Discussion Paper: News from The Rain Forest: Niklas Luhmann and The Social Integration of Environmental Communication*  

Oleh:

Palmer, Allen W.

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Public Understanding of Science vol. 2 no. 2 (Apr. 1993), page 157-178.
Fulltext: 157PUS22.pdf (1.25MB)

Isi artikel

The destruction of the Amazon rain forest is an issue defined primarily through the accounts of environmental joumalists who find themselves caught between broad social and cultural forces. Environmentalism is a revolutionary paradigm which runs against traditional modernist tenets of science, but those domains are finding some areas of common ground. This project traces the significance of the tropical rain forest in terms of the social theory of Niklas Luhmann. who described ecological communication in terms of social differentiation and integration. Three separate domains of environmental discourse about the Amazon rain forest are identified in mass media: science, economics and politics. Originally, science defined the rain forest in terms of its taxonomy, then its biodiversity; in economics. the forest was understood in terms of the value Of MtUrdl resources; and in the political sphere, the forest is defined variously in terms of the struggle over control of its development and/or exploitation. Labour activist Chico Mendes, who was killed in the struggle over the Brazilian forest, has been described as an eco-martyr. emphasizing his role in the struggle between opposing interests. Environmental discourse has strained to isolate causal responsibility for problems, but Luhmann reasons that causeeffect linkages are not~always useful in clarifying complex issues. What emerge in the discursive traffic about the tropical rain forest are ideal conditions for the coalition and fragmentation of moral positions. and the cultivation of public anxiety. which the mass media fails to diffuse.

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