‘Carbon colonialism’: Pacific environmental risk, media credibility and a deliberative perspective

Keywords: climate change, democracy, Deliberative journalism, environmental journalism, environmental risk, global warming, objectivity, media freedom, media mobilisation, media plurality,

Abstract

The effects of climate change are already occurring in all continents and across the oceans, and the situation has deteriorated since the last account in 2007, warned the United Nations scientific agency charged with monitoring and assessing the risks earlier this year. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2014), the world is ill-prepared to manage warming and an increase in magnitude is likely to lead to ‘severe and pervasive impacts that may be surprising or irreversible’. Seriously at risk are Small Island Developing States (SIDS), including several in the Pacific, such as Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Tuvalu. The UN has declared 2014 as the International Year of SIDS and a summit was hosted in Samoa during September. Living in one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to the impact of climate change and the challenges of aid effectiveness and adaptation funding, journalists are at a critical crossroads. This article examines environmental risk, media creativity and a contradiction between normative and traditional Western journalism values and the Pacific profession’s own challenges of ‘adaptation’ in telling the story of global warming with a deliberative perspective.

Caption: Figure 2: Climate Change Warriors from Fiji: ‘We are not drowning. We are fighting.’ world.350.org/pacificwarriors/

Downloads

Metrics

PDF views
829
Published
31-12-2014
How to Cite
Robie, D. (2014). ‘Carbon colonialism’: Pacific environmental risk, media credibility and a deliberative perspective. Pacific Journalism Review : Te Koakoa, 20(2), 59-75. https://doi.org/10.24135/pjr.v20i2.166
Crossref
0
Scopus
15
Titifanue J. (2023)
Information and communication technologies as a catalyst for social activism and 'bottom-up' regionalism in the Pacific. Handbook of Civil Society and Social Movements in Small States, 204-218.
10.4324/9781003341536-17
Burch E. (2021)
A Sea Change for Climate Refugees in the South Pacific: How Social Media–Not Journalism–Tells Their Real Story. Environmental Communication, 15(2), 250-263.
10.1080/17524032.2020.1821742
Newlands M. (2020)
Environmental journalism in the Asia and Pacific region. Routledge Handbook of Environmental Journalism, 316-328.
10.4324/9781351068406-34
Zaman A. (2020)
Injustice versus insecurity climate-induced displacement in the Fijian and New Zealand public discourses. Pacific Journalism Review, 26(2), 102-117.
Spyksma H. (2019)
Unintentional Journalists: The role of advocacy group 350 in filling a news gap for reporting from the Pacific region. Journalism Studies, 20(1), 1-21.
10.1080/1461670X.2017.1351885
Robie D. (2018)
Bearing witness 2017: Year 2 of a pacific climate change storytelling project case study. Pacific Journalism Review, 24(1), 155-178.
10.24135/pjr.v24i1.415
Finau G. (2018)
Social media and disaster communication: A case study of Cyclone Winston. Pacific Journalism Review, 24(1), 123-137.
10.24135/pjr.v24i1.400
Scott-Parker B. (2017)
Pacific Islanders’ understanding of climate change: Where do they source information and to what extent do they trust it?. Regional Environmental Change, 17(4), 1005-1015.
10.1007/s10113-016-1001-8
Batur P. (2017)
Water connects it all: Environmental racism and global warming in Tuvalu and Kiribati. Systemic Racism: Making Liberty, Justice, and Democracy Real, 333-355.
10.1057/978-1-137-59410-5_14
Robie D. (2017)
Bearing witness 2016: A fiji climate change journalism case study. Pacific Journalism Review, 23(1), 186-206.
10.24135/pjr.v23i1.257
Titifanue J. (2017)
Climate change advocacy in the pacific: The role of information and communication technologies. Pacific Journalism Review, 23(1), 133-149.
10.24135/pjr.v23i1.105
Healy G. (2017)
Metaphor use in the political communication of major resource projects in Australia. Pacific Journalism Review, 23(1), 150-168.
10.24135/pjr.v23i1.103
Nunn P.D. (2016)
Spirituality and attitudes towards Nature in the Pacific Islands: insights for enabling climate-change adaptation. Climatic Change, 136(3-4), 477-493.
10.1007/s10584-016-1646-9
Gooch N. (2015)
Making the case for a political ecology investigation into Goro nickel mine. Pacific Journalism Review, 21(1), 164-176.
10.24135/pjr.v21i1.155

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 > >>