Media and How it Affects the Environment

Social media has been a catalyst for change in many ways regarding the environment for the past few years. The People's Climate March in D.C. and the support that has resulted from a social media campaign is proof of this. The Dakota Access Pipeline movement gained immense attention after actress Shailene Woodley live streamed her arrest on Facebook, bringing awareness to the injustices at the camp in Dakota. However, what about last year when Rowan Jacobsen published an opinion article titled, Obituary: Great Barrier Reef (25 Million BC-2016). Within a matter of hours, the article was shared all over the internet on different social media outlets, convincing many individuals that the Great Barrier Reef was officially extinct. And although many parts of the reef have experienced extreme bleaching, the ecosystem is by no means extinct. The article was intended to be a satirical reality check, highlighting the importance of the Great Barrier Reef but the reality it demonstrated instead was how easily people will believe what they read. 

In addition to this social media dilemma, a recent article How America Lost Faith in Expertise published by Foreign Affairs highlighted that this issue is broader than simply social media. The article explains that media and all that is available through the internet, has created a society where expertise has waning authority. Individuals have access to limitless technology that provides facts but that information does not equate to knowledge on a certain subject and there is also no guarantee that the information you find is accurate. Not everyone has the skills necessary to dig through the billion websites available to recognize reliable websites that hold important information. The article points out that, "Ordinary people who already had to make hard choices about where to get their information when there were a few dozen newspapers, magazines, and television channels now face endless webpages produced by anyone willing to pay for an online presence".  

So how does this affect the environment? There is a history of the media giving voice to both sides to the climate change problem (i.e. those that deny any change is occurring and scientists who argue that change is happening) in attempts to be objective to the issue. Unfortunately, in the pursuit of objectivity, journalists drew on studies published by fringe scientists and in effect provided the public with an inaccurate perception of the global warming narrative. Although this type of coverage has decreased since the mid-2000s, it has still left a scar on the climate change narrative (i.e. Congressman who brought snowball into session https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E0a_60PMR8). Thus, the history of media coverage on climate change paired with the confirmation bias that exists when people ignore experts and only search for media that confirms their preexisting beliefs causes issues for the fight against climate change.


How America Lost Faith In Expertise: 
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2017-02-13/how-america-lost-faith-expertise