TY - JOUR
T1 - The Election that Forgot the Environment? Issues, EMOs, and the Press in Australia
AU - Lester, Libby
AU - McGaurr, Lyn
AU - Tranter, Bruce
N1 - Funding Information:
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research has been conducted as part of an Australian Research Council–funded project “Leadership and the Construction of Environmental Concerns in Australia” 2013–2015 (DP103102154).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2014
PY - 2015/1/19
Y1 - 2015/1/19
N2 - The 2013 Australian federal election campaign has been described as the campaign that “forgot the environment.” We test this claim by comparing the news representation of the environment and environmental movement organizations (EMOs) in Australian federal elections from 1990 to 2013, and consider how coverage of environmental issues and organizations has changed over time. We also analyze the intensity and range of coverage of EMOs and environmental issues during the 2013 election campaign in relation to behind-the-scenes media practices of EMOs, including the circulation of media releases and other campaign material, and levels of activity on social media and organization Web sites. We find that this activity did not translate into high visibility in news media for EMOs. We offer tentative evidence of a link between the dominance of climate change coverage and the poor visibility of EMOs and other environmental issues.
AB - The 2013 Australian federal election campaign has been described as the campaign that “forgot the environment.” We test this claim by comparing the news representation of the environment and environmental movement organizations (EMOs) in Australian federal elections from 1990 to 2013, and consider how coverage of environmental issues and organizations has changed over time. We also analyze the intensity and range of coverage of EMOs and environmental issues during the 2013 election campaign in relation to behind-the-scenes media practices of EMOs, including the circulation of media releases and other campaign material, and levels of activity on social media and organization Web sites. We find that this activity did not translate into high visibility in news media for EMOs. We offer tentative evidence of a link between the dominance of climate change coverage and the poor visibility of EMOs and other environmental issues.
KW - Australian election campaigns
KW - Climate change coverage
KW - Environmental movement organizations
KW - Mediated environmental conflict
KW - Mediated visibility
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84918579516&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1940161214552030
DO - 10.1177/1940161214552030
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84918579516
SN - 1940-1612
VL - 20
SP - 3
EP - 25
JO - International Journal of Press/Politics
JF - International Journal of Press/Politics
IS - 1
ER -
