Lyn McGaurr

TRAVEL JOURNALISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICT: A cosmopolitan perspective

Although travel journalism can have considerable influence in one of the worlds largest marketplaces, a definition remains elusive and the genre continues to be under-explored. The explanation may be a scholarly ambivalence towards the use of the word “journalism” to describe texts characterized by subjectivity and a conspicuous proximity to tourism advertising. Yet not all travel journalism is tourisms handmaiden. Drawing on examples of US and British newspaper and magazine travel articles that criticize forestry practices in Australias island state of Tasmania, this paper attempts to understand better the genesis and deployment of political comment in a genre routinely subsidized and besieged by government public relations. The paper argues that travel journalism that subverts traditional expectations of the genre through its mediation of environmental conflict can usefully be understood as a textual manifestation of the cosmopolitan interplay of culture and environment arising out of transnational and cross-genre discourse. Noting Ulrich Becks faith in the media to promote active political cosmopolitanism, the paper hypothesizes that further analysis of travel journalism has the potential to provide surprising insights into journalism, public relations and the mediation of global concern.

THE DEVIL MAY CARE: Travel journalism, cosmopolitan concern, politics and the brand

As journalism scholars’ interest in the impact of public relations on hard news has grown in recent years, little attention has been paid to attempts by elite sources to influence soft journalism. In an effort to better understand what can, in fact, be complex interactions between travel journalists and public relations practitioners, this paper tracks one destinations brand over an extended period of cosmopolitan concern. It finds that in times of conflict, government tourism public relations may become politically instrumental, as public relations practitioners seek simultaneously to promote the destination and shield it from media scrutiny. At such times, travel journalists may subvert traditional expectations of their genre by exposing contradictions in the brand. The paper concludes that the power of travel journalism derives not only from its authors’ capacity to communicate through their texts but also from their tendency to be enmeshed in the interactivity of the brand.

The Election that Forgot the Environment? Issues, EMOs, and the Press in Australia

The 2013 Australian federal election campaign has been described as the campaign that “forgot the environment.” We test this claim by comparing the news representation of the environment and environmental movement organizations (EMOs) in Australian federal elections from 1990 to 2013, and consider how coverage of environmental issues and organizations has changed over time. We also analyze the intensity and range of coverage of EMOs and environmental issues during the 2013 election campaign in relation to behind-the-scenes media practices of EMOs, including the circulation of media releases and other campaign material, and levels of activity on social media and organization Web sites. We find that this activity did not translate into high visibility in news media for EMOs. We offer tentative evidence of a link between the dominance of climate change coverage and the poor visibility of EMOs and other environmental issues.

Wilderness and the Media Politics of Place Branding

It is 30 years since the Australian environmental movement enlisted the term “wilderness” to protect Tasmanias remote Franklin River from hydroelectric development. Environmentalists deployed “wilderness” strategically during the conflict to build public support for their no-dam campaign, aided by national and international media who used the term liberally, while Tasmanian news media and pro-development elites acknowledged the terms inherent political qualities by suppressing its use. Our interest is in the political and media framing of “wilderness” since the concept was “branded” by government and industry at the turn of the twenty-first century. Drawing on continuing environmental conflict over Tasmanias remote Tarkine region as a case study, we ask to what extent media portrayals of “wilderness” have changed since the Franklin dam was stopped and the Tasmanian World Heritage Wilderness Area was created in 1982. Using content analysis of related articles in the local media and qualitative analysis of international travel journalism about Tasmania published over an extended period, we find that place branding has contributed to the routinization of “wilderness” and to a shift in the focus of mediated conflict from “wilderness” to “tourism.” The Tasmanian experience demonstrates that while the actions of the environmental movement can valorize place, branding can depoliticize contested natural areas. Yet brands that incorporate or allude to “wilderness” may have the unanticipated consequence of valorizing “wilderness” transnationally, in a manner that the environmental movement would struggle to emulate.

The New Media Politics of

We draw on our interviews at length in this chapter to consider the changing relationship between media and leadership, focusing on leadership and media careers, and changing media practices. We conclude with our reflections and those of interviewees on the still-emerging relationship between environmental leadership and twenty-first-century media and communications. Most of our interviewees note that the ‘jury is still out’. Of particular interest are the conditions under which environmental leaders must now operate when communicating risk and potential for disaster, and ask how these conditions influence movement leadership. We outline how environmental leaders adjust media practices according to their complex and tenuous relationship with publics and political power, and within the context of the rich history of environmental leadership and campaigning in Australia.

The New Media Politics of Environmental LeadershipEnvironmental Leadership

We draw on our interviews at length in this chapter to consider the changing relationship between media and leadership, focusing on leadership and media careers, and changing media practices. We conclude with our reflections and those of interviewees on the still-emerging relationship between environmental leadership and twenty-first-century media and communications. Most of our interviewees note that the ‘jury is still out’. Of particular interest are the conditions under which environmental leaders must now operate when communicating risk and potential for disaster, and ask how these conditions influence movement leadership. We outline how environmental leaders adjust media practices according to their complex and tenuous relationship with publics and political power, and within the context of the rich history of environmental leadership and campaigning in Australia.

The New Media Politics of Environmental Leadership

We draw on our interviews at length in this chapter to consider the changing relationship between media and leadership, focusing on leadership and media careers, and changing media practices. We conclude with our reflections and those of interviewees on the still-emerging relationship between environmental leadership and twenty-first-century media and communications. Most of our interviewees note that the ‘jury is still out’. Of particular interest are the conditions under which environmental leaders must now operate when communicating risk and potential for disaster, and ask how these conditions influence movement leadership. We outline how environmental leaders adjust media practices according to their complex and tenuous relationship with publics and political power, and within the context of the rich history of environmental leadership and campaigning in Australia.

Leadership and the construction of environmental concerns

This book emerges from a three-year Australian Research Council-funded study that asks how the formation and (d)evolution of leadership has impacted on public environmental debate. To do this, it draws on extensive news text analysis and public opinion survey data, as well as qualitative interviews with Australian and international movement actors. The volume investigates environmental leadership in a period of rapid political and media change by examining the nature, variety and scope; specifically, how it is understood and generated and how it changes over time. For the first time, the interconnected roles of leaders and media in constructing environmental issues are researched together, providing new evidence-based understandings of the people and processes driving public debate on environmental futures.

Environmental Concerns and the Media

Several leaders quoted in Chap. 2 lamented that the environmental movement had not performed well on the issue of climate change. To test this, we compare the news representation of environmental issues and EMOs in Australian federal elections from 1990 to 2013. We are interested in whether that coverage has changed over time. We then focus in depth on the intensity and range of coverage of EMOs and environmental issues during the 2013 election campaign, particularly in relation to behind-the-scenes media practices of EMOs and their leaders, including the circulation of media releases and other campaign material, and levels of activity on social media and organisation websites. We find that this activity did not translate into high visibility in news media for EMOs and their leaders. We also offer tentative evidence of a link between the dominance of climate-change coverage and the poor visibility of EMOs and other environmental issues in metropolitan media.

Introduction: Environmental LeadershipEnvironmental Leadership in Transition

Research seeking to explain how environmental threats and conflicts are publicly articulated faces a major challenge. In a social movement where the very notion of leadership is sometimes contested and often hidden, how are we to understand the role of environmental leaders in shaping political and public-issue agendas? Why are some leaders more influential than others? How do the sometimes conflicting interests of environmental leaders, Greens politicians and protest groups influence the way environmental concerns are negotiated? How do leaders and media interact in constructing environmental issues, and how has this changed with the major changes affecting media platforms, practices and technologies? This chapter introduces Leadership and the Construction of Environmental Concerns, providing an overview of key issues, related scholarship and the methods used for gathering and analysing the data on which this book is based.