Mark C J Stoddart
Biographic Data
| ID | 119233 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mark C J Stoddart |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mark C J |
| FAMILY NAME | Stoddart |
| SIGNATURE | STODDART M C J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Memorial University of Newfoundland |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5434-0161 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 52 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 149 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 52 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Towards a political ecology of temporalities: Indigenous pathways beyond settler time
The global climate crisis is defined by a profound temporal misalignment: while the physical reality of climate change accelerates through non-linear tipping points and non-negotiable deadlines, political and economic responses remain trapped in linear, short-term cycles. Despite the palpable urgency of rising temperatures, dominant temporal regimes fail to arrest emissions. This is due in part to the ontological and epistemological separation of…
Fossil fuel phaseout, renewable energy, and just transition discourse at COP26 and COP28: A discourse network analysis of Instagram posts
The authors conduct a comparative discourse network analysis of Instagram posts discussing the 2021 (COP26) and 2023 (COP28) UN climate change conferences. COP26 produced the first UNFCCC agreement to explicitly acknowledge the central role of fossil fuels in climate change, calling for the phasedown of unabated coal power and phaseout of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. The COP28 agreement further acknowledged the need to transition away from …
Participation and environmental governance in Niger Delta’s oil producing communities
In many developing countries where fossil fuel is extracted, multinational oil companies and state actors are prominent funders of community development projects. In Nigeria’s Niger Delta, environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) and their funders/transnational advocacy networks (TANs) have recently joined this funding conversation, adding to the multi-actor environmental governance system operating in the area. The success/impact of …
Regional climate policy networks and media visibility: Multilevel governance and discursive dynamics in Atlantic Canada
Instagram as an Arena of Climate Change Communication and Mobilization: A Discourse Network Analysis of COP26
Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings on climate change are opportunities for social movements and other non-state actors to engage in climate change communication and mobilization. We focus on Instagram as an online arena of climate communication and mobilization during COP26, held in Glasgow. Instagram is a distinct arena for eco-political communication and activism because of its visual focus and generally younger user base. Using a Discour…
Mutual influences between climate change communication and expressive participation on Weibo: A longitudinal network–behaviour co-evolution analysis
Drawing on Reinforcing Spirals Model theory and longitudinal network analysis methods, we analyse the co-evolution of climate change communication network and online expressive participation around climate policy issues on China’s top social media platform Weibo (2019–2021). We find a mutual influence between actors’ engagement in communication relationships and their participatory behaviours over time. However, this dynamic does not operate at t…
Perceptions of environmental change and beliefs in the effectiveness of pro‐environmental actions
The 2020s have seen increasing environmental change and it is nearly impossible to deny that human actions are driving it. Individual‐level actions are important for mitigating environmental change and facilitating adaptation. However, there is debate over the relationship between perceptions of the risks of environmental change and taking pro‐environmental actions that can mitigate them. Few studies examine how perceptions of environmental chang…
Regionalizing the Sustainable Development Goals for Island Societies: Lessons From Iceland and Newfoundland
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a framework that makes the concept of “sustainable development” more actionable. The nature of island societies — where political jurisdictions overlap in complex ways with land and oceanic ecologies — makes the question of who is responsible for SDG implementation and governance particularly important. We compare SDG interpretations and perceptions of SDG governance in Iceland and Newfoundland …
Competing Crises? Media Coverage and Framing of Climate Change During the Covid-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic emerged against the backdrop of the longer-term climate change crisis and increasing global awareness of the imperative for climate action, disrupting the post-Paris trajectory of climate policy and media coverage of climate change. We examine news media coverage from Canadian legacy newspapers and answer three questions. First, did the COVID-19 pandemic work as a critical event in its impacts on news media coverage of clima…
Drivers of tie formation in the Canadian climate change policy network: Belief homophily and social structural processes
Perceptions of local environment change and ecological habitus
Research shows that people’s perceptions of environmental change are strong predictors of ecologically supportive behaviours and attitudes, but less is known about what causes some people to perceive environmental change more than others. This study considers whether participation in outdoor leisure activities accounts for different perceptions of the local environment. We consider how leisure activities form a broader ‘ecological habitus’ while …
Animals and climate change: A visual and discourse network analysis of Instagram posts
Animals featured prominently during the United Nations’ 2021 Climate Change Conference (COP26), both within the meeting and outside during protests. This begs the question: How are animals portrayed in climate change discourse? To answer this question, we conduct visual and discourse network analysis of animal-related Instagram posts collected around COP26. We present a typology of four ways in which animals are framed as (1) metaphors for climat…
Conference of the Parties Meetings as Regularly Scheduled Critical Events for Global Climate Governance: Reflecting on COP 26 and the Glasgow Climate Pact
In this commentary, we reflect on COP26, its outcomes, and the UNFCCC processes. While the value and results of COP meetings are often contested by researchers and activists, we highlight three areas that deserve more attention in post-COP assessments. First, the COP process creates an arena where state leaders, researchers, climate activists, and private actors regularly meet, which facilitates cooperation over time. Second, COP meetings are sit…
Regionalizing the sustainable development goals: Interpretations of Priorities and Key Actors for Creating Sustainable Island Futures
The 17 United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) are an important step in defining what sustainable development looks like in practice. However, to make concrete progress toward the SDGs, it is essential to understand how they are perceived and can be acted upon locally or regionally. In this study, we draw on survey and focus group research carried out in Newfoundland and Labrador, on the east coast of Canada, to analyze how the SDGs a…
What are the roles of regional and local climate governance discourse and actors? Mediated climate change policy networks in Atlantic Canada
As a global problem with diverse local and regional impacts, climate change is an inherently multilevel issue. Focusing on Atlantic Canada, we examine regional-local dimensions of Canadian climate politics, drawing on data from six legacy newspapers (two national outlets, four regional outlets). Claims about the importance of provincial governments and municipalities have low levels of media visibility and are more salient in regional news outlet…
Climate Autobiography Timeline: Adapting Timeline Research Methods to the Study of Climate Perceptions
Climate perception is a growing area of study in the social sciences and one that has implications on the tools and strategies we use to communicate climate change risk information. However, the range of climate perception studies remains limited, focused primarily on perceptions of day-to-day weather, sudden-onset severe events, or long-term permanent change. Phenomena situated between these extremes (e.g., annual- to decadal-scale variability) …
Public Engagement in Climate Communication on China’s Weibo: Network Structure and Information Flows
This article provides an empirical study of public engagement with climate change discourse in China by analysing how Chinese publics participate in the public discussion around two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and how individual users interact with state and elite actors on the pre-eminent Chinese microblogging platform Weibo. Using social network analysis methods and a temporal comparison, we examine the structure of climat…
Actors and justifications in media debates on Arctic climate change in Finland and Canada: A network approach
In this paper, we examine the centrality of policy actors and moral justifications in media debates on Arctic climate change in Finland and Canada from 2011-2015. We take a network approach on the media debates by analysing relations between the actors and justifications, using discourse network analysis on a dataset of 745 statements from four newspapers. We find that in both countries, governments and universities are the most central actors, w…
Environmental Movement Interventions in Tourism and Energy Development in the North Atlantic: Connecting the Social Movement Societies and Players and Arenas Perspectives
This article compares environmental movement engagement in energy and tourism development in Norway and Iceland by bridging the social movement societies (SMSoc) and the players and arenas perspectives. Results are based on field observation and interviews, as well as web-based textual analysis and a preliminary online survey. Results show that Norway is an institutionalized and multi-level social movement society with a mix of professionalized a…
Energy justice and offshore oil: Weighing environmental risk and privilege in the North Atlantic
We examine framing of the social-ecological benefits and risks of offshore oil development across the North Atlantic region (Denmark, Newfoundland and Labrador, Norway, and Scotland). Drawing on field observation and interviews, we show that the environmental privileges of the oil sector are legitimated through frames that emphasize economic contributions to social wellbeing, as well as through frames of maintaining global competitiveness for hos…
Envisioning energy futures in the North Atlantic oil industry: Avoidance, persistence, and transformation as responses to climate change
The oil industry is a focal point in discussions of climate change. However, environmental social science tends to view the oil sector as homogeneous in relation to climate change and energy futures. In this context, we ask: What is the range of energy futures that are envisioned and articulated through oil industry events in different operating regions? How do the energy futures articulated within oil industry events relate to issues of climate …
Media Coverage and Perceived Policy Influence of Environmental Actors: Good Strategy or Pyrrhic Victory
In this article we analyze how media coverage for environmental actors (individual environmental activists and environmental movement organizations) is associated with their perceived policy influence in Canadian climate change policy networks. We conceptualize media coverage as the total number of media mentions an actor received in Canada’s two main national newspapers—the Globe and Mail and National Post . We conceptualize perceived policy inf…
Climate Change and Energy Futures - Theoretical Frameworks, Epistemological Issues, and Methodological Perspectives
Critically re-imagining our energy systems is a major task for addressing climate change. Technological change or market signals do not automatically create new energy futures. Rather, political priorities and action shape the ambitions behind energy transitions. In response, this special issue is dedicated to re-thinking energy futures related to climate change, with attention to the social values and norms, hierarchical structures, and social i…
Social Networks and Climate Change Policy Preferences: Structural Location and Policy Actor Support for Fossil Fuel Production
Contrary to what is needed for reducing global GHG emissions, successive Canadian governments have placed fossil fuel production at the core of national economic development. This presents a puzzle: how should we understand contradictory political commitments to the Paris agreement and low carbon energy futures, on one hand, and the persistence of support for fossil fuel centered energy futures, on the other hand. Using a policy network perspecti…
Political Consumerism in the Oil and Mining Extractive Industries: Possibilities for Sustainability and Social Justice
This chapter draws on a range of cases where boycotts, buycotts, and discursive tactics have been used to target oil and mineral extraction. The chapter provides an overview of the key actors, strategies, and political and structural factors that facilitate political consumerism around oil and mining. In doing so, it offers insight into the possibilities and limitations of political consumerism for addressing the environmental and social justice …
Climate change policy networks: Why and how to compare them across countries
Why do some countries enact more ambitious climate change policies than others? Macro level economic and political structures, such as the economic weight of fossil fuel industries, play an important role in shaping these policies. So do the national science community and the national culture of science. But the process by which such macro-structural factors translate into political power and national climate change policies can be analyzed throu…
International organizations, advocacy coalitions, and domestication of global norms: Debates on climate change in Canada, the US, Brazil, and India
Social Networks and Climate Change Policy Preferences: Structural Location and Policy Actor Support for Fossil Fuel Production
Contrary to what is needed for reducing global GHG emissions, successive Canadian governments have placed fossil fuel production at the core of national economic development. This presents a puzzle: how should we understand contradictory political commitments to the Paris agreement and low carbon energy futures, on one hand, and the persistence of support for fossil fuel centered energy futures, on the other hand. Using a policy network perspecti…
Canadian News Media Coverage of Climate Change: Historical Trajectories, Dominant Frames, and International Comparisons
We examine climate change news coverage from 1997 to 2010 in two Canadian national newspapers: the Globe and Mail and the National Post. The following questions guide our analysis: Why did the volume of climate change coverage rise and fall during the period? Focusing on the key period of 2007–2008, what kinds of issue categories, thematic frames, and rhetorical frames dominate the news discourse? Canadian news coverage of climate change is chara…
Constructing masculinized sportscapes: Skiing, gender and nature in British Columbia, Canada
Sport sociology has provided a significant body of critical research on gender and social inequality within outdoor sport. Less attention is given to how the social construction of sport landscapes shapes gendered power relations. This article examines how skiing landscapes are constructed as masculinized spaces. The mountainous sublime is a site for performing athletic, risk-seeking masculinity.The backcountry and advanced terrain at ski resorts…
Actors and justifications in media debates on Arctic climate change in Finland and Canada: A network approach
In this paper, we examine the centrality of policy actors and moral justifications in media debates on Arctic climate change in Finland and Canada from 2011-2015. We take a network approach on the media debates by analysing relations between the actors and justifications, using discourse network analysis on a dataset of 745 statements from four newspapers. We find that in both countries, governments and universities are the most central actors, w…
We've Also Become Quite Good Friends: Environmentalists, Social Networks and Social Comparison in British Columbia, Canada
Social networks influence social movement recruitment and individuals' ongoing participation in social movement organizations. In this article, we use a qualitative approach to explore the meaning of social networks for environmental movement participants in British Columbia, Canada. Our analysis draws on interviews with 33 core members of the movement. Environmental group participation creates multiplex social networks, encompassing work, leisur…
Conflicting Climate Change Frames in a Global Field of Media Discourse
Reducing global emissions will require a global cosmopolitan culture built from detailed attention to conflicting national climate change frames (interpretations) in media discourse. The authors analyze the global field of media climate change discourse using 17 diverse cases and 131 frames. They find four main conflicting dimensions of difference: validity of climate science, scale of ecological risk, scale of climate politics, and support for m…
Ecofeminism, Hegemonic Masculinity, and Environmental Movement Participation in British Columbia, Canada, 1998-2007: Women Always Clean Up the Mess
This article draws upon two waves of interviews with environmental movement members in British Columbia, Canada, in order to examine participants' interpretations of the relationship between gender and environmental politics. Four claims emerge from this analysis. First, our results support the notion that there is an affinity between environmental politics and feminism. Second, despite recent critiques of ecomaternalism and the dual subjugation …
Envisioning energy futures in the North Atlantic oil industry: Avoidance, persistence, and transformation as responses to climate change
The oil industry is a focal point in discussions of climate change. However, environmental social science tends to view the oil sector as homogeneous in relation to climate change and energy futures. In this context, we ask: What is the range of energy futures that are envisioned and articulated through oil industry events in different operating regions? How do the energy futures articulated within oil industry events relate to issues of climate …
Climate Change and Energy Futures - Theoretical Frameworks, Epistemological Issues, and Methodological Perspectives
Critically re-imagining our energy systems is a major task for addressing climate change. Technological change or market signals do not automatically create new energy futures. Rather, political priorities and action shape the ambitions behind energy transitions. In response, this special issue is dedicated to re-thinking energy futures related to climate change, with attention to the social values and norms, hierarchical structures, and social i…
Public Engagement in Climate Communication on China’s Weibo: Network Structure and Information Flows
This article provides an empirical study of public engagement with climate change discourse in China by analysing how Chinese publics participate in the public discussion around two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and how individual users interact with state and elite actors on the pre-eminent Chinese microblogging platform Weibo. Using social network analysis methods and a temporal comparison, we examine the structure of climat…
Media Coverage and Perceived Policy Influence of Environmental Actors: Good Strategy or Pyrrhic Victory
In this article we analyze how media coverage for environmental actors (individual environmental activists and environmental movement organizations) is associated with their perceived policy influence in Canadian climate change policy networks. We conceptualize media coverage as the total number of media mentions an actor received in Canada’s two main national newspapers—the Globe and Mail and National Post . We conceptualize perceived policy inf…
The Endangered Arctic, the Arctic as Resource Frontier: Canadian News Media Narratives of Climate Change and the North
The Arctic is one of the most radically altered parts of the world due to climate change, with significant social and cultural impacts as a result. Using discourse network analysis and qualitative textual analysis of articles published in the Globe and Mail and National Post during the period 2006 to 2010, we identify and analyze key frames that interpret the implications of climate change on the Arctic. We examine Canadian national news media co…
Canadian news media and the cultural dynamics of multilevel climate governance
Links between national news outlets (Globe and Mail and National Post) and climate-change discourse are examined in order better to understand the cultural politics of Canadian involvement in climate governance. National news media use a narrow range of issue categories to interpret climate change to the public. Both news outlets also privilege national and international political spheres, with less attention to climate governance at the sub-nati…
Leisure, nature and environmental movements in the mass media: Comparing Jumbo Pass and the Tobeatic Wilderness Area, Canada
Media coverage from major provincial and national newspapers is used to examine two Canadian sites where leisure and tourism become objects of environmental movement mobilisation: the proposed Jumbo Glacier Resort ski development (British Columbia), and the Tobeatic Wilderness Area (Nova Scotia). In both cases, environmentalists and government appear as central news sources. A dominant discourse defines both of these places as wilderness landscap…
Conference of the Parties Meetings as Regularly Scheduled Critical Events for Global Climate Governance: Reflecting on COP 26 and the Glasgow Climate Pact
In this commentary, we reflect on COP26, its outcomes, and the UNFCCC processes. While the value and results of COP meetings are often contested by researchers and activists, we highlight three areas that deserve more attention in post-COP assessments. First, the COP process creates an arena where state leaders, researchers, climate activists, and private actors regularly meet, which facilitates cooperation over time. Second, COP meetings are sit…
Offshore Oil, Environmental Movements, and the Oil-Tourism Interface: The Old Harry Conflict on Canada's East Coast
Offshore oil development and nature-based tourism offer alternative ways of living with and making use of coastal environments. We analyze a recent controversy over offshore oil extraction in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in eastern Canada, and identify key points of alignment between environmentalism and the tourism industry that structure resistance to oil development. Our results are based on interviews with tourism operators, government, environm…
Bridging science and community knowledge? The complicating role of natural variability in perceptions of climate change
From Fisheries Decline to Tourism Destination: Mass Media, Tourism Mobility, and the Newfoundland Coastal Environment
In this paper, we examine narratives of tourism mobility circulated through print news media coverage of Newfoundland published in Canada, the UK, and the USA between 1992 and 2010. Initially articles were situated within a larger narrative of fisheries collapse, rural decline, and out-migration. In recent years, however, the discourse shifted to emphasize how non-human nature, including whales, icebergs, and national parks, serves as a tourism a…
Regionalizing the Sustainable Development Goals for Island Societies: Lessons From Iceland and Newfoundland
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a framework that makes the concept of “sustainable development” more actionable. The nature of island societies — where political jurisdictions overlap in complex ways with land and oceanic ecologies — makes the question of who is responsible for SDG implementation and governance particularly important. We compare SDG interpretations and perceptions of SDG governance in Iceland and Newfoundland …
Perceptions of local environment change and ecological habitus
Research shows that people’s perceptions of environmental change are strong predictors of ecologically supportive behaviours and attitudes, but less is known about what causes some people to perceive environmental change more than others. This study considers whether participation in outdoor leisure activities accounts for different perceptions of the local environment. We consider how leisure activities form a broader ‘ecological habitus’ while …
A typology of diversion: Legitimating discourses of tourism attraction, oil extraction and climate action in Newfoundland and Labrador
Focusing on the case of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada's easternmost province, we analyse a typology of diversionary techniques that lend legitimacy to the contradictory projects of expanding tourism and fossil fuel use, on the one hand, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, on the other hand. We combine the work of two bodies of legitimacy theory within environmental sociology. First, we draw on techniques of distraction, as detailed by Freu…
Environmentalists' Mediawork for Jumbo Pass and the Tobeatic Wilderness, Canada: Combining Text-Centred and Activist-Centred Approaches to News Media and Social Movements
For social movements, the mass media are a key means of reaching potential supporters, engaging public and political debate and reshaping cultural interpretations of relationships with the non-human environment. We examine how outdoor sport becomes the object of environmental movement mobilization and media claims-making in conflict over the Jumbo Pass ski resort, British Columbia, and Off-Highway Vehicle use in the Tobeatic Wilderness Area, Nova…
Keep it Wild, Keep it Local”: Comparing News Media and the Internet as Sites for Environmental Movement Activism for Jumbo Pass, British Columbia
Environmental movements depend on mass media to reach the public and shape political decision-making. Without media access, social movements experience political marginality. In this paper, we examine whether the internet is a more open space than traditional media for activists to speak on behalf of non-human nature. Our analysis is based upon newspaper coverage and environmental organization websites that focus on the conflict over the proposed…
Ideology, Hegemony, Discourse: A Critical Review of Theories of Knowledge and Power
For over a century, social theorists have attempted to explain why those who lack economic power consent to hierarchies of social and political power. They have used ideology, hegemony and discourse as key concepts to explain the intersections between the social production of knowledge and the perpetuation of power relations. The Marxist concept of ideology describes how the dominant ideas within a given society reflect the interests of a ruling …
We've Also Become Quite Good Friends: Environmentalists, Social Networks and Social Comparison in British Columbia, Canada
Social networks influence social movement recruitment and individuals' ongoing participation in social movement organizations. In this article, we use a qualitative approach to explore the meaning of social networks for environmental movement participants in British Columbia, Canada. Our analysis draws on interviews with 33 core members of the movement. Environmental group participation creates multiplex social networks, encompassing work, leisur…
Grizzlies and Gondolas: Animals and the Meaning of Skiing Landscapes in British Columbia, Canada
This article examines several ways in which animals are brought into skiing in British Columbia, Canada. Discourse analysis, interviews with skiers, and field observation are used to analyze how skiing joins together skiers, mountain landscapes, and non-human animals. First, animals enter ski industry discourse primarily as symbols of nature, or as species that ski corporations manage through habitat stewardship. Second, environmentalists recruit…
Keep it Wild, Keep it Local”: Comparing News Media and the Internet as Sites for Environmental Movement Activism for Jumbo Pass, British Columbia
Environmental movements depend on mass media to reach the public and shape political decision-making. Without media access, social movements experience political marginality. In this paper, we examine whether the internet is a more open space than traditional media for activists to speak on behalf of non-human nature. Our analysis is based upon newspaper coverage and environmental organization websites that focus on the conflict over the proposed…
Leisure, nature and environmental movements in the mass media: Comparing Jumbo Pass and the Tobeatic Wilderness Area, Canada
Media coverage from major provincial and national newspapers is used to examine two Canadian sites where leisure and tourism become objects of environmental movement mobilisation: the proposed Jumbo Glacier Resort ski development (British Columbia), and the Tobeatic Wilderness Area (Nova Scotia). In both cases, environmentalists and government appear as central news sources. A dominant discourse defines both of these places as wilderness landscap…
Constructing masculinized sportscapes: Skiing, gender and nature in British Columbia, Canada
Sport sociology has provided a significant body of critical research on gender and social inequality within outdoor sport. Less attention is given to how the social construction of sport landscapes shapes gendered power relations. This article examines how skiing landscapes are constructed as masculinized spaces. The mountainous sublime is a site for performing athletic, risk-seeking masculinity.The backcountry and advanced terrain at ski resorts…
Ecofeminism, Hegemonic Masculinity, and Environmental Movement Participation in British Columbia, Canada, 1998-2007: Women Always Clean Up the Mess
This article draws upon two waves of interviews with environmental movement members in British Columbia, Canada, in order to examine participants' interpretations of the relationship between gender and environmental politics. Four claims emerge from this analysis. First, our results support the notion that there is an affinity between environmental politics and feminism. Second, despite recent critiques of ecomaternalism and the dual subjugation …
“Governments Have the Power”? Interpretations of Climate Change Responsibility and Solutions Among Canadian Environmentalists
The authors examine environmentalists’ attribution of responsibility for addressing climate change and their beliefs about solutions to this problem. Their analysis is based on responses to open-ended questions completed by 1,227 members of nine different environmental organizations. For these environmental movement participants, the federal government is seen as most responsible for addressing climate change. Government leadership is necessary b…
Making Meaning out of Mountains: The Political Ecology of Skiing
Mountains bear the imprint of human activity. Scars from logging and surface mining sit alongside national parks and ski lodges. Although the environmental effects of extractive industries are well known, skiing is more likely to bring to mind images of luxury, wealth, and health. In Making Meaning out of Mountains, Mark Stoddart draws on interviews, field observations, and media analysis to reveal the multiple, often conflicting meanings attache…
Gabriela Pechlaner. Corporate Crops: Biotechnology, Agriculture, and the Struggle for Control
C orporate Crops examines shifts in agricultural production caused by the introduction and spread of biotechnology, which Pechlaner argues represents a new "global food regime." With a North American focus, Pechlaner examines biotechnology by drawing on the voices of people who engage with it, both intentionally and unintentionally (i.e., through involuntary field contamination). Technological change, specifically the increasing reliance on genet…
A typology of diversion: Legitimating discourses of tourism attraction, oil extraction and climate action in Newfoundland and Labrador
Focusing on the case of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada's easternmost province, we analyse a typology of diversionary techniques that lend legitimacy to the contradictory projects of expanding tourism and fossil fuel use, on the one hand, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, on the other hand. We combine the work of two bodies of legitimacy theory within environmental sociology. First, we draw on techniques of distraction, as detailed by Freu…
Bridging science and community knowledge? The complicating role of natural variability in perceptions of climate change
Canadian News Media Coverage of Climate Change: Historical Trajectories, Dominant Frames, and International Comparisons
We examine climate change news coverage from 1997 to 2010 in two Canadian national newspapers: the Globe and Mail and the National Post. The following questions guide our analysis: Why did the volume of climate change coverage rise and fall during the period? Focusing on the key period of 2007–2008, what kinds of issue categories, thematic frames, and rhetorical frames dominate the news discourse? Canadian news coverage of climate change is chara…
Environmentalists' Mediawork for Jumbo Pass and the Tobeatic Wilderness, Canada: Combining Text-Centred and Activist-Centred Approaches to News Media and Social Movements
For social movements, the mass media are a key means of reaching potential supporters, engaging public and political debate and reshaping cultural interpretations of relationships with the non-human environment. We examine how outdoor sport becomes the object of environmental movement mobilization and media claims-making in conflict over the Jumbo Pass ski resort, British Columbia, and Off-Highway Vehicle use in the Tobeatic Wilderness Area, Nova…
From Fisheries Decline to Tourism Destination: Mass Media, Tourism Mobility, and the Newfoundland Coastal Environment
In this paper, we examine narratives of tourism mobility circulated through print news media coverage of Newfoundland published in Canada, the UK, and the USA between 1992 and 2010. Initially articles were situated within a larger narrative of fisheries collapse, rural decline, and out-migration. In recent years, however, the discourse shifted to emphasize how non-human nature, including whales, icebergs, and national parks, serves as a tourism a…
Canadian news media and the cultural dynamics of multilevel climate governance
Links between national news outlets (Globe and Mail and National Post) and climate-change discourse are examined in order better to understand the cultural politics of Canadian involvement in climate governance. National news media use a narrow range of issue categories to interpret climate change to the public. Both news outlets also privilege national and international political spheres, with less attention to climate governance at the sub-nati…
Mediating Environments: Introduction
The impetus behind this special issue of the Canadian Journal of Sociology on 'Mediating Environments' is to bring together current Canadian scholarship interrogating the relationships among the environment, media, and evolving concepts of mediation. Using 'mediation' as a way of conceptualizing the interaction of human and non-human actors - whether environmental, technological, social, political - opens up ways of understanding social relations…
Is Nature-Oriented Tourism a Pro-Environmental Practice: Examining Tourism–Environmentalism Alignments Through Discourse Networks and Intersectoral Relationships
A key tenet of ecotourism is that interacting with nature through tourism cultivates environmental awareness and responsibility. We examine this assumption by analyzing discourse networks and organizational networks that connect tourism and environmentalism in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Using a combination of interviews, field observation, and web-based data, we ask: Is there an alignment of tourism and environmental discourse regarding h…
Nature, History, and Culture as Tourism Attractors: The Double Translation of Insider and Outsider Media
Since the 1992 cod fishing moratorium, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador has redefined social-environmental relationships with coastal landscapes in pursuit of tourism development. We explore how coastal landscapes are defi ned for tourists through traditional and digital media produced by Newfoundland-based tourism operators and the provincial government. We examine how these discourses are then translated by "outsider" mass media in Can…
The Endangered Arctic, the Arctic as Resource Frontier: Canadian News Media Narratives of Climate Change and the North
The Arctic is one of the most radically altered parts of the world due to climate change, with significant social and cultural impacts as a result. Using discourse network analysis and qualitative textual analysis of articles published in the Globe and Mail and National Post during the period 2006 to 2010, we identify and analyze key frames that interpret the implications of climate change on the Arctic. We examine Canadian national news media co…
Taking Care of Companion Animals: Institutional Policies and Practices in Newfoundland and Labrador
Focusing on local government and non-governmental nonhuman animal welfare organizations, this paper reports survey results on institutional policies, interpretive frameworks, and practices regarding companion animals in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The findings suggested that local governments and animal shelters use different interpretive frameworks of companion animal welfare, with the former taking a human-centric position and the latter…
Conflicting Climate Change Frames in a Global Field of Media Discourse
Reducing global emissions will require a global cosmopolitan culture built from detailed attention to conflicting national climate change frames (interpretations) in media discourse. The authors analyze the global field of media climate change discourse using 17 diverse cases and 131 frames. They find four main conflicting dimensions of difference: validity of climate science, scale of ecological risk, scale of climate politics, and support for m…
Media, politics, and climate change: The ASA Task Force report and beyond
This review essay focuses on the American Sociological Association (ASA) Task Force on Sociology and Global Climate Change final report, Climate Change and Society: Sociological Perspectives. We take the report as a jumping off point to provide an overview of research on climate change in the media sphere and in the political sphere. The political sphere and the media sphere are key sites for the politics of climate change, where the meaning of t…
Media Access and Political Efficacy in the Eco-politics of Climate Change: Canadian National News and Mediated Policy Networks
We use a discourse network analysis approach to answer two questions about national news coverage of climate change policy debate in Canada during the period 2006–2010. First, what is the media visibility of actors relevant to policy development and advocacy on climate change? Second, given the political and economic context of climate policy-making in Canada, does greater or lesser media visibility reflect effectiveness in climate policy advocac…
International organizations, advocacy coalitions, and domestication of global norms: Debates on climate change in Canada, the US, Brazil, and India
Political science (37 works) · Sociology (30 works) · Politics (29 works) · Climate change (26 works) · Climate Change Communication and Perception (26 works) · Law (23 works) · Ecology (21 works) · Geography (19 works) · Environmental resource management (14 works) · Economics (13 works)