Juliet Pinto

Constructing Climate Change in the Americas: An Analysis of News Coverage in U.S. and South American Newspapers

This study examined the portrayal of climate change in four national newspapers from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and the United States. The results indicated that leading media in Brazil and the United States highlighted the policy progress being made to mitigate climate change and presented the issue in economic terms, whereas coverage in Argentina and Colombia portrayed the issue as being urgent and emphasized the catastrophic consequences of climate change. The findings are consistent with previous work indicating a lack of focus on scientific controversy from non-U.S. media and present implications for comparative studies examining nuances in international coverage of climate change.

Muzzling the watchdog The case of disappearing watchdog journalism from Argentine mainstream news

What silences an emergent watchdog press, even after that press has overcome great adversity to bring a form of journalism to mainstream news supporting democratization and social justice? Argentina presents an interesting case study in terms of changes in watchdog performance in a democratic and market-oriented context. A content analysis of three major Argentine news outlets from 1985 to 2005 first demonstrates that observable changes have taken place in mainstream watchdog reporting. Then, from interviews with journalists, media managers and media analysts, results indicate perceptions that public opinion shifts, media economy fluctuations, organizational strategies and government media relations facilitated or hindered the free practice of watchdog journalism in mainstream media. These findings illustrate the effects of forces working at the institutional and individual level that influence media performance, rather than simply at the environmental. Rather than a paradox, the Argentine case has implications for press freedom in other democracies.

TRANSPARENCY POLICY INITIATIVES IN LATIN AMERICA: UNDERSTANDING POLICY OUTCOMES FROM AN INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Access to public information contributes to the strengthening of democratic institutions and confidence in the political system, of particular importance where government calculi have traditionally favored secrecy rather than transparency. This article compares recent access initiatives in Mexico and Argentina to provide understanding of the forces working to promote or discourage policy adoption. Using an institutional perspective, data from interviews with legal and media analysts, media professionals, public officials and members of non-government organizations were examined, and relevant literature was analyzed. In Mexico, key pressures in the form of press coverage and political opposition were necessary to push the initiative through Congress. In Argentina, such influences were largely absent.

Reciprocal (and Reductionist?) Newswork

This paper builds upon previous research that examines participatory forms of “reciprocal journalism” and “public communication” led by high school and college students in Miami, Florida, USA, in the fall of 2014. In this study, the students’ assessment of local and national media coverage is used to reveal greater details inherent in examining participatory methods of newswork. Collectively, students said that media coverage emphasis on local and national public officials instead of residents and community members who experience sea-level rise first-hand, combined with a lack of scientific explanation of and solutions for sea-level rise reduced the events potential to build reciprocal relationships with younger audiences.

Brazil and the Belo Monte Dam: “The Amazon Is Ours”

The fourth-largest hydroelectric plant in the world, the Belo Monte dam, on the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon in northern Brazil, requires the flooding of rainforest and agricultural areas, as well as the resettlement of thousands of residents, and has been the source of substantial controversy. In press reports, the authors find a reliance on official sources and a focus on the conflict between the local residents and the government and consortium. This case study reveals the ways in which local politics are interpreted and transformed into the national by regional and national media, and how indigenous communities’ perspectives and views are regarded in economically booming Brazil, even as they are linked to international environmental networks and have popular support at home. It also reveals how media strategies from non-state actors shape coverage.

Introduction: Extraction, National Development and Environmental News in Twenty-first-century South America

A region where many local and national economies are based on natural resource extractive activities to meet global demand, South America provides an important laboratory for understanding the social construction of news regarding contestations over the promotion of extractivism as a national development strategy. Often residents living in extraction zones must deal with not only environmental degradation but also health impacts and loss of culture and heritage. Focusing on historical interfaces of news, environment, ideas of modernity and development, and media–state relations, Pinto, Prado and Tirado offer an introduction to the social construction of news that is provided to mass audiences in South America, and discuss the pressures that impact journalism in the region.

Mediating claims of environmental degradation, source credibility and risk to human health: Ecuadorian news coverage of the Chevron case

How are claims of environmental degradation and health risk and hazard socially constructed in mediated arenas? This article examines frames, sources and claims in articles from Ecuadorian news regarding the lawsuit against Chevron brought by thousands of indigenous peoples living in the Amazonian region, who claimed their health was at risk and ancestral lands destroyed by petroleum contamination. Findings indicated that the risk discussion at the heart of events and conflicts was subsumed by coverage that focused largely on the legal conflict as well as was indexed to the claims denying the hazard. The case has significance for understanding mediated claims of risk and responsibility through a lens of news production.