Combining perspectives from media studies and political ecology, this book analyses socially constructed news regarding three environmental conflicts in South America. In recent decades, South American political administrations have tied national economies to neo-extractive development strategies, creating not only vulnerabilities to global commodity boom and bust pricing cycles, but also to conflict regarding environmental and cultural degradation from extraction activities. Environmental contestations among indigenous peoples, environmental and social NGOs, state actors, and extraction industries receive media attention, but how these disputes are covered has implications for understandings of media performance in democratizing nations. The authors examine three case studies of environmental contestation in a region that is simultaneously vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and yet has become once again dependent on commodity exportation to industrializing and industrialized nations for economic benefit and social development strategies.

The acceleration of massive global climate change creates a nexus for the examination of power, political rhetoric, science communication, and sustainable development. This book provides an international view of twenty first century environmental communication, from journalism to artistic expression, to critically explore mediated expressions of climate change. Seeking to understand how government policies, environmental news reports, corporate messages, and social influences communicate the complexities of climate change to the public, this book examines the roles that journalism, entertainment, and strategic messaging play in mediating meanings of science, health, economy, and sustainable solutions. It considers the critical importance of the study of climate change communication, which is inherently interdisciplinary, as well as globally and locally impactful. With topics ranging from communicating resilience through environmental journalism and linguistics, the storytelling of climate change explanations in the news, the role of visual communication in capturing and addressing climate change, and the communication of the health impacts of climate change, this book will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students and scholars in environmental sciences, international relations and politics, media, journalism and mass communication.

Combining perspectives from media studies and political ecology, this book analyses socially constructed news regarding three environmental conflicts in South America. In recent decades, South American political administrations have tied national economies to neo-extractive development strategies, creating not only vulnerabilities to global commodity boom and bust pricing cycles, but also to conflict regarding environmental and cultural degradation from extraction activities. Environmental contestations among indigenous peoples, environmental and social NGOs, state actors, and extraction industries receive media attention, but how these disputes are covered has implications for understandings of media performance in democratizing nations. The authors examine three case studies of environmental contestation in a region that is simultaneously vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and yet has become once again dependent on commodity exportation to industrializing and industrialized nations for economic benefit and social development strategies.