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Searching for 'wilderness': environmental protests in The Mercury and The Age
Citation
Tranter, B, Searching for 'wilderness': environmental protests in The Mercury and The Age, Emerging and Enduring Inequalities - The 2012 Annual Conference of the Australian Sociological Association, 26-29 November 2012, Brisbane, Queensland, pp. 1-12. ISBN 978-0-646-58783-7 (2012) [Refereed Conference Paper]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2012 The Australian Sociological Association
Official URL: http://www.tasa.org.au/uploads/2012/12/Tranter-Bru...
Abstract
'Wilderness' is a highly contested concept but one that has been used effectively by
environmentalists to frame environmental issues and valorise wild places, particularly the
wild rivers, lakes and old growth forests of Tasmania. Content analyses of articles sampled
from The Mercury and The Age suggest substantial variation in the reporting of 'wilderness'
between the two newspapers. In the Tasmanian Mercury 'wilderness' is only weakly
associated with coverage of environmental campaigns in areas environmentalists claim to be
wild places, but is more strongly associated with environmental campaigns in The Age. Over
a similar period, the phrase 'forest protest' also emerges as a distinctive frame. Yet while
'forest protests' occurs more frequently in The Mercury than The Age over time, it is only
associated with 'wilderness' in The Age. The findings suggest that while differences in the
tone of 'wilderness' articles in the two newspapers may have softened since the Franklin
campaign of 1982-83, when it comes to framing and reporting 'wilderness', substantial
differences remain between the two papers.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Conference Paper |
---|---|
Research Division: | Human Society |
Research Group: | Sociology |
Research Field: | Environmental sociology |
Objective Division: | Environmental Management |
Objective Group: | Other environmental management |
Objective Field: | Other environmental management not elsewhere classified |
UTAS Author: | Tranter, B (Professor Bruce Tranter) |
ID Code: | 80076 |
Year Published: | 2012 |
Deposited By: | Sociology and Social Work |
Deposited On: | 2012-10-22 |
Last Modified: | 2017-11-30 |
Downloads: | 202 View Download Statistics |
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