Page 201 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

196 D. RITTER AND B. BREVINI

organise fast and the ability to deliver critical mass around an issue. But at the
same time some of these things are losing their power as they become more
and more easily replicated. The first example I had with Greenpeace was
where the first piece of video content I was associated with, and I’d only
been working with the organisation for a few weeks, targeted a particular
brand over links to deforestation in Indonesia. I think it got only a couple of
hundred thousand views, but in those days that was considered remarkable
—this was late 2007. On the other hand, having whatever we have now
reached maybe approaching ten million people around the world signed up
to Arctic Protection—was helpful in a much more positive way. I’m told that
very quickly assembling many, many people around the world to digitally
lobby John Kerry helped unite the beginnings of the conversation about a
UN convention over law of the sea implementing agreement which may one
day allow high seas marine reserves. It is now almost unthinkable that a key
moment of social change would not be accompanied by mass social media
activity, at least in a developed nation. So I think one can see many examples
of this, of when social [media] does provide an opportunity. But we have also
seen social media allowing the proliferation of untruth… I think it’sa
dynamic rather than being overwhelmingly a good thing.
BB: You’ve had impressive international experience with
civil/environmental groups. Do you think that the media in the UK
was more or less hostile to environmental groups than the Australian
media? Could you give us specific examples?

DR: It’s not simply the malevolent impact of the Australian or some of the
Murdoch papers but the way in which that shifts what is regarded as ‘bal-
ance’. So when you have the national broadcaster coming under pressure to
have what is described as balance where one part of the see-saw, if you like, is
occupied by someone who doesn’t reside in reality because they don’t
believe science, that’s not proper balance at all… I think things probably are
more unbalanced in that sense in Australia because of the concentration of
media ownership. I think also we do suffer from being a political geography
that is quite diffuse, with some very isolated political centres in the outer
capitals… Old fashioned anti-intellectualism also remains a problem in
Australia. My perception is that people who work at universities in the UK
aren’t attacked in the way they are in Australia. For all the talk of innovation
and all of the talk of wanting to be smarter and more clever and all of that, it
never seems to result in being a little bit more thoughtful or wanting to
actually honour our universities or honour our intellectuals.