?
The cover image which looks like shiny coal, is described as 'Remains of batteries after incineration' in Japan. I would rather the 1995 action image of Greenpeace at Brent Spar was used (credited to Greenpeace and David Sims, but not the one I know) because it actually looks recognisable at a glance, contains people, and tells a story. Burned batteries do not appear anywhere else in the book and we are not told why they are risky.
I borrowed this book from the DBS Library. This is an unbiased review.
In a book titled Environmental Risks and the Media, I would have expected to see coverage of how media report whistleblowers in major industries; what the major threats are; whether journalists should go to protest marches prepared for tear gas or violence; and how to assess stories coming from pressure groups or fill in the gaps in the official statements. Which countries are most dangerous for environmental journalists; how deforestation is covered; do firms send journalists overseas to report or hire someone local; whether a spokesperson's statement should be delivered as given or stripped to see who benefits; how news organisations provide balance; how the public can judge whether the news is biased or simply the facts.
For example, in a quoted story about cars over ten years old and exhaust pollution, a motor manufacturer chairman, of Ford UK, is quoted as saying older cars should be scrapped because new cars would be much less polluting. Neither the academic writer nor the journalist asks what the motor manufacturer would have to gain by this, nor produces statistics on exhausts and particulate matter, but leaves it to one member of the public to say that their older car is still running fine. A third person says car sharing schemes would be better. P.35/ 36, Simon Cottle, 'TV news, lay voices, visualisation of risks'.
A highly useful portion shows the spoken content of a news report side by side with the text for a visual image shown at that moment. So left, BBC News, presenter speaks to camera, describes toxic waste spill; right, presenter in studio, still of dead fish, belly up. And so on through the report, with film clips, maps etc. P.39. Simon Cottle, 'TV news, lay voices, visualisation of risks'.
That's one of the more practical chapters. Another chapter dissects the word ecology and wonders why we want to use a word with logy in it. Never occurs to them to compare it with biology, mycology, ornithology, pharmacology, etc. and say that ology means the study of. (And you would not say ecoology or bioology.) No, they're off on a hack about some musing about logos being 'a stand in for ...language, law, logic, even reason or discourse.' Someone is trying to tell us they took Latin or Greek at school. We don't need to know, and the editor should have pulled them up on that. P.237, Joost van Loon, 'Mediating the risks of virtual environments'.
A chapter on protesters against motorways looks at how the people who took to tunnels or trees are covered, not much at the issues they highlighted.
An entire chapter is devoted to women being subjected to ads for sun tan products. Nobody asks if sun tan products contaminate water and pose a danger to aquatic organisms. We don't get a skin cancer statistical chart. But paid ads are worrying, you know, risky, and need a lot of dissecting, especially if they are aimed at women. I think. I don't even glance at ads. I bet many women don't. Chap 9, 145, Justine Coupland and Nikolas Coupland, 'Selling control'.
Another chapter looks at threats to women, perceived or real. And how women said they were affected. This chapter is all about men and media reporting making public spaces unsafe for women or making the women feel they have to stay at home. Not about actual risks from the natural environment, not even sunburn. Chap. 11, P.171, C. Kay Weaver, Cynthia Carter and Elizabeth Stanka, 'The female body at risk'. In their worry about the perception versus the reality, that most women encounter violence at home if they do at all, they omit pickpocketing, bag-snatching and other theft, and general unwanted physical contact or personal comment, and male control freakery, and don't say that women should dump impractical footwear that stops them running in any crisis. The remark that media reporting may contain gendered comment about women victims of violence being revealingly dressed or walking alone at night (P.171) is valuable, if only because I think developed world media (we do not hear about other nations' media) have grown up and more female reporters are narrating stories. Victim blaming may be gone from most responsible media. But on P. 181 we get 'Only 'beasts' hurt women. Yet we now know that most violence against women is perpetrated by 'nice guys' not 'beasts'.' No, nice guys do not harm women and even as an ironic comment that has no place in this book. Control freaks harm women. Say it for what it is.
Other chapters look at homelessness, and whether older people are afraid to leave the house. All fine for sociology but I don't see that it genuinely fits in a book about environmental risks, except if you could not find enough writing about the environment. There must be a compilation of statistics about horse riding and risk, or surfing and risk.
The most useful and best written chapter was by Kris M Wilson, P202 'Communicating climate change through the media.' 'Complexity is a serious problem for reporters with little or no science background and for news organisations that rely on general assignment reporters to cover climate change. At most US news organisations, science stories are usually covered by general assignment reporters who are expected to handle a wide range of stories, but who also lack any scientific training. Lacking both training and experience, they are less able to evaluate what they are reporting (Nelkin 1987). Science-trained journalists can be more critical about shoddy research methods and are less likely to take what they are told at face value than their untrained colleagues (Dunwoody 1986b). ' P.208. I agree. But this book is 20 years old and uses comments 13 years older. Can that situation still be true in today's world of computers, internet and smartphones?
The cover image which looks like shiny coal, is described as 'Remains of batteries after incineration' in Japan. I would rather the 1995 action image of Greenpeace at Brent Spar was used (credited to Greenpeace and David Sims, but not the one I know) because it actually looks recognisable at a glance, contains people, and tells a story. Burned batteries do not appear anywhere else in the book and we are not told why they are risky.
I borrowed this book from the DBS Library. This is an unbiased review.
Displaying 1 of 1 review