We Speak for the Trees: Media Reporting on the Environment

Abstract

This review article surveys the role of the media in communicating environmental issues. Media representations—from news to entertainment—provide critical links between formal environmental science and politics and the realities of how people experience and interact with their environments. People abundantly turn to media—such as television, newspapers, magazines, radio, and Internet—to help make sense of the many complexities relating to environmental science and governance that (un)consciously shape our lives. I examine how multiscale factors have shaped media coverage in complex, dynamic, and nonlinear ways. These inquiries are situated in historical context as well as in larger processes of cultural politics and environmental change. Discussions here also touch on how media portrayals influence ongoing public understanding and engagement. Connections between media information and behaviors are not straightforward, as coverage does not determine engagement. Nonetheless, this article explores how media reports influence the spectrum of possibilities for different forms of environmental governance.