{"id":966,"date":"2011-03-04T13:30:17","date_gmt":"2011-03-04T17:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/panorama\/"},"modified":"2014-05-21T13:28:20","modified_gmt":"2014-05-21T17:28:20","slug":"spin-doctoring-for-the-ailing-environment","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/panorama\/archives\/winter-2008\/spin-doctoring-for-the-ailing-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Spin doctoring for the ailing environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Next: Telling your story: citizen journalism<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Posted Jan. 12\/08<\/em><\/p>\n

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Joshua Greenberg is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication and is cross-appointed to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. He is also a research associate with the Centre for Voluntary Sector Research and Development.<\/address>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

Environmental activists criticized Leonardo Dicaprio for his part in The Beach, when native vegetation was bulldozed to prepare a protected national park in Thailand for filming. Now he has appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair\u2019s \u201cgreen issue\u201d and produced a global-warming documentary The 11th Hour.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, the Shell group of oil, gas and petrochemical companies came under fire by Greenpeace when it planned to dispose of Brent Spar, an oil storage tanker, in deep Atlantic waters. Now Big Oil touts its environmental and socially responsible targets and practices.<\/p>\n

The chair of the board for the David Suzuki Foundation, Canada\u2019s foremost science-based environmental non-governmental organization (NGO), is the president of a leading public relations agency.<\/p>\n

The PR machine is at work, building eco-celebrities, repairing corporate reputations and enhancing the power of NGOs. But how did climate change become such a touchstone issue? Through PR, of course!<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no question that PR has helped transform climate change into the most important global issue of our time,\u201d says Joshua Greenberg, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication. \u201cJust as a gaseous substance can become liquid, climate change has been transformed from a state of relative invisibility into something much more perceptible.\u201d But it wasn\u2019t always this way. \u201cPR has also figured prominently in efforts to keep the science of climate change off the policy, media and public agendas,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s this investigation into the paradox of public relations that is the focus of Greenberg\u2019s newest project, Smog and mirrors: PR and the climate change debate in Canada. Greenberg, who is working on the project with a colleague from McMaster University, departs from conventional critiques, which he argues demonize the PR industry uncritically. \u201cIn books, documentaries and Hollywood portrayals of PR we find an insidious figure looming in the shadows and controlling discourse and decision-making,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Yet PR plays a much more complicated role, particularly in the case of the environment. Greenberg argues that environmental NGOs have successfully influenced policy, media and public agendas and this has resulted in no small part from what he describes as \u201ca commitment to professionalizing their communication practices.\u201d This success has also generated a number of side effects in the form of new problems for NGOs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a paradox of environmental activism that groups like Greenpeace, the Suzuki Foundation, and the Pembina Institute have generated market opportunities for the PR industry to provide rhetorical service to state and corporate actors that have been the very targets of their campaigns. Thus, in many ways environmental activism has helped to generate growth in the PR industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

In exploring these paradoxes Greenberg argues that we don\u2019t have to deny that PR practitioners propagate misinformation about climate change, and we shouldn\u2019t do so. \u201cThe record here is pretty conclusive,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it also behooves us as researchers to acknowledge that there is a far more complex opportunity structure for action. Many different protagonists have entered into the fray of debate about climate change and this has produced divergent outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to providing a niche market for PR companies around all things green, the climate change debate has changed the relationship between the various sectors of Canadian society. Environmental activists have become corporate players, corporate PR executives now bring prominence and influence to NGOs by sitting on their boards, NGOs add former journalists to their leadership ranks, and environmental spending has found its way into corporate accounting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are truly to understand the significance of climate change, we need to explore in more detail the many different roles of PR,\u201d Greenberg says. \u201cBut we need to do so with a view to understanding the complexities and paradoxes. It\u2019s much more interesting that way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next: Telling your story: citizen journalism Posted Jan. 12\/08 \u00a0 Joshua Greenberg is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication and is cross-appointed to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. He is also a research associate with the Centre for Voluntary Sector Research and Development. Environmental activists criticized Leonardo Dicaprio for his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":926,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"yoast_head":"\nSpin doctoring for the ailing environment - PAnorama<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Next: Telling your story: citizen journalism Posted Jan. 12\/08 \u00a0Joshua Greenberg is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/panorama\/archives\/winter-2008\/spin-doctoring-for-the-ailing-environment\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/panorama\/archives\/winter-2008\/spin-doctoring-for-the-ailing-environment\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/panorama\/archives\/winter-2008\/spin-doctoring-for-the-ailing-environment\/\",\"name\":\"Spin doctoring for the ailing environment - 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