Media, Politics and Environment

Environmental protection has not equally established itself as a permanent fixture in the political systems of all countries: to date, governments and entire societies have responded to environmental challenges in a variety of ways, and concrete environmental policy is still a highly national matter. Moreover, the perception of environmental problems varies considerably on a global scale. The reasons normally cited for these differences largely stem from the environmental policy debates themselves, e.g. poverty, ignorance, capital interests, etc. In contrast, this book shows that concrete environmental policy emerges from a complex interplay of mass media and political conflicts: first, the mass media provide the framework for national environmental policy through agenda-setting, framing and scandalization; second, the mass media thereby change values in the political and social discourse, e.g. by altering the perception of global commons and expanding the possibilities of interest articulation; and third, this can lead to political decision-making processes in which legal and other measures for environmental protection are enforced. The book systematically compares industrialized countries such as Germany and Japan with several rapidly emerging countries in South and Southeast Asia.

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Part 1: Media and the Environment.- Chapter 2. The hybrid media system as battlefield for climate politics. Media and Politics in transformation.- Chapter 3. Enquiring Framing in India’s Mainstream Newspapers: Interpreting frames of the Climate Change news in India during COP-26.- Chapter 4. Environmental Scandals as Indicators of Social Value Change since the 1960s.- Chapter 5. Social Media and the Environmental Discourse in Vietnam.- Chapter 6. Media, Politics, and the Environment from a Federal Politics Perspective in India.- Chapter 7. Media and Environmental Destruction in Indonesia.- Chapter 8. On the missing links in climate change communication in two states of India: Problems, politics, and solutions.- Chapter 9. Mediated Politics and the Environment:  A Case Study of ‘Odd-Even Schemes’ of Delhi Government to Curb the Pollution.- Part 2: Environmental Politics, Mobilisations and Media.- Chapter 10. State’s commitment to environmental governance in India: Struggle between developmental pressure and sustainability challenges.- Chapter 11. Environmental Resistance India: Special Reference to North-East India.- Chapter 12. Perspectives and Orientations of the Communist Party of Vietnam on Environmental Protection.- Chapter 13. Does the Environment Matter in Sri Lanka? Nexus between Environment, Politics, and Media.- Chapter 14. Environmental Policy in Indonesia from the Post-New Order Era to the Present: Positive Adjustments and Limitations.- Chapter 15. Aspects of Civil Engagement, Media and Environmental Issues in Japan.- Part 3: Media, Environment, and the Commons.- Chapter 16. Environmental Policy and the Tragedy of the Commons. A German’s Impressions of India.- Chapter 17. Expanding Urban, Shrinking Rural: Land and Common Grabs and Environmental Degradation in Peri-Urban Kolkata, West Bengal.- Chapter 18. The Problem of the Commons in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh.- Chapter 19. Summary.