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In reference to the topic of this week, I figured why not post an "inspirational" song about changing your beliefs and attitudes towards the environment?
Seriously though, Mike McGinn bikes like 8 miles to work everyday and then showers before working. That guy has some cohonas if you know what I mean. On a lighter note, our playlist pal from the 90's, Sister Hazel, provides some inspiration for this week's topic on attitudes and opinions
ALSO:
Stay posted for updates on the UW farm! Trevor and I will keep you guys posted with events going on and link you all to their email updates!
About Conservation Filmmaking
http://www.filmmakersforconservation.org/conservation-filmmaking/about-conservation-filmmaking.html
I just thought this was a cool link for anyone interested in learning more about the process or strategies for creating conservation related films.
King Corn: The Next Kong?
After watching the 11th hour in class on Tuesday, I started thinking about what it takes to make a good environmental documentary. Besides Avatar and a few other select movies, most of the film media created about the environment is in the form of documentaries, which, for the purposes of this blog, I view as the alternative media form to feature films.
For this week’s blog topic, I decided to explore the documentary King Corn as an example.
I don’t have enough room to provide a synopsis, but you can read one here:
http://www.movieweb.com/movie/king-corn/synopsis
and there is also a 20 minute clip available here:
The documentary is filmed in a style that combines humor, informative narration, footage of everything they experience throughout their journey, and a ton of interviews with various people from corn farmers to nutritionists to their relatives to Richard Butz, the man who calls “cheap food the cornerstone of our affluence.”
I felt the film was effective for a few different reasons:
1) It’s an interactive and hands-on approach to what could easily be summarized into a research article. This is important because if the goal of such a film is to captivate the audience’s interest long enough to internalize the message of the film, it has to be engaging. Especially when the real target audience is a group of people that aren’t particularly worried by the issues plaguing our environment and ourselves.
2) The main “characters,” Ian and Curt, are very relatable. The fact that they go into the project without any knowledge of the corn industry or the huge web of complications that they are about to discover places them on the same level as much of their audience, which eliminates the intimidation factor that many people fear when they transition into a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Personally, this made me more inclined to continue until the end because I didn’t feel like I was being lectured at, more like I was there with them on the journey and I wanted to find out what happened with them. I was able to make a connection with a part of the film, which is especially pivotal when dealing with environmental communication, because the audience is more easily influenced when they have a connection to the environment as we have discussed in class.
3) According to Jacobsen’s article, “A communication will affect public opinion primarily if its relationship to the audience members’ interests is clear…people will first fulfill their physiological needs for food and health as well as safety and security…Knowing where your target audience fits in this hierarchy can help you develop appropriate messages to influence their attitudes” (15). This is in perfect accordance with the subject of this documentary, because the very basic message that one can take away from it is that our food and health is in danger, which lies in the first two hierarchies. No matter who watches this, whether they are on the first hierarchy or fifth, there are many different messages that are relayed in this film. If people feel that their personal safety is at risk, they are more likely to take a stand, which will hopefully also benefit the environmental issues at stake.
4) I researched more into the film and learned a bit about their communication strategies. The creators of the film knew that most of the people who would watch were people that were at least already interested in environmental issues. They knew that if they wanted to reach out to people less inclined to watch their film, they would have to develop a good press strategy. According to an article on Valley Advocate, “They pitched stories about the film beyond the entertainment page…appeared on Good Morning, America, CNN…the filmmakers engaged a national audience on issues of sustainable agriculture regardless of whether ornot any of those people actually see the film at all.” Another interesting tactic that they took was to “develop a community screeing strategy targeting people directly involved with the issues the film explores.” This allowed them to have numerous opportunities for public feedback and create trust within the group of people most affected by these issues. All in all, they had a “multi-tiered, hands-on outreach” press strategy, and in order to test its effectivness, a survey was given to 35 leaders of the sustainable agriculture movement to find out. “80% found the film ‘extremely effective in bringing media attention to the issues of food and sustainability…57% [were] convinced that the film could change consumer buying behaviors.” Pretty impressive for a documentary made by two college grads, no?
“It takes more than one great film to create change, but a great film can push the movement forward,” Sheila Leddy. Give it a watch if you have the time J
By: ISHITA MITRA
Earth Summit Take Two, This Time in Rio
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8645486.stm
Article talks about the changes that are looking to be made to the Earth Summit in 2012, and speculation as to whether participating countries will be able to finally get it together and pass some helpful legislation to combat climate change.
Examining the balance of Climate Change coverage in Alternative Media
An issue of concern to many people who are worried about global warming is the equal balance mainstream media tends to give to both sides of the issue. After all, the polar ice caps are melting, and we're all screwed, right? There shouldn't be any skeptics pushing propaganda funded by the oil industry on TV. Sarcasm, of course, but a big topic of conversation in class this week was the balanced coverage shown in the mainstream media regarding climate change. This usually isn't a problem, but the thing is that when equal sides are presented in a news story on the topic, it isn't what it looks like. As the Boykoff and Boykoff article stated, "Superficial balance, telling both sides of the story, can actually lead to informational bias." Basically, the article argues that the media is giving too much space to climate change skeptics who have hidden agendas and biased information.
One would think that the alternative media, with it's often sarcastic leftist nature, would slam skeptics and only be concerned with reporting the facts on global warming. This isn't the case, though. Last year, the Huffington Post actually ran an open letter from an active conservative global warming skeptic named Harold Ambler, titled "Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted."
Ambler aggressively attacks Al Gore and the views presented in the film "An Inconvenient Truth," saying climate change "is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of mankind." He then goes on a typical right-wing rampage attempting to invoke some sense of forced rage out of the reader. Ambler's letter doesn't say anything new, and it is rather pretentious and arrogant, but the point here is that conservative viewpoints should be at least heard in alternative media as well. Alternative media should also try to achieve a sense of balance. The scientists and politicians who fight global warming are wrong, in my opinion. But their voice still counts, and therefore should be heard.
Alternative media seems to be striking the right balance between stories that highlight progressive scientific viewpoints, and skepticism. Let's face it, people who are denying climate change are a minority, albeit a very vocal one. The blogs seem to post a good ratio of stories that speak to the correct proportion of both sides. Here's another story from an alternative media source showing another side to the climate change story, a more humorous and liberal one. The title is "Let's call setting a price on carbon "puppies" and call clean energy standards "kittens" just so pro pollution ideologues have to attack cute animals."
http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/29/lets-call-pricing-carbon-puppies-and-clean-energy-standards-kittens-just-so-pro-pollution-idealogues-have-to-attack-cute-animals/
There are many stories in alternative media that cater to both sides of this debate. Keep your eyes on your favorite blogs and remember to keep your eyes open. A lot of good info is coming from both sides, let's be sure to realize that both side can make favorable points.
Trevor Evans
Twitter- a good source of alternative media?
Twitter has definitely become a new media platform for our generation, and while I usually frown upon it, it's nice to see that it is also being used as a source of alternative media for environmental communication, rather than just the daily happenings of celebrities. I wonder, however, if this is a useful tool for recruiting more environmental activists and fostering awareness. Because each "tweet" is just a sentence or so long, they are able to update quite regularly with little snippets of news, so in theory, people would be exposed to a wide variety of happenings around the world. This might be beneficial because most people say they don't have time to sit down and read full articles on everything that is going on, and this way they could have at least some level of awareness and perhaps further research the topics that peak their interest. At the same time, people may just skim over these "tweets" and feel good about themselves at the end of the day because they feel like they spent some time on green education.
As we have discussed in class, one of the key methods of change is education. People need to be educated in order to truly care, and in order to know out of all the products and lifestyles that are constantly being marketed to us what is actually helpful and how it helps. If people are just reading one sentence blurbs about green news, are they actually being impacted? Is this sort of brief education actually effective or merely just efficient?
Example of an environmental twitter feed:
Bacardi, the new drink of choice for environmentalists
More and more, big businesses are racing to be the first of their kind to be "green." Bacardi is an example of this, as they have been upping their efforts to be the most sustainable spirits company in the world. Companies are capitalizing on the general public's desire for environmental change ( or unfortunately in many cases, just to seem like they are supporting environmental change ), which may seem like a bad thing, but at the same time, they are creating a change whether it's in the name of their own selfishness or in the name of the environment. What do you think of efforts like this?
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