Media, Politics and Environment - Analyzing Experiences from Europe and Asia

Environmental protection has not equally established itself as a permanent fixture in the political systems of all countries: to date, governments and entire societies have responded to environmental challenges in a variety of ways, and concrete environmental policy is still a highly national matter. Moreover, the perception of environmental problems varies considerably on a global scale. The reasons normally cited for these differences largely stem from the environmental policy debates themselves, e.g. poverty, ignorance, capital interests, etc. 

In contrast, this book shows that concrete environmental policy emerges from a complex interplay of mass media and political conflicts: first, the mass media provide the framework for national environmental policy through agenda-setting, framing and scandalization; second, the mass media thereby change values in the political and social discourse, e.g. by altering the perception of global commons and expanding the possibilities of interest articulation; and third, this can lead to political decision-making processes in which legal and other measures for environmental protection are enforced. The book systematically compares industrialized countries such as Germany and Japan with several rapidly emerging countries in South and Southeast Asia.

Dr. Detlef Briesen is a social scientist from Justus-Liebig University Giessen in Germany. His research chiefly focuses on South and Southeast Asia, and he has served as DAAD University Advisor in Vietnam since 2010. He has organized numerous research projects and conferences and has authored over 100 publications in German, English and French. 

Dr. Sarada Prasanna Das is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research's Initiative on Climate Energy and Environment (ICEE) in New Delhi, India. His research interests include sociology and politics of electricity governance, environmental governance and water-energy-food nexus in the context of India.