Page 188 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

182 R.A. HACKETT AND S. GUNSTER

attitudes or popular civic participation (Hackett 2017a). Nevertheless,
both its limitations and its successes could richly inform our understanding
of journalism’s capacity to stimulate public engagement with climate crisis.
A second paradigm that might also resonate with those alienated by
conventional climate politics news is Peace Journalism (PJ). Briefly, as
outlined by two of its leading exponents, this paradigm is an analytical
method for evaluating reportage of conflicts; a set of practices and ethical
norms that journalism could employ in order to improve itself; and a ral-
lying call for change (Lynch and McGoldrick 2005). In sum, PJ’s public
philosophy “is when journalists make choices—of what stories to report
and about how to report them—that create opportunities for society at
large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict” (ibid., p. 5).
PJ draws upon the insights of Conflict Analysis to look beyond the overt
violence that is the stuff of conventional journalism, which is often tanta-
mount to War Journalism. PJ calls attention to the context of Attitudes,
Behaviour and Contradictions, and the need to identify a range of stake-
holders broader than the ‘two sides’ engaged in violent confrontation. If
War Journalism presents conflict as a tug-of-war between two parties in
which one side’s gain is the other’s loss, PJ invites journalists to re-frame
conflict as a cat’s cradle of relationships between various stakeholders. It
also calls on journalists to distinguish between stated demands and
underlying needs and objectives; to move beyond a narrow range of official
sources to include grassroots voices—particularly victims and
peace-builders. PJ seeks to identify and attend to voices working for cre-
ative and non-violent solutions; to keep eyes open for ways of transforming
and transcending the hardened lines of conflict, and to pay heed to
aggression and casualties on all sides, avoiding demonizing language and
the conflict-escalating trap of emphasizing ‘our’ victims and ‘their’ atroc-
ities. PJ looks beyond the direct physical violence that is the focus of War
Journalism, to include other forms of everyday violence that may underlie
conflict situations: structural violence, the institutionalized barriers to
human dignity and wellbeing, such as racism; and cultural violence, the
glorification of battles, wars and military power (Hackett 2006).
Obviously, PJ and environmental communication have different pur-
poses and different targets—violent conflict and ecological degradation,
respectively. In contrast to PJ, climate crisis journalism may be more likely
to encourage investigative or watchdog journalism, and to be less reluctant
to identify those most responsible for global problems, like climate change.
But there are important affinities too. They have a similar critique of the