The Impact Of Media’s Environmental Communication On The Green Public Sphere

Because of media’s continuous construction of environmental issues in recentyears, environmental issues gradually entered the view of the public, people begin toconcern the environment and public affairs, so as to produce an influential field whichaffect our point of view on environment itself and the relationship between humanand the environment. The transformation from privacy to public issues occurs from allkinds of debate and social practice and then there forms a green public sphere.Almost all the present domestic research on media’s environmentalcommunication are study about News transmission and environmental advertisements,excessively emphasizing the practical value of environmental communication andignoring its constructivism, namely it "helps us construct, characterize the natureand the environment itself". This paper, based on the perspective of constructivism, isgoing to analyze the positive and negative impact of media’s environmentalcommunication on China’s green public sphere, not only to fill the domestic researchfrom this perspective, but also to open up a new train of thought for thosetraditional studies based on journalism.Based on an analysis of the development course and current situation ofmedia’s environmental communication, this paper then analyzes the existence ofChina’s green public sphere and its structure, discusses the relationship between themand illustrates the positive and negative impact of media’s environmentalcommunication on China’s green public sphere, puts forward some realistic approachto the public sphere. This paper argues that media’s environmental communication notonly help the green public construct the public issues, but also the direction. Themedia’s environmental communication make a positive impact on the green frompublic sphere on the level of issues "empowerment" accelerate the popularizationtransformation, the construction of "the discourse space" resistance industrialhegemony discourse, the public consciousness of environmental protection practiceand the power of the public intervention and influence. At the same time, there existsome negative impact which derive from tenvironmental discourse rhetoric flaws,environment settings and media framework, such as single environmental discourse tosuppress debate, euphemism restrains critical reflection, the displacement ofenvironmental issues leads to a commercial tendency, unbalanced presentment ofenvironmental issues make a narrow rural environmental protection public opinion space, exaggeration of environmental risk issues cause environmental panic and so on.Finally this paper put forwards some approaches to the public green sphere based onthe respects of improving the media itself, strengthening cooperation between mediaand the government and environmental NGO and cultivating citizen journalists.