Hook / Lester / Ji Environmental Pollution and the Media

Political Discourses of Risk and Responsibility in Australia, China and Japan
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-1-351-77302-7
Verlag: Taylor & Francis
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 216 Seiten

Reihe: Routledge Studies in Environmental Communication and Media

This book offers a theoretically informed empirical investigation of national media reporting and political discourse on environmental issues in Australia, China and Japan. It illuminates the risks, harms and responsibilities associated with climate change through an analysis of pollution, adopting an interdisciplinary approach drawing on both the social sciences and humanities. A particular strength of the work is the detailed analysis of the data using a range of both quantitative and qualitative techniques, enabling the authors to reveal in rich and compelling detail the complex relationship between risk and responsibility in the climate change discourse.

The case studies of Australia, China and Japan are set in the current literature as well as in the historical context of climate change in these three countries. The analysis of the media discourse on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia demonstrates how the mining of coal for overseas markets has led to devastating harm to the life of the reef. A critical discussion of the Chinese documentary, Under the Dome, shows how this medium has played a crucial role in building awareness of the harm from atmospheric pollution among the citizens, shaping attitudes and promoting action. The first case study of Japan elucidates how cross-border atmospheric pollution from China forges a chain of responsibility for responding to climate change, running from the state to society. The other case study of Japan demonstrates how ‘smart cities’ have emerged as a way to mitigate the risks and harms of climate change. The Conclusion draws together the similarities and differences in how climate change is addressed in the three countries.

In all, Environmental Pollution and the Media: Political Discourses of Risk and Responsibility in Australia, China and Japan uncovers the dynamics of the triadic relationship among risk, harm and climate change in Australia, China and Japan. By so doing, the book makes an original and timely contribution to understanding comparative media, discourse and political debates on climate change.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hook, Glenn D.

Lester, Libby

Ji, Meng

Edney, Kingsley

Pope, Chris G.

van der Does-Ishikawa, Luli

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Mediensoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction

2. Risk, Responsibility and Pollution in the Australia, China and Japan: A Regional Overview

3. Transnational Discourses of Risk and Responsibility from Australia: Coal, Pollution and the Great Barrier Reef

4. Responsibility and the Risks of Air Pollution in China: Media Activism and the Case of Under the Dome

5. Mediating Risk Communication and the Shifting Locus of Responsibility: Japanese Adaptation Policy in Response to Cross-border Atmospheric Pollution (Luli van der Does-Ishikawa and Glenn D. Hook)

6. Visions of a Super-Smart Society: Risk Management and Responsibility as Adaptation

7. Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Glenn D. Hook is Toshiba International Foundation Anniversary Research Professor in the School of East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield, UK. He has published widely in Japanese as well as in English on Japanese and East Asian politics and international relations, especially in relation to security, risk and governance.

Libby Lester is Professor of Journalism, Media and Communications at the University of Tasmania, Australia. Her research on public debate over land use and environmental risks is widely published internationally.

Meng Ji is Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney. She specialises in advanced digital humanities research methodologies, especially the design and the computational analysis and quantitative modelling of multilingual corpora ranging from classical literature and historical linguistics to global environmental media, cross-national health risk assessment and health references and guidelines for non-communicable diseases.

Kingsley Edney is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations of China in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds, UK. He is the author of The Globalization of Chinese Propaganda: International Power and Domestic Political Cohesion (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Chris G. Pope is a PhD student of the School of East Asian Studies, the University of Sheffield and part of the White Rose East Asian Centre. His thesis, which employs a mixed-methods approach to examine the speeches of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is funded by the Economics and Social Research Council.

Luli van der Does-Ishikawa specialises in the interdisciplinary quantitative and qualitative study of social and political discourses. Her recent works have examined the processes of ideological transfer through discursive communication and demonstrated the transient loci of risk and responsibility among multiple stakeholders in media discourse.