The U.S. Perspective

 The issue of deforestation in the Amazon can be looked at from many different viewpoints, but for this post I want to focus on the United States’ media coverage of this issue.

Framing and agenda-setting are two important media effects that are evident here. In scholar John Vivian’s textbook, The Media of Mass Communication, he defines framing as:

“Selecting aspects of a perceived reality for emphasis in a mass media message, thereby shaping how the audience sees the reality.”

He defines agenda-setting as:

“The process through which issues bubble up into public attention through mass media selection of what to cover.”

These two words effect the way the American people understand what’s going on in the Amazon rainforest. They only see what the media shows them through television or newspapers, among others.  The people don’t see if there is progress or regress on the issue, unless there is a story about it in the media.  If there is a story, the media may not even give the whole picture.

The New York Times has written several stories on deforestation in the Amazon, with pictures to show how times have changed in Brazil as more people are in search of jobs and moving around.  This article discusses how population growth has contributed to more deforestation as people move in and construct neighborhoods in the outer regions of the rain forest. They said that deforestation in this region already ranks among the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions. In this article, they mention how the Brazilian officials have historically the colonization of the Amazon has a matter of national security.

  

This article and similar ones from the U.S. only receive and publish a certain amount of information to the American public because since it’s not happening in our country, the average person does not have much concern on the topic.  News stations want to give the public something that will sell, and deforestation is not the most thrilling topic to discuss on the nightly news. Agenda-setting comes into play here because the US media would much rather post other more important and relevant issues, unless there is a drastic forest fire or a serious event that occurs in the Amazon forest.

In my next post I will discuss the Brazilian perspective of deforestation and mention actions that are being taken by the government and the people as well.

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FOX Misinformed

We are all well aware of our world's quest to find an alternative to getting new ways of energy other than the natural oil that we are limited in.  Fox has been reporting on a new way called fracking and has been a supporter of this new technique throughout numerous media reports.  Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep withing the earth.  Fracking makes it possible to produce natural gas extraction in shale plays that were once unreachable with conventional technologies.  Recent advancements in drilling technology have led to new man-made hydraulic fractures in shale plays.  Our societies advancement in technology is constantly changing the way we do things but not always for the better.   There is one major theme behind the madness of this news framing and lack of communication of simple facts in our media, MONEY. Our money driven economy has led to these pack of lies because media companies are all about making the most money it can make as told in this video:

This is actually quite scary to our society because our media has become manipulative just to sell a product that will put money into someones pocket.  Even something as important as our environment, something that effects of life itself is being manipulated in the greed for more wealth.  It is obvious in Alex Epstein's advertisement to public what's really important to winning people over.  In the Fox News clip they show the "benefits of fracking."

BENEFITS OF FRACKING (According to Fox News)

• Disposable household income up by $1,200
• Lower energy bill
• Economic growth up $283 billion
• Federal & state tax payments up by $74 billion

Fox didn't highlight the benefits of what it does for our environment or how it will promote sustainability.  Everything is aimed at our pockets and how it could make us more MONEY.  

Fox has become known for the common "frames" generated by PR and marketing experts that are used to convincing us of ideologies that we think of as logical.  In actuality they are detrimental to our and health and well being.  Should we govern our media channels with stricter rules or would this be a violation of our first amendment?  Receiving media messages has become very tricky but how should we handle our media information these days?   

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Perceived Obsolescence

Last week, I talked about the theory of planned obsolescence and how this increasing the amount of waste that humans produce. Well, there’s another piece to this puzzle called perceived obsolescence, which is a part of planned obsolescence which refers to how an object is no longer identified by the public as “cool” or “fashionable”.

To expand off the last post a little bit, various technologies can a prime example of the fads that quickly pass through our culture. The most prominent brand who this phenomenon is most often attributed to is Apple, as this article in the New York Times appropriately titled “Cracking the Apple Trap” demonstrates.  As soon as a new iPhone model out, our old one immediately seems less shiny and exciting, even if it only six months old itself. When things go out of fashion or something else becomes more popular, we recognize the first object as obsolete.

Another example of perceived obsolescence is the world of fashion. It seems like every month, not to mention every season, fashion shows and magazines are touting new clothes and trends that you just have to try if you have any sense of style at all.  But four months later, all of those clothes are suddenly out of fashion again. But why? They still function as clothing, and they don’t look or work any differently than they did before, but they are suddenly “perceived as obsolete”, just as the technology was.

Above and on right: examples of magazines explaining
new trends and showing consumers where to buy them

Our culture has placed such high importance on trendiness, and “keeping up with the Joneses”. In an article discussing the financial and consumption habits of Millennials, the author writes that “two in three [of Millennials] want to keep pace with peers on where they live and what they wear, and the types of places they eat and the gadgets they carry”. It matters to our society what we are seen wearing or holding, and if it’s suddenly obsolete, we want whatever it is that the rest of our friends and peers have.

In a study published in the Journal of Consumer Culture, the results discuss “psychological [perceived] obsolescence” and how it “prompts end consumers to constantly re-evaluate product qualities, devaluing existing products,  and [contributes to the] disposal of functioning products”. The constant renewal of our “stuff” is killing our environment because the consumer culture we have created in our society. 

"The Story of Stuff Project" is an organization who are working towards making our planet healthier through the consumption habits of society. This is the video they made that sparked their whole project, which has great insights into the issues of obsolescence:

What does all of this have to do with the environment? The media of magazines and new technologies have led us to experience desensitization in regards to the way that we view the planet. We become immersed in all the stuff that’s constantly available to us, and forget that all the resources to make these products have to come from somewhere, as well as be disposed of somewhere. The conceived concept of obsolescence desensitizes the public to the fact that its consumption is not sustainable and it is actually hurting the planet.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/magazine/why-apple-wants-to-bust-your-iphone.html 
http://business.time.com/2013/11/01/millennials-are-growing-up-but-theyre-still-making-one-huge-mistake/ 

http://search.ebscohost.com.libproxy.furman.edu/login.aspx?

http://storyofstuff.org/direct=true&db=aph&AN=84490660&site=ehost-live 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses  

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Sustainable Farming

Sustainable Farming

Last week, I talked about the fact that there are so many genetically modified foods out there that we are consuming on a day to day basis and don't know about! Now, there are advertisements out there, or at least are more prominent in our life to inform us about eating healthy and sustainably. But it wasn't always like that. According to this peer reviewed journal I found where an expert examined the history of food scarcity, genetic engineering of food, organic food and such and the origins - how it all started. So how prominent was this subject in social media? Turns out, not really. According to Stewie Lockie, prior to 1996, "very few articles on any aspect of sustainability found their way into any publications" despite sustainable programs and agriculture that had already been implemented. Lockie also mentions that even between 1996-2002, there were aspects of sustainability that "did not attract social media attention." 


But now it's everywhere, yet not a lot of people do anything about it.    So, this week I thought I would discuss the matter of sustainable farming. What does it mean exactly? According to the Grace Communications Foundation, have a sustainable farm is to produce "food, fiber, or other plant or animal products using farming techniques that protect the environment, public health, human communities, and animal welfare."According to this article I found on foxnews.com, we actually as a unit, meaning the world have enough food to provide for 11 billion people! (side note: why are so many people starving! if we do in fact have enough food, we need to make this accessible to people that can't afford it!). The problem is, we aren't being sustainable about it. Here are some ways that they suggest we should try to help:

1. Eat less meat
2. Throw less food away
3. Aquaponics
4. Vertical Farming
5. Improve crop production

After being depressed reading about the fact that we have all this food that just goes to waste, I thought it may be a good idea to restore my faith in humanity by looking at people, organizations or companies that are doing the opposite and becoming more sustainable! I recently found that one of my favorite fast-food chain restaurants Chipotle Mexican Grill has been promoting the idea of sustainable farming! Like most companies, the most common form of mass communication, or sending out a message to a large number of people, is through advertisements. 

     Normally, we see this through commercials on television, in the newspapers, radio, etc. However, Chipotle has stepped it up by creating an animated puppet film, about the process of factory farming of animals and how that is bad for the environment and for people. In the end, the farmer stops using chemicals, and the last few seconds of the film show that the food being packed into Chipotle's van to be taken to the chain stores are not processed and are organic. 

Impressively, this 2 minute film will run on the Grammy Award's telecast and at the end, viewers will be encouraged to download the film to share with family and friends via iTunes. The Grammy Awards last year had more than 26 million viewers! What better way to reach a large group of audience members? It already has more than 8 million views on Youtube as well, which can be and in this case is definitely used for what Vivian calls, "viral advertising."

As Vivian states in Chapter 12: Advertising, "throughout its history, dating from the 1950s until recently, television has outpaced the growth of other media as an advertising vehicle." He even goes on to mention that although the Internet is a popular tool as means for advertising in the media, it "remains a mere blip compared to network, cable and local television." I was actually surprised to read that the Internet is "a mere blip" in comparison to the television just because I suppose I am considered a "digital native," therefore most of my own personal exposure with the media comes from there. However, Vivian has a good point stating that when companies use the Internet as their preferred tool to get their ads out there, they will have to use it more strategically because most likely they will be trying to reach the attention of a very specific audience. However, this commercial/advertisement is coming from a restaurant which is obviously catered to the entire public, not intending for any demassification or anything like that, therefore it is smart for them to put this out there for people of all ages.

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Organic Food in the Media

When I think about the food I consume on a daily basis, whether it be at the dining hall at Furman University or store-bought, it never occurs to me the question of whether or not it's safe to eat or not. For that, I realize I am incredibly privileged as people all over the world struggle to fight for their health because of the food that they eat, often times not even having a choice. Often times, the food that we consume contain GMO's, or genetically modified organisms, which can be harmful to the human body in the long run:

Examples of GMO's:

• Introducing allergens and toxins to food
• Accidental contamination between genetically modified and non-genetically modified foods
• Antibiotic resistance
• Adversely changing the nutrient content of a crop
• Creation of "super" weeds and other environmental risks

Source: http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/are-biotech-foods-safe-to-eat

Why do people use them, if they are potentially harmful? In the short "run", there are temporary benefits including longer shelf-life, pest resistance, and increase in food supply. 

This brings me to my next question  - what is our world doing about it? How are they promoting the importance of healthy eating/organic foods, and how is it being advertised in our media to the public? (Organic foods meaning no synthetic pesticides, chemical fertilizer usage, no antibiotics or growth hormones etc). Most likely, you have probably seen advertisements somewhere for the promotion of organic foods at Trader Joe's or Whole Food's in America, but recent news has lead us to believe that their promotion was false advertising. One ways they use advertise is through videos, which they have uploaded on Youtube.

In hindsight this is actually quite a smart technique, as their advertising strategy was most likely to reach the masses, which Youtube does very well. As Vivian states in Chapter 11: Advertising, a lot of companies use a strategy that appears convenient and easy for people to buy their products, in order to attract consumers - "Goods and services can be ordered directly from ads appearing on the internet, making the point of purchase only a few keystrokes away" (Vivian, 298). But it's also deceiving, as it has been discovered that Whole Food's also carries foods with chemicals in them.

This is not just a problem on a domestic scale in the United States, but all over the world in countries such as the Philippines. In this article that I found on Globalpost, it talks about the horrific introduction of the first GMO rice! Isn't that totally absurd? Yes, it may be beautiful to look at, may even taste better than regular rice, but in the long term, who wants to consume all those chemicals that could harm your health drastically?? It's not even that people weren't doing anything about it, because in this article it clearly states that activists destroyed these rice fields when they heard about it, but somehow the FDA approved of it anyway. If we should take anything away, is that we need to be extremely careful of what we eat, and sometimes it may be better for us to stay indoors and cook so that we know exactly what goes into the food that goes into our bodies.

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A Look at the Amazon

Trees. They're kind of a big deal here on Earth, but we don't always realize how important they are until they start to disappear.  In other words, deforestation happens. This is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is converted into non-forest use.

It occurs for many reasons: trees can be cut down and sold for fuel or timber, and the cleared land can be used as a pasture for livestock, plantations, and settlements.  However, the overwhelming direct cause of deforestation is agriculture.  One of the main places this problem is occurring is in the Amazon Rain Forest.

Understandably, the media covers this topic in a negative light because deforestation is bad. We portray it in a tragic way to show we need to do something about this issue. The environment is important to us and we need to keep it flourishing for generations to come.

Reuters shows that efforts to decrease deforestation are not working. I know that timber is needed for many every day uses such as firewood and paper, but we need to be replanting trees at a higher rate so deforestation doesn't become a dire situation. Here is a video to show the time lapse of deforestation in this area:

This issue has important media purposes and economic foundations as well. The point of covering deforestation in the media, is to give out information on what's happening in the environment around the world. When there are stories on this issue, organizations are looking for donations and support from corporations and the government as well.

Some international organizations involved with conserving rain forests and deforestation are:

International Conservation Union

Wildlife Conservation Society

The World Wildlife Fund for Nature

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Business and the Environment: Missing Pieces to the Puzzle

Communicating sustainability and environmental issues via social media has become mainstream for big businesses. More companies are using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs to talk about sustainability than ever before. It simple to why this marketing tool has been so intriguing to use to build business brand's; they want there good deeds to go viral!  The big problem when there are business motives behind anything are the bits and pieces left out that would hurt profit and when reporting on sustainability there is no exception.  Here are the pieces that you do not get when reading about the environment and sustainability when companies promote it through social media. 


What really matters

PepsiCo recently tweeted about how it is teaming up with Matt Damon and Gary White to bring access to safe water to developing countries. 

PepsiCo ‏@PepsiCo21 OctWatch how we're working w Matt Damon and Gary White at @water to bring access to safe water to developing countries http://bit.ly/1a2BkhC  View media


While it is very important that PepsiCo is helping with our global water crisis, tweets like these are simply used as a pitch to help build their brand.  Notice that this pitch is made by stating the company is working with movie star Matt Damon.  Social media is already limited by how much substance and content we are able to use when communicating a message and many of the details that would be helpful about exactly how, why, and when this project will go into effect is left out. 


The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth

These same companies such as PepsiCo along with Coke and many others will not alert you of there contribution to the pollution of our earth.  Just recently Alisha Mims published an article called "Coke and Pepsi taste like tar sands."  In this article she talks about how large soda companies are some of the biggest oil users in the United States and that despite these companies' promises of sustainability, Coke and Pepsi, continue supporting "one of the worlds dirtiest oils on Earth."  As social media continues to grow the customers of these companies will continue to increasingly get more advertisement through social media, which will not only limit there knowledge on a product but also what they know to be true. The conglomeration and convergence of these companies has also hurt the limited truths that reach our consumers because people really only now of Coke and Pepsi as the top companies in the soda industry.  Pepsi has also been criticized for the amount of water pollution it has caused in many other countries but through demassification this will continue to be hidden its target audience.    


What they ACTUALLY do to help the cause 

Businesses use social media as another tool to market and advertise their product.  True authenticity has become a major issue in the world of marketing and advertisement, therefore, what they report and market on the environment and sustainability will not always be real.  The oil company with the worst safety and environmental record of the Big Six is also the author of "Beyond Petroleum," one of the most successful green-branding campaigns ever.  BP  promoted these new oil and safety precautions through social media as a huge hypocrite. The real problem here was not that BP made PR mistakes but that they do none of what they preached; it was all simply to better the brand.  Companies let perception get ahead of reality.  BP did a fabulous job with "Beyond Petroleum," but less than 1% of their revenue has ever come from renewables.

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