1981
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Journal of Environmental Media
  4. Volume 3, Issue 1
  5. Article
Seeing the (In)Justice of Sustainability: Visualizing Inequality at the Centre of Climate Change Communication
  • ISSN: 2632-2463
  • E-ISSN: 2632-2471

Abstract

In this article, I examine and critique how the current and predicted future impacts of climate change are often reported on through the aesthetics and discourse of war. I argue that the journalistic imperative to witness climate change is important to consider here. Indeed, news images and descriptive accounts of climate change are often privileged for their evidentiary value according to a very strict set of visual criteria shaped by an established definition of what violence and war look like. Through a multimodal analysis of news coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane María across prominent US news magazines, I examine what constitutes compelling evidence of climate change, why and to what end in terms of the types of responses featured and proposed by journalists. Ultimately, my analysis reveals how Puerto Rico is demarcated as a ‘death-world’ across publications, effectively casting Puerto Rico as a ‘purgatory island’ dependent on the help of the United States represented as a saviour.

© 2022 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/jem_00073_1
2022-10-01
2023-06-05
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Agamben, G.. ( 1998), Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford, CA:: Stanford University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Arbasetti, J. C.,, Minet, C.,, Hernandez, A. V., and Stites, J.. ( 2017;), ‘ The vultures circling Puerto Rico: A special investigation. ’, In These Times, December, pp. 18–23.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Berlant, L.. ( 2007;), ‘ Slow death (sovereignty, obesity, lateral agency). ’, Critical Inquiry, 33:4, pp. 754–80.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Bonilla, Y.. ( 2020;), ‘ The coloniality of disaster: Race, empire, and the temporal logics of emergency in Puerto Rico. ’, Political Geography, 78, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102181. Accessed 5 September 2022.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Bonilla, Y., and LeBrón, M.. (eds) ( 2019), Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm, Chicago, IL:: Haymarket Books;.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Callison, C.. ( 2017;), ‘ Climate change communication and Indigenous publics. ’, Oxford Encyclopedia of Climate Science, 26 September, https://oxfordre.com/climatescience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228620-e-411?rskey=lNGjtK&result=3. Accessed 21 August 2020.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Callison, C., and Young, M. L.. ( 2020), Reckoning: Journalism’s Limits and Possibilities, Oxford:: Oxford University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Chouliaraki, L.. ( 2006), The Spectatorship of Suffering, London:: Sage;.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Demos, T. J.. ( 2017), Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today, Berlin:: Sternberg Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Dijk, T. A. Van. ( 2008), Discourse and Power, Basingstoke:: Palgrave Macmillan;.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Farbotko, C., and Lazrus, H.. ( 2012;), ‘ The first climate refugees? Contesting global narratives of climate change in Tuvalu. ’, Global Environmental Change, 22:2, pp. 382–90.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Foucault, M.. ( 1975), Discipline and Punish, New York:: Vintage Books;.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Foucault, M.. ( 1978), The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, New York:: Pantheon Books;.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Foucault, M.. ( 1980), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977, New York:: Vintage Books;.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Foucault, M.. ( [1980] 2000;), ‘ Interview with Michel Foucault. ’, in J. D. Faubion. (ed.), Power: Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, vol. 3, New York:: The New Press;, pp. 239–97.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Foucault, M.. ( 2003), Society Must Be Defended, New York:: Picador;.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Hall, S.. (ed.) ( 1997), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, London:: Sage;.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Hartmann, B.. ( 2019), The America Syndrome: Apocalypse, War, and Our Call to Greatness, New York:: Seven Stories Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Keellings, D., and Hernández Ayala, J. J.. ( 2019;), ‘ Extreme rainfall associated with Hurricane Maria over Puerto Rico and its connections to climate variability and change. ’, Geophysical Research Letters, 46:5, pp. 2964–73.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Klein, N.. ( 2007), The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Toronto:: Random House;.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Lam, A., and Tegelberg, M.. ( 2019;), ‘ Witnessing glaciers melt: Climate change and transmedia storytelling. ’, Journal of Science Communication, 18:2, https://doi.org/10.22323/2.18020205. Accessed 5 September 2022.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Loftus, E. F.. ( 1979), Eyewitness Testimony, Cambridge, MA:: Harvard University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Masco, J.. ( 2010;), ‘ Bad weather: On planetary crisis. ’, Social Studies of Science, 40:1, pp. 7–40.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Mbembe, A.. ( 2003;), ‘ Necropolitics. ’, Public Culture, 15:1, pp. 11–40.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Mbembe, A.. ( 2019), Necropolitics, Durham, NC:: Duke University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Moernaut, R.,, Mast, J., and Pepermans, Y.. ( 2018;), ‘ Reversed positionality, reversed reality? The multimodal Environmental Justice frame in mainstream and alternative media. ’, International Communication Gazette, 80:5, pp. 476–505.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Morris, H. E.. ( 2021;), ‘ Apocalypse divided: Analyzing power, media, and climate change before and after Trump. ’, Politique Américaine, 36:1, pp. 53–75.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Nixon, R.. ( 2011), Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Cambridge, MA:: Harvard University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. O’Neill, S. J.,, Boykoff, M.,, Niemeyer, S., and Day, S. A.. ( 2013;), ‘ On the use of imagery for climate change engagement. ’, Global Environmental Change, 23:2, pp. 413–21.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Onís, C. M. de. ( 2012;), ‘ “Looking both ways”: Metaphor and the rhetorical alignment of intersectional climate justice and reproductive justice concerns. ’, Environmental Communication, 6:3, pp. 308–27.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Onís, C. M. de. ( 2018;), ‘ Fueling and delinking from energy coloniality in Puerto Rico. ’, Journal of Applied Communication Research, 46:5, pp. 535–60.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Onís, C. M. de. ( 2021), Energy Islands: Metaphors of Power, Extractivism, and Justice in Puerto Rico, Berkeley, CA:: University of California Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Peeples, J.. ( 2011;), ‘ Toxic sublime: Imagining contaminated landscapes. ’, Environmental Communication, 5:4, pp. 373–92.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Pezzullo, P.. ( 2007), Toxic Tourism: Rhetorics of Pollution, Travel, and Environmental Justice, Tuscaloosa, AL:: University of Alabama Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Reel, M.. ( 2017;), ‘ How to rebuild an island. ’, Bloomberg Businessweek, 18 December.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Roosvall, A., and Tegelberg, M.. ( 2013;), ‘ Framing climate change and indigenous peoples: Intermediaries of urgency, spirituality and de-nationalization. ’, International Communication Gazette, 75:4, pp. 392–409.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Roosvall, A., and Tegelberg, M.. ( 2015;), ‘ Media and the geographies of climate justice: Indigenous peoples, nature and geopolitics of climate change. ’, Triple C: Communication, Capitalism and Critique, 13:1, pp. 39–54.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Schwartz, M.. ( 2017;), ‘ Maria’s bodies: The hurricane in Puerto Rico has become a man-made disaster, with a death toll threatening to eclipse Katrina’s. ’, New York Magazine, 25 December.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Selby, J.,, Dahi, O. S.,, Fröhlich, C., and Hulme, M.. ( 2017;), ‘ Climate change and the Syrian civil war revisited. ’, Political Geography, 60, pp. 232–44.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Sheller, M.. ( 2013;), ‘ The islanding effect: Post-disaster mobility systems and humanitarian logistics in Haiti. ’, Cultural Geographies, 20:2, pp. 185–204.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Sheller, M.. ( 2020), Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene, Durham, NC:: Duke University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Sontag, S.. ( 2003), Regarding the Pain of Others, New York:: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux;.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Spivak, G. C.. ( 1985;), ‘ The Rani of Sirmur: An essay in reading the archives. ’, History and Theory, 24:3, pp. 247–72.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Wang, S.,, Corner, A.,, Chapman, D., and Markowitz, E.. ( 2018;), ‘ Public engagement with climate imagery in a changing digital landscape. ’, WIREs Climate Change, 9:2, pp. 1–18.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Wetherell, M.,, Taylor, S., and Yates, S. J.. (eds) ( 2001), Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader, London:: Sage;.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Wodak, R., and Meyer, M.. (eds) ( 2009), Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, , 2nd ed.., London:: Sage;.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Wozniak, A.,, Lück, J., and Wessler, H.. ( 2015;), ‘ Frames, stories, and images: The advantages of a multimodal approach in comparative media content research on climate change. ’, Environmental Communication, 9:4, pp. 469–90.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Yeampierre, E., and Klein, N.. ( 2017;), ‘ Imagine a Puerto Rico recovery designed by Puerto Ricans: Under the banner of a “just recovery” for Puerto Rico, thousands have come together to design a bold and holistic plan for the island to be rebuilt. ’, The Intercept, 20 October.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Yusoff, K.. ( 2009;), ‘ Excess, catastrophe, and climate change. ’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 27:6, pp. 1010–29.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Zelizer, B.. ( 1998), Remembering to Forget: Holocaust Memory Through the Camera’s Eye, Chicago, IL:: University of Chicago Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Zelizer, B.. ( 2007;), ‘ On “having been there”: “Eyewitnessing” as a journalistic key word. ’, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 24:5, pp. 408–28.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Zelizer, B.. ( 2010), About to Die: How News Images Move the Public, Oxford:: Oxford University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Morris, Hanna E.. ( 2022;), ‘ Purgatory islands and climate death-worlds: Interrogating the journalistic imperative to witness the climate crisis through the lens of war. ’, Journal of Environmental Media, 3:1, pp. 85–100, https://doi.org/10.1386/jem_00073_1
     [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1386/jem_00073_1
Loading
  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): climate communication; climate journalism; Hurricane María; national security discourse; necropolitics; news images; Puerto Rico; slow violence

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error