Confirmed to be a dangerous threat to the planet, global warming is a result of both natural and human causes. Therefore, many environmentalists, including politician Al Gore, find the need to broadcast the problem and promote action by humans to decrease their fossil fuel and carbon dioxide emissions. To demonstrate the possible influence humans could have on decreasing green house gas production, Gore created ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. This is a documentary following his tour throughout the world preaching the dangers of global warming and the role of the human population in decreasing the over abundant gases in the atmosphere. Although Gore’s film created a wave of action throughout the United States, his method of visually overemphasizing the dangers and threats to humans instilled fear and discomfort in the population, demonstrating an unfortunate use of manipulative and risk communication.
Al Gore’s greatest tool in creating a successful use of scare-tactics was publicizing his cause through the use of film. Film and television became effective forms of communication immediately upon arrival in the U.S. largely due to their highly influential role in emotional investment. By combining image and voice technology, film is overwhelmingly effective, and fascinatingly, people do not realize its effect on them. Even in my greatest effort against emotional involvement in the film, I found myself sympathizing with the polar bears and smiling after seeing the U.S. cities taking action. Yet the most influential emotion I felt from the film was fear: fear that my family in San Francisco would sink, relocating or even killing them, and fear that another natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina would destruct our nation. This ability to cause an uncontrollably painful influence upon the viewers demonstrates how scare-tactics are a useful, yet controversial tool by environmental activists.
Environmentalists and activists such as Al Gore and James Lovelock are also crafty in their use of risk communication. Risk communication emphasizes dangers and threats to point out the urgency of problems impacting the environment. Environmental films use risk communication to fuel the contextual impact on the viewers. By using risk communication to relate to the audience, The 11th Hour describes the CO2 possible influence on increased cancer and asthma cases in the world. Gore’s film as well uses risk communication for context, but instead conveys the message through the nationally infamous Hurricane Katrina. Because Gore takes advantage of this tragic event to emphasize his point, the activist’s use of risk communication is arguably immoral, thus verifying the negatives of his strategy.
Yet, the question is whether scare tactics and risk communication are the best strategies to fight environmental issues. It seems unfair and disappointing that the main method of reaching out to the public is scaring them into action. Many fear that the unbiased scientific evidence given through journalism is not effective enough in motivating the public to take action. This issue brings the question to mind; do desperate times call for desperate measures? I surely believe and hope not.
The art of environmental activism demands a high level of strategic communication, one in which those who are attempting to persuade others to believe the way they do must use specific tactics to not only draw attention to an issue, but convince others to have the same passion. As discussed in lecture, strategic communication is using the skill of communication to inform, persuade, or influence a selected audience in order to achieve a specific outcome. Understanding strategic communication is an essential tool as an environmental activist and through extensive consideration; different activist groups can build effective campaigns to help their cause.
Greenpeace, a globally recognized environmental activist group commonly uses ‘‘shock value’’ to bring attention to issues they see as important. Although some may not agree with the way Greenpeace attempts to rally people around and issue, they use strategic communication to reach a broad audience through their outrageous campaigns.
The following is a less violent video created by Greenpeace which uses a mock police investigation as a way to draw attention to David Koch, the Vice President of Koch Industries and oil billionaire.
In this video, Greenpeace uses a much less violent approach to get their message across. They strategically target multiple groups with this commercial, explaining who David Koch is (an oil billionaire who funds environmental and historical exhibits and uses those to tell the public that drilling for oil is not harmful to the environment.)
Greenpeace creates it’s own opportunities to communicate their cause in the video and their use of repetition on the issue of David Koch’s attempts to cover his damage to the environment engraves a strong message in the viewer’s mind about Koch Industries. The goal of this video is to make the public aware of the issue at hand and because of this mild approach, it is much more likely to be shown to a wide variety of people.
Although the audience most likely cannot stop Koch Industries from continuing to drill for oil, Greenpeace exposes areas outside of the oil industry where David Koch is involved. It is effective because after watching the commercial, anyone can be left more informed than they were before. This video is refreshing to view because it is a peaceful demonstration of Greenpeace giving knowledge to the public about how misleading Koch Industries’ mission is and can motivate people to seek the truth.
By: Karissa Bodnar
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Printed Ads Strategy: What Works, What Doesn't
Printed ads about climate change keep coming these recent days. They appear on billboards, magazines, and newspapers; some of them might work, and some of them may not. There should be a certain strategy that is ideal enough in order to influence people to change. According to the lecture, definition of strategic communication is using communication to inform, persuade, or influence a selected audience in order to achieve a specific outcome. Therefore, one thing that we should know before creating the ads is: knowing the audience. That means if we want to influence human, then we need to address them directly.
Below is one of the printed ads that does not work well…
Based on the image and its title “The Tsunami Killed 100 Times More People than 911. The world is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it,” it expresses how nature is so powerful, that it can essentially influence climate change. It presents how ocean currents by Tsunamis are one of the major nature occurrences that cause climate change. By presenting this idea, it can be seen that this ad does not prioritize human as their target. Even though this ad also tries to indirectly send a message to humans that we need to act considerately in order to preserve our planet. However, not many people can see its hidden message. Because of the indirect message, this ad does not necessarily work in influencing people to change their environmental behavior or lifestyle. If it doesn’t involve us directly, we tend to ignore it.
In contrast to the first ad, the clean water ad above works very well in influencing humans. According to its message, “World’s drinkable water supplies are running out. Stop global warming”, seems like it only emphasizes human’s role in influencing global warming, and left the nature influences behind. Because of its message that is specifically and directly targeted at humans, this ad will be more likely influence humans to change their behavior compared to the first ad. This ad also has a clear call to action instead about global warming instead of just a general statement about the world. By putting this printed ad on the water dispenser, it reminds us several times a day, every time we consume water that the earth’s water supply and climate change will be affected creating global warming.
Since the awareness of pollution entered the main stream media, activists have tried their best to find ways to grab the public’s attention and make an impact. However, there is a continuous battle between public problems (problems that affect most everyone or damage or threaten a public good) and private problems (problems that effect a select few and damage or threaten a private good) and their role in the Public Sphere. Jugen Habermas defines the Public Sphere as ‘a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed.’ Basically, Habermas is saying that private people come together to discuss common concerns of public issues.
Today there are so many different concerns and such a large variety of audiences that it is hard to deliberate for the common good. However, Greenpeace continues to draw attention to pollution problems around the world and widen the Public Sphere. Commercial media has been an effective way to bring up public issues, such as energy efficient light bulbs.
In the commercial above, Greenpeace uses a clever and funny way to get the publics attention about how to save energy. This is a public problem because the world does not have an endless supply of clean energy resources, especially not enough to keep up with the United States energy usage. This is a Problem that affects everyone who uses electricity… that means you reading this right now! However, there are some debates about what problems are public and which are private.
In this commercial, also by Greenpeace, the topic of pollution from manufacturing and discarding videogame systems is brought up. Some may argue that this is a public problem because the waste from these systems goes into the environment compromising it for all those who live in our earth’s environment. On the other hand, many would argue that this is a private problem because like Hays states, ‘it depends on the parties involved.’ This is like hunting for dear that is on your own property. If it is on your land, it is yours to do with what you want. In the same nature, if a game system is in ones home, it is up the owners what to do with it and how to get rid of the machine if broken or finished serving its purpose.
While environmental activists have always been negatively labeled as radical, spontaneous, and sometimes dangerous, the media has profited off of their controversial tactics in the hit television series Whale Wars. This show not only highlights the travels of this group but the producers frame this series to show the activists as environmental heroes protecting the future of whales and dolphins.
The documentary follows of the travels of activist group the Sea Sheppard Conservation Society aboard their ship The Steve Erwin. This group is passionate about the conservation and protection of the ocean’s ecosystems by ending the destruction of the habitat and the slaughter of wildlife in the oceans. In this television series, TV crews follow the radical group as they stalk the Japanese whaling fleet in the Antarctic waters in attempts to stop their whaling efforts by any means necessary. This group targets the Japanese because the Japanese have found a loophole in the treaty that lets them whale as much as they want in the means of “scientific research.” This series brings viewers aboard the vessel and into the day-to-day action of this group’s effort to stop the excessive whaling of the Japanese.
While this documentary follows the action of this controversial activist group, Animal Planet is put in the middle by framing the series to show the Sea Sheppards as heroes and the Japanese as insensitive murderers. Similar to the ideas in Robert Entman’s article Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm, the producers use the two concepts of framing, salience and selection, to appeal to their viewers. For salience, Animal Planet has chosen to follow this group and depicts the controversial tactics of the Sea Sheppards to be a bigger deal then they are. This can be seen in clip #2 showing the drama of seeing a whale being killed and dismembered. The producers highlight the concept of salience in this clip by showing that a whale dying is a horribly tragedy, as well as hearing the commentary of activists for a dramatic spin.Animal Planet utilizes the concept of selection by choosing exactly what footage to be shown to the public. This specific footage makes these interactions between the conflicting groups to look extremely tense. Animal planet also tries to select footage to show the Japanese as heartless and violent while the activists continue to be shown as modern day heroes fighting for a cause. This kind of selection is shown in the clip #3 where the Japanese start to throw grenades at the Sea Sheppards during a confrontation.
This series while framed in favor of the Sea Sheppards, has given activists the kind of positive attention that they strive for. The increasing popularity of the show has educated viewers on the exact message that activists try to convey and more is being done to stop excessive whaling. For more information about this series check out the website:
The purpose of our blog is to inform people and explain different strategies by various environmentalists and organizations to educate and call to action. Strategies such as advertisements, commercials, and demonstrations are some of the few emphasized among the blog. Fiona Kurtz, Karissa Bodnar, Megan Dalgleish, Andrea Osterhout, and Bianca Sutjiadi are the creators and masterminds behind the blog. Enjoy!
