- Walter Lippman (1921) – Public Opinion – Free Press, New York – Disponible en http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper2/CDFinal/Lippman/contents.html
«I argue that representative government, either in what is ordinarily called politics, or in industry, cannot be worked successfully, no matter what the basis of election, unless there is an independent, expert organization for making the unseen facts intelligible to those who have to make the decisions. I attempt, therefore, to argue that the serious acceptance of the principle that personal representation must be supplemented by representation of the unseen facts would alone permit a satisfactory decentralization, and allow us to escape from the intolerable and unworkable fiction that each of us must acquire a competent opinion about all public affairs. It is argued that the problem of the press is confused because the critics and the apologists expect the press to realize this fiction, expect it to make up for all that was not foreseen in the theory of democracy, and that the readers expect this miracle to be performed at no cost or trouble to themselves. The newspapers are regarded by democrats as a panacea for their own defects, whereas analysis of the nature of news and of the economic basis of journalism seems to show that the newspapers necessarily and inevitably reflect, and therefore, in greater or lesser measure, intensify, the defective organization of public opinion.» - George Orwell – Propaganda – Charles’ George Orwell Links – – – http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/articles/col-propaganda.htm
“Propaganda techniques were first codified and applied in a scientific manner by journalist Walter Lippman and psychologist Edward Bernays (nephew of Sigmund Freud) early in the 20th century. During World War I, Lippman and Bernays were hired by the United States President, Woodrow Wilson to participate in the Creel Commission, the mission of which was to sway popular opinion to enter the war on the side of Britain.” - Edward L. Bernays (1926) – Propaganda – Horace LiveRight, New York
“What separates propaganda from «normal» communication is in the subtle, often insidious, ways that the message attempts to shape opinion. For example, propaganda is often presented in a way that attempts to deliberately evoke a strong emotion, especially by suggesting non-logical (or non-intuitive) relationships between concepts … Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons … who pull the wires which control the public mind.” - Dieter Plehwe – Forging a neoliberal knowledge elite (perspective) and restricted pluralism (perspective) and restricted pluralism: The history of the Mont Pèlerin Society networks of intellectuals and think tanks – The Social Science Research Council – October 2008
“Hayek, Röpke, Friedman and many others attempted to recover a socially approved knowledge position (within and beyond academia) to fight the global expansion of what appeared at the time to be the irrevocably socially approved position of Keynesianism, planning, and expansionary welfare state “socialism.” - Sally Covignton (2005) – Moving Public Policy to the Right – En Faber Daniel R. Deborah McCarthy (eds.) – Foundations for Social Change – Lanham:Rowman and Littlefield
“Although this effort has often been described as a ‘war of ideas’ it has involved far more than scholarly debate … Indeed, waging the war of ideas has required the development of a substantial and interconnected institutional apparatus in order to influence elite opinion, shape public consciousness, recruit and train new leaders, mobilize core constituencies and apply significant rightward pressure on mainstream institutions, colleges and universities, the federal judiciary and philanthropy itself.” - Andrew Austin (2002) – Advancing Accumulation And Managing Its Discontents: The U.S. Antienvironmental Countermovement – Sociological Spectrum 22:71-105 – Department of Social Change and Development, University of Wisconsin
“For Gramsci, policy is not formulated in rational minds detached from the sociocultural context. Social relations organize the thought and behavior of policymakers (see also Robinson 1996). However, it is an enlightenment error to suppose that the interests embedded in those social relations are always recognized or understood in the same way by all group members.” - John Taylor – The age of spin – Esquire – December 1996 – http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-18866696/age-spin-perception-has.html
«Central to this semantic shift is the understanding that spin cannot be a demonstrable lie. `It’s what a pitcher does when he throws a curveball,’ says William Safire, a professional spinner before he became a pundit and lexicographer. `The English on the ball causes it to appear to be going in a slightly different direction than it actually is.'» - Rick Pilz – Koch Industries multibillionaire Koch brothers bankroll attacks on climate change science and policy – Climate Science Watch – 18/03/2010 – http://projects.publicintegrity.org/oil/report.aspx?aid=347
«The largest recipient of the Koch’s policy influence grants is George Mason University, which has received more than $23 million from the family’s foundations between 1985 and 2002, according to the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. The Fairfax, Va.-based school hosts several Koch funded institutes and think tanks. Richard Fink, a director and executive vice president at Koch, serves on the university’s board of visitors. An economics professor at the university, he helped found another Koch-funded think tank called Citizens for a Sound Economy in the mid-1980s. One of the groups housed at GMU is the Institute for Humane Studies, which offers scholarships to students interested in libertarian and free-market ideas. Charles Koch has provided major funding for this group and the institute’s scholarships are named for him. The institute’s outstanding alumni award is also named for him. On its Web site, the institute says its «perspective is that individual well-being, prosperity, and social harmony» are fostered by «as much liberty as possible» and «as little government as necessary.» Another Koch group housed at GMU is the Mercatus Center. Koch family money was used to support Mercatus in the mid-1980s and still finances the organization today. Charles Koch and Richard Fink are on the Mercatus board of directors. Situated at GMU’s Law School in Arlington, Va., Mercatus defines itself as «an education, research and outreach organization.» «Outreach» in Mercatus’s case includes an intense lobbying blitz of the federal government, including Capitol Hill breakfasts and luncheons hosted by deregulation scholars. Mercatus has been effective in its political goals—and those of Koch Industries.» - Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine – Greenpeace, 2010 – http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries
«Explore Koch’s Web of Dirty Money and Influence by clicking and dragging anywhere in the graphic below, or by using the controls in the upper left. Clicking on any of the red dots will center the pop-up window. Please make sure to use the buttons to the right to share this page with your social networks and help us expose the front groups doing the Kochs’ dirty work!» - Curtis A. Moore – Rethinking the Think Tanks How industry-funded «experts» twist the environmental debate – Curtis A. Moore – October, 2002 – Basel Action Network – http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1525/is_4_87/ai_87741368/
“In 1999, for example, the Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation, the funding arm of CSE, paid for «friend of the court» briefs that sought to declare the Clean Air Act unconstitutional. Where might a nonprofit charity like CSEF come up on short notice with the money required to pay lawyers who can charge $5,000 an hour? Answer: the Claude Lambe Foundation, also controlled by the Kochs, which gave CSEF $600,000 for «general operating support»; the DaimlerChrysler Corporation Fund, which kicked in another $250,000; and General Electric, which matched the DaimlerChrysler Fund’s donation. There’s no way of knowing whether that $1.1 million paid for the legal briefs, but that amount buys a lot of lawyers, even at Washington prices.” - Ferran P. Vilar – Procedencia de la financiación de la maquinaria de negación – Usted no se lo Cree – https://ustednoselocree.com/background-climatico/maquinaria-negacion-agnotologia/financiacion-negacionismo-llistat/
“Adolph Coors Foundation, Allegheny Foundation, Ave Maria Foundation, Carthage Foundation, Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, Earhart Foundation, F.M. Kirby Foundation, Gilder Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Walton Family Foundation.” - Mario Nieves – El aumento del consumo y el medio ambiente. Dimensiones ecológicas de la publicidad
“La publicidad es cómplice de una crisis ecológica sobre la cual la sociedad no quiere darse por enterada” - Juan Carlos Miguel de Bustos – Ecología Cultural. Cultura, comunicación y ecología
“Un aspecto fundamental de la ecología cultural es la sostenibilidad de la cultura, definida fundamentalmente como la promoción de la diversidad.” - Anabela Carvalho (2007) – Ideological cultures and media discourses on scientific knowledge: re-reading news on climate change – Public Understanding of Science 16:223–243 doi:10.1177/0963662506066775 – Department of Communication Sciences of the University of Minho, Portugal – http://www.infoamerica.org/icr/num01/infoamerica01_carvalho.pdf
“La responsabilidad humana respecto a la naturaleza se percibe de forma muy diferente en los tres periódicos [The Times, The Independent, The Guardian] … Sin embargo, sus puntos de vista encajan en una ‘ecología superficial’. El aspecto del valor intrínseco de la naturaleza está excluido de todos los diarios y el antropocentrismo es hegemónico.» - David Miller and William Dinan (2008) – A Century of Spin. How Public Relations Became the Cutting Edge of Corporate Power – Pluto Books, London –
“The result of corporate propaganda can be seen in the contemporary ‘common sense’ that what is good for business must be good for society …corporations and political elites have used public relations and lobbying to subvert and subdue democracy … the process we examine are not limited to questions of communications alone. The attemps by corporations to tame democracy and pursue their interests have to be accomplished by putting words and ideas into action.” - Pendiente
- Stormin’ Morgan Joins Ad Bullies’ League – Reuters, 19/05/2005 – http://www.prwatch.org/node/3682
«Morgan Stanley, whose battle with unhappy shareholders has played out on the business pages, is warning prominent newspapers that it could pull its advertising if it objects to articles.» Morgan Stanley’s new ad policy says the company «must be notified» of any «objectionable editorial coverage,» so that a «last-minute change» in its advertising can be made. If notification is impossible, the policy directs all ads to be canceled, «for a minimum of 48 hours,» http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=45055 |reports Advertising Age. Morgan Stanley discussed the policy with the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other major publications. The Journal’s publisher called it impractical, since «the ad department has no knowledge of what stories are running.» An anonymous «high-ranking editor» told AdAge, «There’s a fairly lengthy list of companies that have instructions like this.» Last month, General Motors its ads from the Los Angeles Times, due to negative coverage.” - Eric Steig – The Economist does not disappoint – Real Climate – 40281 – – http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/04/the-economist-does-not-disappoint/
«The March 20th -26th cover story of The Economist, “Spin, science and climate change,” deftly bypasses the politics surrounding ‘climategate’, to tackle the more important issue: whether any of this has any bearing on climate change science and policy. This is a refreshing bit of journalism that everyone should read.» - Pendiente
- Reuters – Stormin’ Morgan Joins Ad Bullies’ League – PR Watch – 19/05/2005 – http://www.prwatch.org/node/3682
“Morgan Stanley, whose battle with unhappy shareholders has played out on the business pages, is warning prominent newspapers that it could pull its advertising if it objects to articles.» Morgan Stanley’s new ad policy says the company «must be notified» of any «objectionable editorial coverage,» so that a «last-minute change» in its advertising can be made. If notification is impossible, the policy directs all ads to be canceled, «for a minimum of 48 hours,» http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=45055|reports Advertising Age. Morgan Stanley discussed the policy with the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other major publications. The Journal’s publisher called it impractical, since «the ad department has no knowledge of what stories are running.» An anonymous «high-ranking editor» told AdAge, «There’s a fairly lengthy list of companies that have instructions like this.» Last month, General Motors its ads from the Los Angeles Times, due to negative coverage.» - Over half your news is spin – Crickey – 15/03/2010 – http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/03/15/over-half-your-news-is-spin/
«Many journalists and editors were defensive when the phone call came. Who’d blame them? They’re busier than ever, under resourced, on deadline and under pressure. Most refused to respond, others who initially granted an interview then asked for their comments to be withdrawn out of fear they’d be reprimanded, or worse, fired. But to their credit, some editors were quite candid. Chris Mitchell, editor in chief of The Australian, told UTS student Sasha Pavey: “It’s very difficult I think, given the way resources have drifted from journalism to public relations over the past 30 years, to break away as much as you really want to … I guess I’m implying, the number of people who go to communications school and go into PR over the years has increased and the number in journalism has shrunk even more dramatically.” Given the grim state of some of these papers, and the deep cuts to their workforces of late, in some ways it’s surprising the 55% isn’t higher. But as Bacon and Pavey write today: «Our investigation strongly confirms that journalism in Australia today is heavily influenced by commercial interests selling a product, and constrained and blocked by politicians, police and others who control the media message.» - Peter Hart and Julie Hollar (2005) – How power shapes the news – FAIR: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting – 38412 – Fear & Favor 2004 — The Fifth Annual Report – http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2486
«Even some of the most celebrated journalism is affected by government pressure: CBS’s April 28 investigation of the abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, for example, was held for two weeks at the request of the Pentagon.» - Hank Roth – Engineering consent – 19/07/2005 – http://www.mail-archive.com/pnews-l@maelstrom.stjohns.edu/msg02388.htm
«And it isn’t just the advertisers who manipulate the media with their clout, the rules are bent to please politicians, and these days, that means mostly the Republican Party; although the Democrats can play the same game and do it with verve and the kind of engineering only money can buy. Publishers are all too quick to please politicians; they never know when they will also need a favor. Even university newspapers are not beyond the long reach of their regents and former alumni. Money talks. The truth walks.»» - Veerabhadran Ramanathan and Y. Feng (2008) – On avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system: Formidable challenges ahead – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS 105:14245-14250 doi:10.1073/pnas.0803838105 – 23/03/2008 – Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego
“About 90% or more of the rest of the committed warming of 1.6 °C will unfold during the 21st century, determined by the rate of the unmasking of the aerosol cooling effect by air pollution abatement laws and by the rate of release of the GHGs-forcing stored in the oceans. The accompanying sea-level rise can continue for more than several centuries. Lastly, even the most aggressive CO2 mitigation steps as envisioned now can only limit further additions to the committed warming, but not reduce the already committed GHGs warming of 2.4°C” - Imelda V. Abano – Critican información periodística sobre cambio climático – SciDevNet – 17/03/2009 – http://www.scidev.net/es/news/critican-informaci-n-period-stica-sobre-cambio-cli.html
«Richardson indicó que los medios de comunicación necesitan vender sus diarios “por lo tanto esperar que los periodistas hagan este trabajo por nosotros cuando son pagados por un diario que necesita ganar dinero no es correcto, no va a suceder”, añadió. Haciendo frente a los periodistas durante el debate, citó como ejemplo una foto del deshielo de un nevado que fue publicada con un título anunciando una nueva y rentable ruta marítima a China o una nueva ruta para la exploración petrolera. Los científicos se sintieron frustrados porque esos artículos no explicaron de qué manera el deshielo afectará los sistemas de la Tierra y, en consecuencia, a las futuras generaciones. “Queremos que ustedes (los medios) entiendan lo que nosotros realmente conocemos sobre el cambio climático y sus potenciales consecuencias y lo que podemos hacer al respecto, de tal manera que puedan ponerlo a disposición de la sociedad en general. No siempre podemos explicarlo bien, en un lenguaje que no sea técnico, pero queremos hablar con ustedes. Por lo tanto, si no nos entienden, por favor pregunten”, subrayó Richardson.» - Pendiente
- Elke U. Weber (2006) – Experience-Based and Description-Based Perceptions of Long-Term Risk: Why Global Warming Does Not Scare Us (Yet) – Climatic Change (2006) 77: 103–120 – 38718 – Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Columbia University
“There was some indication that concern and worry was a finite resource even within each scenario … Judgments of worry or perceived risk were not inconsequential, in that differences in farmers’ perceptions of the degree of risk posed by political, climate, input costs and crop price variables were associated with differences in their production and pricing decisions. A real world illustration of the finite pool of worry effect is provided by the observation that increases in the concern of the U.S. public about terrorism post 9/11 seem to have resulted in decreased concern about other issues such as environmental degradation or restrictions of civil liberties.” - Robert Jensen – The collapse of journalism / The journalism of collapse: New Storytelling and a New Story – School of Journalism, University of Texas – 40255 – Journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin – http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/collapseofjournalism.htm
«The progress/expansion story assumes we have knowledge — or the capacity to acquire knowledge — that is adequate to run the world competently, and that the application of that knowledge will produce a constantly expanding bounty that, in theory, can provide for all … The capitalist West led by the United States and the communist East led by the Soviet Union — shared an allegiance to this story, that humans had the ability to understand and control, to shape the future, to become God-like in some sense. Even in places that carved out some independence in the Cold War, such as India, the same philosophy dominated … For reasons articulated by critics such as Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, contemporary professional journalism is hamstrung by institutional and ideological constraints that have been built into professional practices. As a result, corporate news owners rarely have to discipline mainstream journalists, who are socialized to accept the ideological prison in which they work and police other inmates.» - George Lakoff (2010) – Why it Matters How We Frame the Environment – Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture 4:70-81 doi:10.1080/17524030903529749 – Marzo, 2010
«Most of us were brought up with a commonplace view of how we think that derives from the Enlightenment. Over the past 30 years, the cognitive and brain sciences have shown that this view is false. The old view claimed that reason is conscious, unemotional, logical, abstract, universal, and imagined concepts and language as able to fit the world directly. All of that is false. Real reason is: mostly unconscious (98%); requires emotion; uses the ‘‘logic’’ of frames, metaphors, and narratives; is physical (in brain circuitry); and varies considerably, as frames vary. And since the brain is set up to run a body, ideas and language can’t directly fit the world but rather must go through the body.» - Robert J. Brulle (2010) – From Environmental Campaigns to Advancing the Public Dialog: Environmental Communication for Civic Engagement – Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture 4:82-98 doi:10.1080/17524030903522397 – March 2010 – Professor of Sociology and Environmental Science in the Department of Culture and Communications at Drexel University
«This essay examines the claims of environmental identity campaigns regarding the issue of climate change. Identity campaigns are based on the idea that more effective environmental messages developed through the application of cognitive science by professional communications experts can favorably influence public opinion, and thus support legislative action to remedy this issue. Based on a review of the sociological and psychological literature regarding social change and mobilization, I argue that while this approach may offer short term advantages, it is most likely incapable of developing the large scale mobilization necessary to enact the massive social and economic changes necessary to address global warming. Specifically, theoretical and empirical research on the role of the public sphere, civil society and social movements shows that democratic civic engagement is core to successful social change efforts. However, identity campaigns focus on a communications process that centers on elite led one way communications, which falls to allow for any form of civic engagement and public dialogue. This undermines the creation of a democratic process of change and reinforces the professionalization of political discourse, leading to a weakening of the mobilization capacity over this issue of global warming. The essay concludes with the outlines of an environmental communication process that aims at enhancing civic engagement and democratic decision making.» - Barry Richards (2004) – The Emotional Deficit in Political Communication – Political Communication, 21:339–352 doi:10.1080/10584600490481451 – Professor of Public Communication at Bournemouth University
«As a consequence of social changes which have weakened the boundaries between different spheres of life, politics is now interwoven with popular culture. This means that we now seek certain kinds of emotionalized experience from politics. The relationship of people to politics has changed, and has come more fully to resemble a mode of consumption. While this consumerization of politics has been much described (and criticized), its implications for the place of emotion in political communications have not been explored. From a base in the sociology of emotion, this article undertakes such an exploration. It notes how some analysts of political communication have already registered the influence of emotional states, and stresses how contemporary emotionality differs from traditional conceptions of the emotional as a domain separable from rationality and as an optional button for message strategists to press. The complexity and omnipresence of emotional states is emphasised. Political advertising is taken as one area where a sophistication of messages to match the complexity and power of audience emotions might have been expected to develop, but does not appear to have done so yet to a great extent. Making good this “emotional deficit” in political communications is not primarily a way for particular parties or candidates to gain electoral advantage (though it could be that), but is essential for the regeneration of the democratic process and the creation of a more viable settlement between reason and emotion in contemporary society.” - Jacquelin Burgess et al (2007) – Deliberative mapping: a novel analytic-deliberative methodology to support contested science-policy decisions – Public Understanding of Science 16:299–322 doi:10.1177/0963662507077510 – 28/11/2007 – Director, Centre for Environmental Risk, University of East Anglia – 7 authors
This paper discusses the methodological development of Deliberative Mapping (DM), a participatory, multi-criteria, option appraisal process that combines a novel approach to the use of quantitative decision analysis techniques with some significant innovations in the field of participatory deliberation. DM is a symmetrical process, engaging “specialists” and “citizens” in the same appraisal process, providing for consistency of framing, mutual inter-linkage and interrogation, and substantial opportunities for face-to-face discussion. Through a detailed case study of organ transplantation options, the paper discusses the steps in DM. The analysis shows that DM is able to elicit and document consensual judgments as well as divergent views by integrating analytic and deliberative components in a transparent, auditable process that creates many opportunities for personal learning, and provides a robust decision-support tool for contested science-policy issues.» - Thomas W. Malone and Mark Klein (2007) – Harnessing Collective Intelligence to Address Global Climate Change – Innovations 2:15-26 doi:10.1162/itgg.2007.2.3.15 – 39284 – MIT Center for Collective Intelligence; Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Center for Center for Collective Intelligence
«Our focus is on a possible use of such a system with a particularly high social return: drawing on the best human and computational resources available to develop government policies about climate change. We will begin with stories about how different kinds of people could participate in such a global conversation. Then we’ll briefly describe some of the technologies that would make such a conversation possible. Future Story 1) A Scientific Expert; 2) An Advocate; 3) A High School Student; 4) An Open-Source Software Developer; 5) A congressional staffer. How Could All This Be Done? 1) On-line Argumentation Systems; 2) Computer Simulations; 3) Collective decision-making tools. The web-based forum we have described is, simultaneously, a kind of Wikipedia for controversial topics, a Sims game for the future of the planet, and an electronic democracy on steroids. If we could build it, our societal conversation about global warming could go beyond the realm of the all-too-often emotionally-driven yes/no votes about small numbers of simplified alternatives. It could, instead, facilitate reasoned and evidence-based collective decision-making about highly complex issues.» - Bertrand Russell (1958) – The Divorce between Science and “Culture” – Conferencia en la UNESCO
“The separation of science from ‘culture’ is a modern phenomenon. Plato and Aristotile had a profound respect for what was known of science in their day… The modern theory and practice of nuclear physicists has made evident with dramatic suddenness that complete ignorance of the world of science is no longer compatible with survival.” - C.P. Snow (1959) – The REDE Lecture: The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution – Cambridge University Press New York 1961
“At one pole we have the literary intellectuals, who incidentally while no one was looking took to referring to themselves as ‘intellectuals’ as though there were no others” - Alan Sokal (2008) – Más allá de las imposturas intelectuales. Ciencia, filosofía y cultura – – 39448 – – – authors “Conviene, sin duda, mostrar qué intereses económicos, políticos e ideológicos sirven las caracterizaciones de la ‘realidad’ que hacen nuestros oponentes. Pero primero hemos de demostrar, sirviéndonos de los datos y de la lógica, por qué esas caracterizaciones son objetivamente falsas (o, en algunos casos, verdaderas pero incompletas)… Por desgracia, hay quienes, partiendo de que es difícil determinar la verdad – especialmente en el campo de las ciencias sociales – han saltado a la conclusión de que no hay en absoluto verdad objetiva.” (énfasis en el original).
- Jonathan Kay – Bad science: Global-warming deniers are a liability to the conservative cause – National Post – 15/07/2010 http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/07/15/bad-science-global-warming-deniers-are-a-liability-to-the-conservative-cause/
“Rants and slogans may help conservatives deal with the emotional problem of cognitive dissonance. But they aren’t the building blocks of a serious ideological movement. And the impulse toward denialism must be fought if conservatism is to prosper in a century when environmental issues will assume an ever greater profile on this increasingly hot, parched, crowded planet. Otherwise, the movement will come to be defined — and discredited — by its noisiest cranks and conspiracists.” - Richard J. Ladle et al (2005) – Scientists and the media: the struggle for legitimacy in climate change and conservation science – Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 30:231-240 doi:10.1179/030801805X42036 – 38412 – Biodiversity Research Group, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford – Versión española en: http://www.infoamerica.org/icr/num01/infoamerica01_ladle.pdf – 3 authors
«Sugerimos en este trabajo que las construcciones mediáticas tan polarizadas de la ciencia medioambiental son un indicio de una lucha por la legitimidad entre los grupos medioambientales y los anti-medioambientales, con consecuencias potencialmente negativas para la confianza de la opinión pública en la ciencia … tanto los ecologistas, en su mayoría onGs que hacen campaña, como los escépticos, generalmente organizaciones no lucrativas, fundaciones financiadas por empresas e individuos particulares, buscan convencer al público de la legitimidad de sus creencias a través de la apropiación y difusión de la información científica.» - Kris M. Wilson (2000) – Drought, debate, and uncertainty: measuring reporters’ knowledge and ignorance about climate change – Public Understanding of Science 9:1-13 PII:S0963-6625(00)10268-1
“Our results suggest that an individual reporter can do only so much within the confines of the institutional and managerial support structures at the news outlet in which they work. In addition to the steps that motivated reporters may initiate themselves to improve their climate change reporting, news managers must also recognize the dividends full-time specialists offer in terms of content expertise.” - Ted Trainer (2010) – Can renewables etc. solve the greenhouse problem? The negative case – Energy Policy 38:4107-4114 doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2010.03.037 – 07/05/2010 – Social Work, University of NSW, Australia
«Virtually all current discussion of climate change and energy problems proceeds on the assumption that technical solutions are possible within basically affluent-consumer societies. There is however a substantial case that this assumption is mistaken. This case derives from a consideration of the scale of the tasks and of the limits of non-carbon energy sources, focusing especially on the need for redundant capacity in winter. The first line of argument is to do with the extremely high capital cost of the supply system that would be required, and the second is to do with the problems set by the intermittency of renewable sources. It is concluded that the general climate change and energy problem cannot be solved without large scale reductions in rates of economic production and consumption, and therefore without transition to fundamentally different social structures and systems.” - Maxwell T. Boykoff (2008) – Los medios y la comunicación científica: el caso del cambio climático – Geological Society, London, Special Publications 305:11-18 DOI:10.1144/SP305.3 – 39448 – Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University Centre for the Environment – http://www.infoamerica.org/icr/num01/infoamerica01_boykoff.pdf
«Los estudios realizados en décadas recientes han puesto de manifiesto que el público adquiere gran parte de su conocimiento sobre la ciencia a través de los medios de comunicación (ref). En el caso del cambio climático, la investigación también ha demostrado que el conocimiento exacto de sus causas es el vaticinador más fuerte para la acción personal (Bird et al 2000).» - Richard J. Bord, Robert E. O’Connor, Ann Fisher (2000) – In what sense does the public need to understand global climate change? – Public Understanding of Science 9:205-218 – Associate Professor of Sociology; Associate Professor of Political Science; Professor of Agricultural Economics. Pennsylvania State University – 3 authors
“Translating public concern for global warming into effective action requires real knowledge. General environmental concern or concern for the negative effects of air pollution appear not to motivate people to support programs designed to control global warming” - Ferran P. Vilar – Ellos lo sabían – Usted no se lo Cree, 27/11/2009 – https://ustednoselocree.com/2009/11/27/ellos-lo-sabian/
“En una declaración y presentación del problema en el senado estadounidense en marzo de 1961, Revelle manifestó que un 20% de incremento de la concentración de dióxido de carbono atmosférico, que él esperaba que se produjera en el año 2000, comportaría ‘cambios considerables’ en el clima” - Sanjay Khanna (2009) – Q&A: The science of persuasion – Nature 461:1059 – 22/10/2009
«Psychologist Robert Gifford is co-author of a recent American Psychological Association report that examined the interface between psychology and climate change. What five elements make up an effective message? First, it has to have some urgency. Second, it has to have as much certainty as can be mustered with integrity. Third, there can’t be just one message: there must be messages targeted to different groups. Fourth, messages should be framed in positive terms. Evidence from a recent thesis I co-supervised shows that people are less willing to change their behaviour if you tell them they have to make sacrifices. If you tell them they can be in the vanguard, be a hero, be the one that helps — that works. Fifth, you have to give people the sense that their vote counts and that their effort won’t be in vain.» - JJean-Marie Robine et al (2007) – Report on excess mortality in Europe during summer 2003 – EU Community Action Programme for Public Health – 39141 – Inserm, Health and Demography, CRLC, University of Montpellier – http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_projects/2005/action1/docs/action1_2005_a2_15_en.pdf – 5 authors
«In total, more than 80,000 additional deaths were recorded in 2003 in the twelve countries concerned by excess mortality compared to the 1998‐2002 period. Whereas 70,000 of these additional deaths occurred during the summer, still over 7,000 occurred afterwards. Nearly 45,000 additional deaths were recorded in August alone, as well as more than 11,000 in June, more than 10,000 in July and nearly 5,000 in September. The mortality crisis of early August extended over the two weeks between August 3rd and 16th. 15,000 additional deaths were recorded in the first week and nearly 24,000 in the second. The excess mortality in this second week reached the exceptional value of 96.5% in France and over 40% in Portugal, Italy, Spain and Luxembourg. Excess mortality exceeded 20% in Germany, Switzerland and Belgium and 10% in all the other countries.» - Jürg Luterbacher et al (2004) – European Seasonal and Annual Temperature Variability, Trends, and Extremes Since 1500 – Science 303:1499-1503 doi:10.1126/science.1093877 – 38051 – National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) Climate, University of Bern – 5 authors
«Multiproxy reconstructions of monthly and seasonal surface temperature fields for Europe back to 1500 show that the late 20th- and early 21st-century European climate is very likely (>95% confidence level) warmer than that of any time during the past 500 years. This agrees with findings for the entire Northern Hemisphere. European winter average temperatures during the period 1500 to 1900 were reduced by ~0.5°C (0.25°C for annual mean temperatures) compared to the 20th century. Summer temperatures did not experience systematic century-scale cooling relative to present conditions. The coldest European winter was 1708/1709; 2003 was by far the hottest summer.»
- Matthew C. Nisbet (2009) – Communicating Climate Change: Why Frames Matter for Public Engagement – Environment 51:13-22 – March, 2009 – School of Communication, American University http://www.environmentmagazine.org/Archives/Back Issues/March-April 2009/Nisbet-full.html
“Framing – as a concept and an area of research – spans several social science disciplines. Frames are interpretive storylines that set a specific train of thought in motion, communicating why an issue might be a problem, who or what might be responsible for it, and what should be done about it.13 Framing is an unavoidable reality of the communication process, especially as applied to public affairs and policy. There is no such thing as unframed information, and most successful communicators are adept at framing, whether using frames intentionally or intuitively.” - R.M. Entman (1993) – Framing: Toward a clarification of a fractured paradigm – Journal of Communication 43:51-58 – Northwestern University – Disponible en http://web.viu.ca/smolashn/images/framing.pdf
«Framing essentially involves selection and salience. To frame is to select some aspects of perceived reality and make them more salient in the communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation a d o r treatment recommendation for the item described. Frames, then, define problems4etermine what a causal agent is doing and costs and benefits, usually measured in terms of cultural values; diagnose causes-identify the forces creating the problem; make moral judgments-valuate causal agents and their effects; and suggest remedies-offer and justify treatments for the problem and predict their likely effects.»
- Kirk Hallahan (1999) – Seven Models of Framing: Implications for Public Relations – Journal of Public Relations Research 11:205–242 doi:10.1207/s1532754xjprr1103_02 – 36465 – Department of Journalism and Technical Communication, Colorado State University – http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/18341_788671212_785832528.pdf
«Framing is a potentially useful paradigm for examining the strategic creation of public relations messages and audience responses. Based on a literature review across disciplines, this article identifies 7 distinct types of framing applicable to public relations. These involve the framing of situations, attributes, choices, actions, issues, responsibility, and news. Potential applications for public relations practice and research are discussed… Framing is a critical activity in the construction of social reality because it helps shape the perspectives through which people see the world. Although public relations practitioners commonly refer to framing effective messages (Duht & Zoch, 1994) in the same way that a builder frames a house from the bottom up, the framing metaphor is better understood as a window or portrait frame drawn around information that delimits the subject matter and, thus, focuses attention on key elements within. Thus, framing involves processes of inclusion and exclusion as well as emphasis.» - Jeffrey S. Juris (2003) – Violence Performed and Imagined: Militant Action, the Black Bloc and the Mass Media in Genoa – Critique of Anthropology 25:413–432 doi:10.1177/0308275X05058657 – Arizona State University – http://www.jeffreyjuris.com/articles/Critique.Violence.pdf
«The Battle of Genoa has become an iconic sign of wanton destruction, evoking images of tear gas, burning cars, and black clad protestors hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at advancing lines of heavily militarized riot police. In this article, I explore the complex relationship between performative violence and mass-mediated constructions of violence during the anti-G8 protests in Genoa. Performative violence is a specific mode of communication through which activists seek to produce social transformation by staging symbolic rituals of confrontation. Young militants enact performative violence in order to generate radical identities, while producing concrete messages challenging global capitalism and the state. At the same time, dominant media frames reinterpret the resulting images as random acts of senseless violence, undermining activists more generally. I further argue that the prevailing ‘diversity of tactics’ ethic reflects the broader networking logics associated with anti-corporate globalization movements themselves.»
- Luis I. Gómez – El ejército verde. El ecoterrorismo que viene – Desde el Exilio. El Pensamiento es Libre – 39762 – – http://www.desdeelexilio.com/2008/11/10/el-ejercito-verde-el-ecoterrorismo-que-viene/
“Ustedes, problamente, no lean el magnífico blog Achse des Guten, donde un grupo de periodistas alemanes se reúne para hablar de islamismo, liberalismo, política internacional y ecologismo. No lo leerán, pues está, mayormente, en alemán. Una pena. De todos modos, les cuento que gracias a Benny Peiser y su entrada Klimakiller: Grüne Armee Fraktion nos enteramos de hasta qué punto se está radicalizando la “batalla verde” en el mundo. Después de que los juzgados británicos no tuviesen reparos en declarar el ecoterrorismo como socialmente aceptable, ya nada va a interponerse en el camino de las corrientes radicales dentro del movimiento ecologista.” - Indypendent Staff – The Birth of a Buzz Word: Eco-Terrorism – The Indypendent – 17/09/2007 – http://www.indypendent.org/2007/09/15/the-birth-of-a-buzz-word-eco-terrorism/
“FBI deputy assistant director John Lewis would tell Congress that, “the No. 1 domestic terrorism threat [in the United States] is the eco-terrorism, animal-rights movement.” Conservative think tanks have fueled the debate. The word is loved by antienvironmental champion Ron Arnold.”
- Edward W Maibach et al (2010) – Reframing climate change as a public health issue: an exploratory study of public reactions – BMC Public Health 10:299 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-10-299 – 40330 – Center for Climate Change Communication, Department of Communication, George Mason University – – 5 authors «Climate change is taking a toll on human health, and some leaders in the public health community have urged their colleagues to give voice to its health implications. Previous research has shown that Americans are only dimly aware of the health implications of climate change, yet the literature on issue framing suggests that providing a novel frame – such as human health – may be potentially useful in enhancing public engagement. We conducted an exploratory study in the United States of people’s reactions to a public health-framed short essay on climate change.
- «Ferran P. Vilar – Punto final al Climategate: George Monbiot se retracta de sus peticiones de dimisión tras el ‘Informe Russell’ – Usted no se lo cree 08/07/2010 – https://ustednoselocree.com/2010/07/08/punto-final-al-climategate-george-monbiot-se-retracta-de-sus-peticiones-de-dimision-tras-el-informe-russell/
“Ninguna de las conclusiones del IPCC ha sido cuestionada, no se ocultó información y ésta era accesible y replicable, y no se bloqueó ningún informe incómodo. Tampoco hay corrupción en el proceso de peer review académico. En definitiva, ninguna de las incontables acusaciones mediáticas, ni de la blogosfera, ni de ninguna parte puede ser ya sostenida.” - Alan Baker (2009) – Mathematical Explanation in Science – British Society for the Philosophy of Science 60:611–633 doi:10.1093/bjps/axp025 – Department of Philosophy, Swarthmore College, USA
“Does mathematics ever play an explanatory role in science? If so then this opens the way for scientific realists to argue for the existence of mathematical entities using inference to the best explanation.”
- Ulrika Olausson (2009) – Global warming-global responsibility? Media frames of collective action and scientific certainty – Public Understanding of Science 18:421-436 doi:10.1177/0963662507081242
“Elsewhere (Olausson, 2007), I have argued that, in the pluralistic landscape of late modernity, in order to uphold their (self-)assumed role as a tool for democracy, national media should function as “discursive bridges,” facilitating communication between various communities, which in all essentials would mean abandoning “banal” nationalism (Billig, 1995). The national outlook is not suited to grasp the economic, political, and cultural processes taking place today, and thus is not able to orient the public in an increasingly complex reality (Berglez, 2007).” - David Miller and William Dinan (2008) – A Century of Spin. How Public Relations Became the Cutting Edge of Corporate Power – Pluto Books, London –ISBN: 978-0-7453-2689-4 – 232 pp.
“Hill & Knowlton is one of the most famous, if not infamous, PR firms in the world. It has 71 offices in 40 different countries (ref) and has worked for a range of unsavoury clients … WPP 2001: Hill & Knowlton ($325.119.000, 3ª), Burson Marsteller ($259.112.000, 5ª), Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide ($145.949.285, 10ª), Cohn and Wolfe (57.779.000, 19ª), Finsbury and Buchanan (>25ª). Total $11,4 billion, 10% WPP’s business. 2003: Cordiant group. 2005: Grey Global, 11ª a 2004 (Source: Advertising Age), includes PR division CGI Group and global lobbying APCO Associates. WPP: 32 companies.” - Hill & Knowlton selected as official media sponsor for United Nations Climate Change Conference – Press Release 29/10/2009 – http://www.hillandknowlton.com/press/releases/2009/10/29/HK-selected-media-sponsor-for-climate-change-conference
“The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has selected international communications consultancy Hill & Knowlton as official media sponsor for the UN Conference on Climate Change, COP15, to be held in Copenhagen over two weeks starting December 7th. Agency will support campaign on climate conscious behaviour + Selection based on network reach, experience and environmental credentials. H&K will support an information campaign to encourage climate conscious behavior by delegates and others to help reduce GHG emissions during COP15. The campaign will also ensure that knowledge from the conference regarding climate conscious behavior will be communicated more broadly, locally and internationally. - Hill & Knowlton’s Carbon Two-Step – PR Watch – 25/06/2004 – http://www.prwatch.org/node/8680
“In a media release, the PR firm Hill & Knowlton (H&K) boasts that the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has awarded the company a short-term consultancy for «an information campaign to encourage climate conscious behavior by delegates and others to help reduce GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions» related to the COP15 meeting in Copenhagen in December. H&K’s global Chairman & CEO, Paul Taaffe, states that «climate change is the world’s #1 issue and a huge and complex challenge for us all.» The release also points out that the PR firm is «a pro bono advisor to the Iwokrama rainforest trust in Guyana.» What it doesn’t state is that the firm also works for some of the world’s largest carbon emitters such as Huaneng Power International, a subsidiary of the Chinese government-owned China Huaneng Group. A recent Greenpeace China report (pdf) listed the Huaneng group as the largest coal burning power company in China and the largest greenhouse gas emitter.”
- Paul Maltby (2008) – Fundamentalist Dominion, Postmodern Ecology – Ethics & The Environment
«Evidently, Dominionist philosophy does not recognize natural entities and species as autonomous life forms; rather, it perceives them as artifacts designed to satisfy human needs. Indeed, according to fundamentalist economist E. Calvin Beisner, to put the Earth before human needs is to be guilty of “idolatry of nature” (Beisner 1990, 165). (Without citing Saint Paul, Beisner surely has in mind the epistle to the Romans, in which Paul condemns the ungodly and wicked who “worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25).) « - Frederick Clarkson – No Longer without Sheep: Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence – The Public Eye Magazine – 01/03/1994 – http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v08n1/chrisre3.html
“One aspect of Reconstructionism’s appeal to the Christian Right is that it provides a unifying framework for conspiracy theories. Gary North explains that: «There is one conspiracy, Satan’s, and ultimately it must fail. Satan’s supernatural conspiracy is the conspiracy; all other visible conspiracies are merely outworkings of this supernatural conspiracy.» Pat Robertson makes a similar argument in his book The New World Order, which all new members of Robertson’s Christian Coalition receive. R. J. Rushdoony states that «The view of history as conspiracy. . .is a basic aspect of the perspective of orthodox Christianity.» A conspiratorial view of history is a consistent ingredient of Christian Right ideology in the United States, and is often used to explain the failure of conservative Christian denominations with millennial ambitions to achieve or sustain political power. The blame for this is most often assigned to the Masons, particularly an 18th-century Masonic group called the Illuminati, and, ultimately, to Satan.” - Ferran P. Vilar – Equilibrios del New York Times para salvar una campaña de publicidad de ExxonMobil – Usted no se lo Cree, 10/02/2010 – https://ustednoselocree.com/?s=equilibrios+new+york+times
“Ayer, coincidiendo también con un faldón en portada de ExxonMobil, le hicieron publicar a Elisabeth Rosenthal un artículo en el que el pretendido ‘balance’, a saber, presentación de las ‘dos opiniones’ (como si en ciencia esto fuera posible) estaba francamente decantado. Un experto en comunicación ambiental, Robert J. Brulle, de la Drexel University, ha señalado que: “Con este artículo, el New York Times pasa a formar parte de la cámara de resonancia del movimiento de desinformación climática.”
- David Spratt and Philip Sutton (2008) – Climate Code Red. The case for a sustainability emergency
“The common thread is the view that the actions that the science demands we take to avoid dangerous global warming are simply incompatible with the prevailing political and economic imperatives and “realities”. This is expressed by fears that what really needs to be done in terms of the speed and depth of the transformation to a de-carbonised economy: 1) is simply not possible; 3) is possible but not politically acceptable so in advocating it you will be seen as crazy and be ignored and irrelevant; 3) is possible but not economically acceptable because it will cause too much disruption and lead to a recession. Within a narrow frame of reference there is a kernel truth in these fears.” - David Spratt and Philip Sutton (2008) – Climate Code Red. The case for a sustainability emergency
“The common thread is the view that the actions that the science demands we take to avoid dangerous global warming are simply incompatible with the prevailing political and economic imperatives and “realities”. This is expressed by fears that what really needs to be done in terms of the speed and depth of the transformation to a de-carbonised economy: 1) is simply not possible; 3) is possible but not politically acceptable so in advocating it you will be seen as crazy and be ignored and irrelevant; 3) is possible but not economically acceptable because it will cause too much disruption and lead to a recession. Within a narrow frame of reference there is a kernel truth in these fears.” - Dan Moutal – Journalismgate – Audio – 18/07/2010 – http://ia360701.us.archive.org/11/items/IrregularClimate/IC8.mp3
- Marc Bowen (2008) – Censoring Science. Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming – Penguin Group, 2008 – pp. 61:62
“On the 20th of January, as it began to appear that Time magazine would let the story flip, Jim gave roughly the same information to an old contact, Andrew Revkin, the lead global warming correspondent for The New York Times. On the 24th, Larry Travis was hit and severely injured by a truck as he walked across Bradway on his way to work, Jim’s (Hansen) car was also broken into around that time, and the house in New Jersey in which he and Annie had raised their children burned to the ground. Darnell Cain, Jim’s assistant admits to being ‘sufficiently lazy and negligent to not update the NASA public records with Jim’s new address when he moved to Pennsylvania’”
George Orwell – Propaganda – Charles’ George Orwell Links – – – http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/articles/col-propaganda.htm – authors “Propaganda techniques were first codified and applied in a scientific manner by journalist Walter Lippman and psychologist Edward Bernays (nephew of Sigmund Freud) early in the 20th century. During World War I, Lippman and Bernays were hired by the United States President, Woodrow Wilson to participate in the Creel Commission, the mission of which was to sway popular opinion to enter the war on the side of Britain.”
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