Major
International Studies
Anticipated Graduation Year
2025
Access Type
Open Access
Abstract
Although colonialism and industrialization from the Global North significantly contributed to environmental degradation, contemporary media coverage increasingly shifts blame for environmental disasters onto the Global South. How does media coverage in the Global North assign blame for environmental degradation in the Global South, and how has this changed over time? What effect do these rhetorical tactics have on public support for environmentalism? We argue that rhetorical tactics employed by the media of Global North states have slowly but surely impacted the perceived blame held by the public and that this blame tempers support for environmentalism. In order to analyze the effect of media coverage, we will conduct a content analysis of different news mediums. We will also conduct a survey experiment to capture the effect this coverage has on public opinion. We expect to find that the public’s perception of blame when examining environmental issues in the Global South is skewed by the misattribution of blame and a lack of historical context provided in modern media coverage. These findings highlight the added political weight placed on the Global South, whose environmental degradation began against their will.
Faculty Mentors & Instructors
Sarah Maxey, PhD
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
The Consequences of Blame: Media Coverage, Environmental Degradation, and Public Support for Environmentalism in the Global South
Although colonialism and industrialization from the Global North significantly contributed to environmental degradation, contemporary media coverage increasingly shifts blame for environmental disasters onto the Global South. How does media coverage in the Global North assign blame for environmental degradation in the Global South, and how has this changed over time? What effect do these rhetorical tactics have on public support for environmentalism? We argue that rhetorical tactics employed by the media of Global North states have slowly but surely impacted the perceived blame held by the public and that this blame tempers support for environmentalism. In order to analyze the effect of media coverage, we will conduct a content analysis of different news mediums. We will also conduct a survey experiment to capture the effect this coverage has on public opinion. We expect to find that the public’s perception of blame when examining environmental issues in the Global South is skewed by the misattribution of blame and a lack of historical context provided in modern media coverage. These findings highlight the added political weight placed on the Global South, whose environmental degradation began against their will.