ENVIRONMENTAL MEDIA ACTIVIST JOURNALISM: contributions from an analysis of journalistic coverage from Amazonia RealABSTRACT
Our research aims to understand and problematize the proximity between environmental journalism and media activist practice based on the journalistic coverage analysis (Silva & Maia, 2011) of the Amazônia Real portal, adapted to our empirical efforts in a media activist environmental journalism protocol. Within the limits of this article, we presented an analytical exercise with two reports that showed the assumptions of environmental journalism: emphasis on contextualization, plurality of voices, assimilation of environmental knowledge (Loose & Girardi, 2017) and the discursive tactics of media activism, with engagement and opinion revealed in what we call the manifesto report. However, we noticed the underutilization of technological resources and the presentation of events in a conventional narrative structure, which strains the praxis of media activist environmental journalism.
Key words
Environmental journalism; Media activism; Amazonia Real; Journalistic coverage analysis
RESUMO
Nossa pesquisa busca entender e problematizar as proximidades entre o jornalismo ambiental e a prática midiativista a partir da análise de cobertura jornalística (Silva & Maia, 2011) do portal Amazônia Real, adaptada aos nossos esforços empíricos em um protocolo de jornalismo ambiental midiativista. Apresentamos, nos limites deste artigo, um exercício analítico com duas reportagens que evidenciaram os pressupostos do jornalismo ambiental: ênfase na contextualização, pluralidade de vozes, assimilação do saber ambiental (Loose & Girardi, 2017) e as táticas discursivas do midiativismo, com o engajamento e a opinião revelados no horizonte do que denominamos de reportagem-manifesto. Contudo, notamos o subaproveitamento dos recursos tecnológicos e apresentação dos acontecimentos em uma estrutura narrativa convencional, que tensionam a práxis do jornalismo ambiental midiativista.
Palavras-chave
Jornalismo ambiental; Midiativismo; Amazônia Real; Análise de cobertura jornalística
RESUMEN
Nuestra investigación busca comprender y problematizar la proximidad entre el periodismo ambiental y la práctica activista de los medios, a partir del análisis de cobertura periodística (Silva & Maia, 2011) del portal Amazônia Real, adaptado para el estudio empírico mediante un protocolo de aproximación al periodismo ambiental activista. Presentamos, dentro de los límites de este artículo, un ejercicio analítico con dos reportajes en los que aparecen los supuestos del periodismo ambiental: énfasis en la contextualización, pluralidad de voces, asimilación del conocimiento ambiental (Loose & Girardi, 2017) y las tácticas discursivas del activismo mediático, con compromiso y opinión revelados en lo que llamamos un reportaje manifiesto. Sin embargo, observamos la subutilización de los recursos tecnológicos y la presentación de los acontecimientos en una estructura narrativa convencional, lo que genera tensiones en la praxis del periodismo medioambiental activista en los medios.
Palabras clave
Periodismo ambiental; Media activismo; Amazonia Real; Analisis de cobertura periodística
1 The first manifesto: solidarity transgression as a journalistic practice
Media activists are individuals who share a kind of solidarity, they operate with direct transgressive, intentional attitudes, and envision the potential of putting social intervention skills into practice based on “a media record that aims to amplify knowledge, spread information, be present, engage in resistance, and establish defense structures” (Braighi & Câmara, 2018, p. 36). Media activism involves informing and mediating, linked to the sense of solidarity transgression (Jordan, 2002), with the objective of changing situations and contexts.
In 2013, a collective of women identified themselves as an “independent and non-profit investigative journalism agency [...] that gives visibility to populations and issues in the Amazon, [...] especially those with no space in the mainstream press”. The type of journalism they produce “is based on the concepts and practices of social justice, environmental justice, and human rights” and “relies on the work of professionals who search for great stories” (Amazônia Real, n.d). This proposal is a counter-narrative centered on community voices, focusing on engagement in journalism. It also defends the democratization of information, freedom of the press, and expression in its editorial line, a premise that is similar to media activism. Their agendas focus on environmental problems and issues experienced in the Amazon and encompass human rights, such as approaches to agrarian conflicts, migration, and human trafficking.
Amazônia Real believes that social groups such as indigenous peoples and traditional populations such as quilombolas, riverside dwellers, fishermen, babaçu coconut breakers, rural workers, environmental activists, environmentalists, and men and women of the forest are subjects and protagonists of their own narratives, and have no need for mediator interference. Their voices need to be heard and understood, and their ideas, cultural practices, and experiences to be made visible. These populations, while defenders of cultural knowledge and nature, are the target of threats and conflicts when they report attacks and threats as they are not protected by the state. They run a risk when reporting crimes such as deforestation, illegal occupation, wildfires, forest fires, impacts of major works, and other threats.
(Amazônia Real, n.d).
The Amazônia Real is able to pluralize its agenda of the environmental movement and activism (Castells, 2013) by including issues of class, gender, and race. The depth and complexity of this agency’s journalism goes beyond the issue of the natural environment as it also deals with interdependent political, economic, social, and cultural issues, and pluralizes its coverage and journalism through specific interventions, typical of media activism.
In 2020, following the practical experience of the portal, we inferred that the ideals of media activism are close to the conceptual specificity of environmental journalism and we began a dialogue. Both procedures aim to inform in an engaged, committed, and integrated manner, attempting to define events beyond the facts by using a diversity of voices and valuing denunciation and critical and propositional viewpoints (Franco & Miguel, 2022).
In this regard, our Master’s research project1 focuses on analyzing the journalistic coverage produced by Amazônia Real over a defined space-time period through the lens of activism. This paper is an excerpt from the empirical research and an attempt to understand the possibilities and weaknesses of media-friendly environmental journalism on the Amazônia Real portal. Our methodological procedure is based on the journalistic coverage analysis (ACJ), proposed by Silva and Maia (2011), to create a protocol that is adapted and updated to new analysis markers, based on three main steps.
The first step involves verification. This is divided into three dimensions, proposed by the authors, and revised according to our research interests: 1) Publication signature – identifying the authors responsible for the report, such as the reporter, correspondent, or collaborator. Articles that have no signature still help to understand the weight of authorship and the place of the individual media activist. 2) Location of investigation/journalist access to location – knowing the space where the event took place, whether internal (newsroom) or external (in person), and whether any reporter had intervened can help identify intense engagement in media activism and environmental journalism. 3) Source of information – classify the sources of information according to narrative construction criteria: a) how the information was obtained (directly or indirectly), b) the type of sources (character/citizen, expert, institutional, public authority, documentary or electronic), and c) the position of sources in the events (Silva & Maia, 2011).
The second step comprises the types of articles, in this case, we opted for informative texts, selected from the Environment section, and included other outside elements in the text. 4) Multimedia and media activist resources – to check graphs, tables, illustrations, photographs, videos, and cyberactivist tactics, such as the use of hashtags, campaigns, aggregated manifestos, viral content, and others.
The third and final step involves the circumstances under which the report was produced, meaning the interrelationships of internal and external realities, with a focus more on the latter. 5) Socio-environmental context – here we are looking at the particularities of the theme/event/specific subject of coverage and the approach to the socio-historical-cultural situation involved (Silva & Maia, 2011). This allows us to more directly visualize the characteristics of environmental journalism.
In 2021, with our research already underway, we began our qualitative stage by selecting reports from the Environment section to make up our corpus. We focused on the months from April to November 20212, making note of the important events and themes throughout the Amazon. We present two analyses of different themes from different periods which we believe are representative – on a theoretical and narrative level3 – of environmental media journalism in the manifested product and as a manifesto. We use the word manifestation, and its linguistic derivatives, as a metaphor for activism. The report is a manifesto as it becomes a discursive discourse that reveals a position (and engagement) and defends another experience of the world. The examples emphasize this premise and signal the elaboration of a typology within environmental media activism. Before that, however, understanding environmental journalism is very important to us and deserves a second “pamphlet”.
2 Environmental journalism as a pamphlet for planetary survival
The frequent coverage of environmental issues does not extinguish the concerns that journalism has about the subject. Reflecting on the environmental agenda is a challenging exercise, one that goes beyond just a specialized editorial. Most investigations in environmental journalism present common criticisms and reiterate the absence of systemic coverage, focusing on tragedies and catastrophes and providing the public with a certain perspective of the area and the events (Holanda et al., 2020), something like the beached whale syndrome, as pointed out by Bueno (2007). In other words, the perspective the public is given is usually sensationalism and shocking coverage of environmental disasters, drawing attention to the exotic and unusual events from events.
We also see that interdependent phenomena go unreported and that this type of journalism tends to focus solely on official sources, only interviewing subjects with academic backgrounds or specialized and legitimized knowledge in science. This often occurs due to personal and corporate interests. In this way, the hegemonic media’s approach ends up neglecting and fragmenting the intrinsic complexity of the topic, as well as incorporating the environmental crisis into a heuristic of fear, in the sense that the representation of negativity ends up exhausting the possibility of political action (Aguiar & Schaun, 2011).
Our extensive research on the proximity of environmental journalism to media activism, using the Amazônia Real portal as our research subject, was based on our understanding of the term environment and the epistemology and rationality specific to the environmental field (Leff, 2001) to understand how it emerges and characterizes environmental journalism. By environmental journalism we do not mean just covering the specific themes of the area, but the notion that the physical and biological environment intersects with social, cultural, and cosmological issues. Our hypothesis is that activist profile networks are capable of spreading environmental agendas in a scenario of greater contextualization, complexity, and plurality than is commonly portrayed by hegemonic media arrangements. Furthermore, we see journalists as part of the fight for environmental preservation and see their own intervention skills being fostered and intensified (Franco & Miguel, 2022).
In our conceptual and methodological path, we highlight there is no consensual definition and no single way of assimilating this type of journalism; however, we focus on authors (Girardi et al., 2012; Belmonte, 2017; Bueno, 2007) who support a complex vision and systemic nature of facts, diversity and pluralism of voices, the contextualization and interdependent social, economic, political and cultural relationships, in addition to proposing that journalists add a sense of engagement to their skill set. In other words, we are talking about journalism that promotes and is committed to a global quality of life, that looks beyond the consequences, shedding light on the causes and possible solutions to the issues addressed.
Here we highlight the main theoretical premises for this specific type of journalism, listed and summarized by Loose and Girardi (2017, p. 158) as premises under construction, hardly evolved in large media conglomerates. They are: 1) emphasis on contextualization – this is related to the expectation of overcoming fragmentation and discontinuity, emphasizing a broad, in-depth, critical and complex contextualization in order to make connections between causes and consequences; 2) plurality of voices – this represents the multiplicity of discourses on the topic, especially those with no scientific, business or political background to them, and the disruption of single scientific knowledge, of a Cartesian nature; 3) assimilation of environmental knowledge – this involves understanding environmental values and awareness, which is essential toward achieving sustainable, lasting and equitable development; 4) systemic coverage close to social reality – this refers to the need to bring environmental issues closer to the public’s daily life, revealing connections that are not always obvious, and highlighting existing relationships; 5) commitment to the qualification of information – this includes engagement and activism as critical actions to defend the sustainability of life and a less harmful and conflictual link between society and nature; 6) responsibility for changing thinking – this involves a contribution to being transformative and mobilizing based on qualified information, aiming to empower citizens (in a collective sense) to be more involved socially and defend environmental causes; and lastly, 7) incorporating the safeguarding principle – this means to extend journalism’s time for action, having it not only focus on the present, but also the future, in order to warn about and prevent negative consequences.
Environmentalism is at the foundation of Environmental Journalism, which is a social movement with relevant communicative power (Castells, 1999). It is widely recognized as an innovator in communication technologies as it uses them as instruments of systematization and mobilization, mainly through the internet and the plurality of its composition, voices, and modes of manifestation. Different actors have also emerged out of this technology, capable of competing with large communication conglomerates for the attention of different audiences, such as environmental media activism and the individuals, environmental activist collectives, and/or journalists who work on social networks, websites, and blogs, “creating movements that intersect with communication and society” (Moraes & Fante, 2018). Information universes were created around environmental movements and media activist content (when these actors themselves do not merge and confuse). Moraes and Fante (2018, p. 352) claim that the proposal for environmental activism depends largely on organized environmental movements, which increase their reach through information technologies and define environmental media activism “as the complex relationship between environmental causes, their defenders and their forms of mediatization”.
This activist dimension of journalism leads us to the proposition of hacker sensitivity, developed by Moraes (2022, p. 143) who, based on freedom, collaboration, and knowledge, defines reporting as a means of political positioning, of insurgencies, “of complaining humanities”; we add sustainability to this. In addition to the appropriation and use of the technique, which deals with the public, content, and sources in other ways, this sensitivity is a reflexive movement “that can use the means in which it operates to produce counter-narratives and destabilize naturalizations” (Moraes, 2022, p. 151). We shall now present two analyses that summarize our empirical investigation, which is not about understanding and problematizing environmental media activism, but what we prefer to call environmental media journalism.
3 Analysis of Environmental Media News Coverage: main findings
3.1 Manifest 1. May 11, 2021.
“Thousands are already suffering from the floods in Amazonas: Twenty municipalities in Amazonas have declared the situation a disaster and the forecast is that 350 thousand people will be affected in 2021”. This narrative addresses the devastation and damage caused by the floods in the region, especially the anxieties and dilemmas of the people and the loss of housing and crops, the risk of death due to exposure to dangerous animals, economic losses, and the greater likelihood of contracting covid-19.
3.1.1 Assessment
The name of the media outlet – Amazônia Real – is included in the text, right after the title. However, after the subtitle and the cover photo, the text is signed “by Steffanie Schmidt and Raphael Alves, from Amazônia Real”. A description of the initiative is given at the end of the report.
The independent and investigative journalism agency Amazônia Real is a non-profit organization, created by female journalists on October 20, 2013, in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. Its mission is to provide ethical and investigative journalism based on issues facing the Amazon and its people. The editorial line is focused on defending the democratization of information, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and human rights. (redacao@amazoniareal.com.br).
(Amazônia Real, 2021).
Raphael Alves is the photojournalist who took the images in the report and Steffanie Schmidt is the journalist who wrote the text. Their names are not included in the list of newsroom staff, which suggests that they are collaborators without too much emphasis placed on the journalist persona, as observed in other reports we analyzed. The text clearly indicates that the journalist had access to the location of the event: “Last week, the reporter was at Manacapuru” (Amazônia Real, 2021). Even if the text had not specifically mentioned the reporter being at the location, the in-person reporting could have been determined by other aspects such as the number of sources from the event who are included in the report and the almost 30 photographs included throughout the page (which show citizens being interviewed and the damage caused by the floods that are credited to “Raphael Alves/Amazônia Real”). This shows that the team traveled to the locations of Manaus and Manacapuru to take photographs. This information reveals a commitment to drawing attention to the environmental problem, in addition to the complexity of the topic noted in the details of the narrative. Here we see the journalist conducting the investigation on the scene, experiencing and commenting on the facts, a characteristic that places him or her as an active participant in the events, one of the characteristics of media activism. It is not simply mediation, nor is it a passive and conventional journalistic method; it is an example of media being present and media activists being involved in the ongoing events that they hope to change (Braighi & Câmara, 2018).
In terms of the origin of the information, the report cites a total of 15 sources. Seven of these sources are classified as character/citizen sources – all of whom relate the difficulties they have faced by the floods and the damage they have caused. There is one institutional source – the Flood Warning System of the Geological Survey of Brazil (SGB-CPRM). Four expert sources are also included: the CPRM researcher responsible for the Flood Warning System (SAH) of the Amazon Basin, a Ph.D. in Forest Sciences and researcher at the National Amazon Research Institute (Inpa/MCTI), the meteorologist from the System Management and Operational Center of Amazon Protection (Censipam), and the executive secretary of the Climate Observatory. The final three sources come from public power – the Civil Defense of Amazonas, the Government of Amazonas, and the Executive Secretariat for Protection and Civil Defense Actions of Amazonas. Two articles published by the agency itself are also presented as sources, included as hyperlinks. The large number of character sources is important here as it shows an interest in calling attention to the entire problem of rising river levels in the region, and the consequences they cause. In this sense, we realize that the report highlights subjects and communities that “are outside the walls of the academy, such as the people of the forest, the family farmer, and the citizens of the street” (Bueno, 2007, p. 37). The report is committed to qualifying information through systemic coverage that is closer to the reader’s reality (Loose & Girardi, 2017) who, instead of being informed in a supposedly objective way by receiving data on rising water levels, is able to understand the environmental, social, political and economic problem based on reports that hear from affected individuals.
3.1.2 Characteristics of the article
Concerning multimedia resources, several images were used in the report. The 29 photographs reveal the desires, concerns, and losses reported by the character sources, as well as the citizens of that area and what they experienced during the flood. Nine of these 29 photographs are inserted in specific places throughout the text, while the remaining 20 are grouped in the form of a circle in the middle of the web page, and are revealed automatically. Except for one photo (credited to the INPA), all images were authored by Raphael Alves, identified as a photojournalist from Amazônia Real. The report contains three hyperlinks: two for articles produced by the agency itself (in order to contextualize the story), and one for a YouTube publication entitled “second CPRM Flood Warning”. There are 12 tags listed at the end of the text, located below the sharing options. The comments box contains one reader comment; it is a rarely used feature on the portal. In our analysis (and others included in our corpus) we found that cyberactivist resources are scarce and are not able to directly involve the public, despite the narrative premises of environmental journalism, detailed in the next section.
3.1.3 Characterization of socio-environmental context
The subtitles “350 thousand affected”, “Seven major floods”, “The rains in the basin”, “Plantations lost”, “The covid-19 risk”, “Inequality” and “Economic losses” clearly show the diversity of topics that were covered, going beyond the environmental tragedy and establishing related interdependent connections in a strong attempt to contextualize the situation (Loose & Girardi, 2017). The Amazônia Real (2021) begins its report by stating:
The great Amazon flood is already causing damage to thousands of people. Kerlen, mother of two, left her home in a flooded area and had to rent another property. Bruno lost his banana and passion fruit farm, while Sidiney’s mallow crops were underwater. Mário saw snakes and electric eels (typical to the Amazon) in his yard, while Marcilene saw an alligator at her house door a few days ago. As the days go by, the river levels continue to rise, making this one of the largest recorded floods in history, the impacts of which have only just begun.
The focus of the text goes beyond presenting data on floods, including reports from people who are experiencing environmental dramas in their daily lives, as evidenced in the excerpt above. What we have here is a text that not only covers disasters in a spectacular fashion – beached whale syndrome (Bueno, 2007) – or the causes that gave rise to the events but extends its agenda to cover the associated consequences as well as the social, political and economic relations that can be established. The text also employs a writing technique that brings it closer to the reader’s reality (Loose & Girardi, 2017). The names of the character sources are revealed while providing a summary of their stories, highlighting the plurality of voices, another aspect intrinsic to environmental journalism used to explain the issue from different viewpoints and how it has affected them. Also of note is the journalist when she forewarns that “the impacts have only just begun”, which is in line with the precautionary principle listed by Loose and Girardi (2017).
The text then displays the data and information about the increasing river levels in the Amazon, including a few cities that are listed as being in the “severe flood area”. Before giving the experts’ explanations for the incident, the text begins with the characters’ accounts of the event, as well as the reporter herself, as a supporting character, as she gives detailed information about the places she has visited and how those places are facing the floods. What we have is a textual discourse that defends the social environment and includes the narratives of the sources as a verifiable framework of references.
The experts we interviewed employ writing techniques to connect with the readers, with analogies such as “not even ‘the greatest feat of engineering in the world’ could control these floods”. They not only explain the technical aspects of the event but also comment on the social issues that are affected, as evidenced in statements from the executive secretary of the Climate Observatory when problematizing environmental racism4: “This climate issue affects the poorest populations in a completely disproportionate way. The population that already suffers from other inequalities is the one that will suffer the most from rising temperatures and floods”. Another example can be seen in the excerpt below, given by the interviewed researcher: “It is of utmost importance to guarantee a supply of drinking water. But we know that many people end up returning to these flooded areas, not by choice, but by lack of it”.
Further information, obtained from official sources, is then presented on the number of people affected by the floods, the cities that have declared a state of emergency, access to Emergency Flood Relief, the cost of clean-up operations, as well as what those operations are and the relief funds being transferred to the municipalities. The report also provides a historical context on increasing river levels from previous years, relying on statements from experts who speak in more technical/scientific terms (for example, the climate phenomena El Niño and La Niña, the difference in ocean surface temperatures, the Walker Cell, and the water cycle of the Amazon basin).
In “Plantations lost”, the Amazônia Real talks to residents from the most affected regions who highlight the difficulties in getting around, the need to move from their homes, the economic losses experienced, as well as the loss of plantations and concerns over the large boats in the area and their proximity to the communities.
Silas Rodrigues, 45, is unemployed and unable to find work due to the covid-19 pandemic. With no money for basic necessities like gas, he has to heat his coffee with wood kindling next to an overpass built over flooded areas in the center of Manacapuru. He lives with his wife, five children, brother-in-law, and daughter-in-law in their wooden house. He has lived in the city, working in the fields, for five years and says this is the biggest flood he has ever seen. “I feel totally isolated because of all of this. I haven’t been able to work since the pandemic. We’re trying hard to find work, but no one is coming to give it to us”, he said.
(Amazônia Real, 2021).
The narrative also presents some more descriptive and literary excerpts, which helps the reader better understand and get involved more with the issue. In addition to the excerpt above, there are others that also criticize the government and show how dissatisfied the population is with the lack of help and support, which leads to resentment, as evident in a statement from one of the sources who works in fishing and farming. “Our mallow plantation went underwater. I think we lost 90% of everything. What we have managed to salvage is here. But nobody helps us. Nobody comes here even though 80% of the city’s income is reliant on people in rural areas.” The text goes on to discuss the effects that the covid-19 pandemic can have on the floods, “revealing connections that are not always obvious, and highlighting existing interdependencies” (Loose & Girardi, 2017), as well as addressing economic losses and social inequality, so prevalent in Brazil.
We noticed that the information is well distributed and interconnected, employing an intricate, broad, and in-depth emphasis on contextualizing and assimilating environmental knowledge, a commitment to the quality of information, and providing systemic coverage that is close to the reader’s reality, all characteristics we described earlier in this text that are so fundamental to environmental journalism.
3.2 Manifest 2. November 14, 2021.
“COP 26 final agreement postpones decisions for the future: in the final text, signed by close to 200 countries in Glasgow, Scotland, even the UN secretary-general recognized that an ‘important step was taken, but not sufficient’. The report provides a general summary of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP-26) and the decisions included in the final agreement, in addition to assessing the criticisms made by activists and environmentalists. The report highlights the two opposing sides in Brazil at the conference and addresses the outcome of the event for the country. It also deals with Brazil’s ongoing deforestation and “failures” at negotiations.
3.2.1 Assessment
The text was written by journalist Alicia Lobato. She is identified, at the end of the report, as Amazônia Real’s special representative covering COP 26. The agency is also part of COPCOLLAB26, collaborative coverage of the COP 26 conference from collectives, organizations, independent media, media activists, journalists, and communicators. This collaborative group comprises the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib), the Articulation of Black Rural Quilombola Communities, the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), Mídia Índia, and Mídia Ninja.
Of note is that the agency sent a correspondent to the location to inform about the event due to the global relevance of the Climate Conference. We also concluded that being part of a collaborative, networked coverage, in addition to the agency’s partnerships with other initiatives, can shape one of the characteristics of new journalistic arrangements (Fígaro & Nonato, 2021). The reporter’s biography is listed after the statement:
Alicia Lobato is a journalist, born in Belém (PA), and has lived in Manaus since 2017. She has been a member of the Amazônia Real team since 2019 when she started as an intern after participating in the 1st Socio-Environmental Journalism Workshop promoted by Amazônia Real and the international organization Climate Tracker. She writes reports for the agency that focus on violence against women and racism. She is involved in environmental and data journalism. (alicia@amazoniareal.com.br).
(Amazônia Real, 2021).
We draw attention here to the journalist’s personal investment in her cause. According to our research, she started shaping and advancing her professional career from the internship she carried out at the agency. We also discovered the various activist causes she covers, including violence against women and racism. Of note is the way she presents herself, her performance as a professional, and her contact with the causes she supports, which are all qualities of an individual involved in media activism.
Once on location, she provides clear journalistic coverage of the event, as previously mentioned. There are other aspects of this coverage such as her location at the beginning of the report (in Glasgow, Scotland, where the event was held) and a few of the following sentences taken from the report: “Márcio Astrini, executive director of the Climate Observatory, spoke to Amazônia Real. Astrini accompanied the multilateral negotiations in Glasgow” (Lobato, 2021), and “Leite, still at the press conference accompanied by Amazônia Real, summarized the country’s participation at the conference”. What we have here is a media outlet that accompanies and engages in events, also observed in other reports we analyzed.
We identified eight information sources in the text: six are government sources (the Secretary-General of the UN, the Ministry of Environment (MMA), the ambassador and head of the Brazilian delegation at COP26, the Space Research Institute (Inpe), the Brazilian Environment Minister, and the representative from the Maldives Islands; one is a character/citizen source – an activist; and the last one is an expert source – the executive director of the Climate Observatory. There are also two articles published by Amazônia Real that contain hyperlinks to contextualize the information.
Most of the sources are people and/or organs of public authority, with only one source being a citizen, who happens to be a known activist from conventional journalism. We also referred to many social media posts from authorities. As a result, we did not observe diverse knowledge and plurality being assimilated, in the sense that the voices of “ordinary” people, people who reside in the communities and are affected by the conference agreements, were not heard: an example of environmental journalism prioritizing academic sources (Bueno, 2007). We did notice, however, that Lobato does not refrain from criticism and does offer her opinion, evidenced in her narrative tone of regret/pity which we shall look at in the last analytical level. This allowed us to identify Lobato’s engagement with media activism and environmental journalism, which confirms our manifesto proposal.
3.2.2 Characteristics of the article
We found a total of 13 photographs in the report. Eight of these photographs are grouped in a carousel format (a format the agency used several times). None of these photographs are authored by Amazônia Real: three were credited to the photographer for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), three to the Ministry of Environment, three to Mídia Ninja, two to the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib), one to an Instagram user, and the last one to live streaming.
There is also a video from the Guardian News YouTube channel, a media outlet that broadcasts the event in real-time. Entitled “Cop26: Alok Sharma holds debriefing session – watch live” (our translation), this was a live broadcast scheduled to begin when the president of the conference began to address the final agreements. The live broadcast lasted for almost seven hours. This is the only report we analyzed that included a video in the text with no hyperlink. We believe this provides better access due to the ease of just clicking and immediately watching the content.
We found a total of eight hyperlinks in the text: three lead readers to the Twitter page, one to a tweet from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, one published by the MMA profile (but appears as a deleted tweet), and one which was posted by activist user Greta Thunberg. A further two hyperlinks lead to reports published by Amazônia Real, as previously mentioned, one to the COPCOLLAB26 information website, and the last one to the agency’s donations page. There are also 12 tags included after the sharing options.
There are no comments in the comments box. There is no investment in more instrumental media resources such as hashtags and viral brands for sharing, apart from the dissertation which we shall present below.
3.2.3 Socio-Environmental Characteristics
Lobato begins her text by stating, in a regretful tone, that “the COP26 agreement was sealed on Saturday night, in Glasgow, with the understanding that it will not be able to limit global warming to 1.5ºC”. She also includes the UN Secretary-General’s report, which corroborates her sentence, as he apologizes on video for the “important but insufficient step”:
I want to send a message to young people, indigenous communities, women, and all those leading the fight against climate change: I know you are disappointed, but the path to progress is not a straight line. Sometimes there are detours and ditches, but I know we can get there. We are in the fight for our lives and this fight needs to be won. Never give up, never back down, keep pushing, I’m with you.
After presenting the source’s statement, the author also highlights that COP 26 ended “without the Amazonian people being able to celebrate” (Lobato, 2021), referring to firm commitments in the first week of the event to reduce deforestation and methane emissions by 30% by the year 2030 – indicators that directly affect the use of the Amazon forest – “there was no agreement for the transition of energy from polluting sources to those from clean matrices”. Lobato (2021) further shows that the word “eliminate” in the final document was replaced by the word “reduce” when referring to the use of fossil fuels, “the most harmful and mainly responsible for global warming”. She makes mention of this omission in her report on the conference.
In practice, the final COP26 agreement postpones the solution until the next few years, which signals that extreme climate events such as floods, droughts, and forest fires, will continue to punish the planet. Signaling the elimination of the use of fossil fuels, including oil, gas, and natural coal, would directly impact Brazil. Petrobras, the largest Brazilian oil company, would become obsolete and devalued in a little over three decades.
(Lobato, 2021).
We note that Lobato reveals her critical position in defense of the sustainability of life and a less harmful and conflicting link between nature and society (Loose & Girardi, 2017), and still goes beyond her professional role as a subject who is also affected by the treaties in question, considering media activist solidarity transgression.
Contrary to her regretful tone in the text, Lobato also points out the official Brazilian delegation’s celebration (who “went to Glasgow with an eye on financial resources”) over the adoption of rules for the Paris Agreement, regulating article 6 which stipulates the creation of a carbon market. To this end, the tweet published by the MMA states: “Brazil is preparing to be a major exporter of carbon credits!” However, she points out that the participating countries in the conference “were harshly criticized by activists for using the conference to obtain financial resources with the excuse that they need financing to start combating the climate crisis urgently”. This sentence reflects a position of disgust and rejection of the Cartesian view of government, one that is focused only on economic interests without respecting and considering the environmental sphere and all its areas. This criticism also extended to companies, that participated in the debates and offered “billion-dollar resources for actions to combat global warming” (Lobato, 2021), in addition to adopting “greenwashing” policies.
The text goes on to claim that there are “two Brazils at COP26”, and the government “chose to explicitly support only one of them”. On one hand, we saw the largest delegation of indigenous peoples ever at a conference of parties, social movements, scientists, and environmentalists, and on the other hand, we saw a pavilion financed by the federal government, supported by the National Confederation of Industry and the National Confederation of Agriculture. Lobato (2021) highlights that indigenous people “were persecuted by Bolsonaro supporters”, especially after young leader Txai Suruí’s opening speech at COP26, who called out the illegal occupation committed by perpetrators of indigenous leader Alessandra Korap Munduruku, who was also at the event. The words chosen by Lobato clearly show whose side she is on in this debate: the group that defends and embraces the various environmental issues.
She also includes activist Greta Thunberg’s opinion from a Twitter post, who criticizes the outcome of the event and expresses her skepticism: “#COP26 is over. Here’s a quick summary: blah, blah, blah. But the real work continues outside these walls. And we will never give up, never.”
Lobato (2021) mentions the review of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) – the name of the action plan that outlines voluntary goals for each country – reestablishing an objective agreed upon by former president Dilma Rousseff in 2015. To this end, she uses a political metaphor to refer to the impediment of the former president, explaining that the Brazilian NDC under the management of the former Environment Minister “carried out an ‘environmental scam’ as he falsified data so that the country could continue increasing emissions. In practice, this allows for “the advancement of illegal mining, illegal occupation, and livestock farming in the Amazon forest”.
The report by the executive director of the Climate Observatory emphasizes how Brazil’s potential was neutralized by the government. Based on data released at the time of the event on deforestation rates, this executive director highlights the problem in Brazil: “When the doors close here (on COP26), we return to the reality that Brazil experiences under Bolsonaro’s management, which is a problem for the world climate because we have a destructive government and not a government that provides solutions”. In other words, Lobato’s dissatisfaction with the issue is corroborated by activists, experts, and other subjects who understand the values and environmental awareness, and the need to internalize them (Loose & Girardi, 2017). Environmental crises are talking points here (and at other points throughout the text) and allude to a cause-and-effect relationship regarding the dismantling and weakening of adopted public policies and how that leads to environmental destruction.
Lobato points out that “the Brazilian Environment Minister, Joaquim Leite, demonstrated ignorance when questioned at a press conference, on Friday, about Inpe’s deforestation data” and “did not talk” about the subject. She also points out that, at that moment, the minister “was answering a question about the use of questionable data when talking about Brazil’s environmental achievements”. What is clear here is that Lobato, in addition to highlighting the current political context, talks about a government that uses false information on environmental issues. We also highlight the following warning issued by Lobato (2021) highlighting the seriousness of the issue and the need for interventions to minimize the damage caused:
Even though countries are committing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in order to stop global warming we need to adopt further compensatory measures, one of which is to allow developing countries like Brazil to stop the destruction of their forests, and maintain the resources they need to preserve their green areas.
She identifies “another failure at the COP26 negotiations” as being the absence of a proposal to develop a “loss and damage” fund for nations that are already facing climate crises. At the end of her report, Lobato (2021) highlights the speech from the president of the event, who lamented “that the final agreement failed the resolution to end the use of fossil fuels”. The way she supports her main argument with quotes from experts is common and, in a way, meets the expectations of journalistic credibility, using a typology of dissertation reporting5 that we attribute to the manifesto report in the context of media activism and hacker sensitivity.
4 Possible objections
The results from the eight reports, two of which we analyzed in this paper, allowed us to verify that, in practice, the situations examined here often merge to the extent that media activism is present in the principles of environmental journalism, as well as, using ICTs, appropriates this journalistic specification to construct powerful and transformative media narratives, aiming to expand the reach of complex environmental issues, which then become contextualized and revealed. Beforehand, we can guarantee that Amazônia Real could conduct more in-depth investigations of the proposed themes and make many of the premises of environmental journalism clearer.
We viewed the emergence of the media activist from a more liberating point of view, especially on the narrative level. The journalistic coverage we analyzed provides a way to state and inform that differs from the superficiality and veil of objectivity preached by mainstream media. As it is performed by individuals/professionals who believe in the transformative and mobilizing potential of journalism, we note that the most blunt criticisms and positions, especially towards political actors, are made through indirect discursive tactics such as irony, contempt, and inquiries to try to resist and explain the often unclear environmental situation. The opinion and experience of the reporters are fundamental and add much to the narrative, as with the case of a previously analyzed report (Franco & Miguel, 2022) entitled “40% of Rondônia fires centered in Porto Velho”, written by indigenous journalist Luciene Kaxinawá, who reported the events from a media activist viewpoint.
There are weaknesses, however, in the media activist framework and the limited technological resources it has for audience engagement, with proposals for direct participation, mobilizations, and viralizations such as sharing, online public petitions, virtual reality, gamification, geolocation, replication of information, and use of hashtags. This is also true for its connections to conventional journalism in terms of how information is presented and the choice and legitimization of sources in the absence of any type of production that breaks from hegemonic codes. For example, despite the space occupied by minority voices (who do not have space in hegemonic media), there is still a significant number of official sources and experts used to support the perspectives of activists and the reporter herself.
We point out that building media-friendly environmental journalism would have to occur in these contradictions, dictated by circumstances, contexts – and even by accessible models of what is understood by journalism – but it should not lose sight of the production of complex, pluralized narratives, of sources and social localities crossed by the forceful engagement provoked by media activism and the systemic vision and decisive understanding of socio-environmental issues. It is true that reading what activist media collectives produce, such as the one analyzed in this paper, can expand the framework of information and concerns of subjects, but knowledge can only be enhanced through critical positions, promoting debates, and social intervention proposals.
We conclude that there is a journalism that is more engaged and committed to environmental issues, including a more human perspective that deals with inequalities and social injustices through discursive structures that reveal complaints and hacker sensitivity (Moraes, 2022). It is more than news, it has the potential of what we call a manifesto report within the scope of environmental media journalism.
That said, we have no intention of defining how media activism should be done because, as Peruzzo (2018) reminds us, there are so many forms and so many actors and actresses, not to mention all the different reasons for defending the environment, which require a wide range of tactics and strategies. We will continue to monitor and protest.
NOTES
1
2
3
4
5
PREPRINT:
FUNDING:
REFERENCES
-
Aguiar, L. A., & Schaun, A. (2011). Heurística do medo: mídia e meio ambiente na sociedade de risco. Ação Midiática – Estudos em Comunicação, Sociedade e Cultura, 1(2), 1-15. DOI: 10.5380/am.v1i2.26423.
» https://doi.org/10.5380/am.v1i2.26423 -
Amazônia Real. Site oficial Retrieved from https://amazoniareal.com.br
» https://amazoniareal.com.br -
Amazônia Real. (2021, May 11). Milhares já sofrem com a cheia no Amazonas Retrieved from https://amazoniareal.com.br/milhares-ja-sofrem-com-a-cheia-no-amazonas
» https://amazoniareal.com.br/milhares-ja-sofrem-com-a-cheia-no-amazonas -
Belmonte, R. V. (2017). Uma breve história do jornalismo ambiental brasileiro. Revista Brasileira de História da Mídia, 6(2), 110-125. DOI: 10.26664/issn.2238-5126.6220176656.
» https://doi.org/10.26664/issn.2238-5126.6220176656 - Braighi, A. A., & Câmara, M. T. (2018). O que é Midiativismo? Uma proposta conceitual. In A. A. Braighi & M. T. Câmara (Eds.), Interfaces do Midiativismo: do conceito à prática (pp. 25–42). Cefet.
-
Bueno, W. C. (2007). Jornalismo Ambiental: explorando além do conceito. Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente, n.15, 33-44. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5380/dma.v15i0.11897
» https://doi.org/10.5380/dma.v15i0.11897 - Castells, M. (1999). A sociedade em rede Paz e Terra.
- Castells, M. (2013). Redes de Indignação e esperança – movimentos sociais na era da internet Editora Zahar.
- Coimbra, O. (1993). O texto da reportagem impressa. Um curso sobre sua estrutura Ática.
- Fígaro, R., & Nonato, C. (2021). Arranjos jornalísticos alternativos e independentes no Brasil: organização, sustentação e rotinas produtivas ECA-USP.
-
Filgueira, A. L. (2021). Racismo ambiental, cidadania e biopolítica: considerações gerais em torno de espacialidades racializadas. Ateliê Geográfico, 15(2), 186–201. DOI: 10.5216/ag.v15i2.69990.
» https://doi.org/10.5216/ag.v15i2.69990 -
Franco de Souza, A., & Miguel, K. G. (2022). Midiativismo ambiental: a boiada de Ricardo Salles na Amazônia Real. Esferas, 1(25), 510–530. DOI: 10.31501/esf.v1i25.13888
» https://doi.org/10.31501/esf.v1i25.13888 -
Girardi, I., Schwaab, R., Massierer, C., Loose, E. B. (2012). Caminhos e descaminhos do jornalismo ambiental. Comunicação & Sociedade, 34(1),132-152. DOI: 10.15603/2175-7755/cs.v34n1p131-152.
» https://doi.org/10.15603/2175-7755/cs.v34n1p131-152 -
Holanda, J. S. P., Costa, L. M., & Kaapa, P. (2020). Jornalismo Ambiental: características e interfaces de um campo em construção. Proceedings of the 43º Congresso Brasileiro de Ciências da Comunicação – Intercom Sociedade Brasileira de Estudos Interdisciplinares da Comunicação. Retrieved from https://portalintercom.org.br/anais/nacional2020/trabalhos.htm
» https://portalintercom.org.br/anais/nacional2020/trabalhos.htm - Jordan, T. (2002). Activism! Direct action, hacktivism and the future of society Reaktion Books.
- Leff, E. (2001). Epistemologia Ambiental Cortez.
-
Lobato, A. (2021, November 14). Acordo final da COP26 adia decisões para o futuro Amazônia Real Retrieved from https://amazoniareal.com.br/acordo-final-da-cop26/
» https://amazoniareal.com.br/acordo-final-da-cop26/ -
Loose, E. B., & Girardi, I. M. T. (2017). O Jornalismo Ambiental sob a ótica dos riscos climáticos. INTERIN, 22(2), 154–172. DOI: 10.35168/1980-5276.UTP.interin.2017.Vol22.N2.pp154-172.
» https://doi.org/10.35168/1980-5276.UTP.interin.2017.Vol22.N2.pp154-172 - Moraes, C., & Fante, E. (2018). Uma cartografia do midiativismo ambiental em Porto Alegre. In A.A. Braighi & M.T. Câmara (Eds.), Interfaces do Midiativismo: do conceito à prática (pp. 336–355). Cefet.
- Moraes, F. (2022). A pauta é uma arma de combate: subjetividade, prática reflexiva e posicionamento para superar um jornalismo que desumaniza. Arquipélago editorial.
- Peruzzo, C. (2018). Cidadania comunicacional e tecnopolítica: feições do midiativismo no âmbito dos movimentos sociais populares. In A.A. Braighi & M.T. Câmara (Eds), Interfaces do Midiativismo: do conceito à prática (pp. 43–61). Cefet.
-
Silva, G., & Maia, F. D. (2011). Análise de Cobertura Jornalística: um protocolo metodológico. Rumores, 5(10), 18–35. DOI: 10.11606/issn.1982-677X.rum.2011.51250
» https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1982-677X.rum.2011.51250
Edited by
History
-
Received
31 Mar 2023 -
Reviewed
06 May 2023 -
Accepted
03 Oct 2023
-
This document has a preprint version
10.1590/SciELOPreprints.6095
