Abstract
In this new edited collection headed by Emeritus Professor in Sociology, Leslie Sklair, of the London School of Economics, a collective of scholars from the Anthropocene Media Project trace the traction and framing of the concept of the ‘Anthropocene’ in the media. The idea stemmed from chemist, Paul Crutzen, and stratigrapher, Jan Zalasiewicz, that due to sustained human activity the world has left the geological epoch of the Holocene and now entered a new one. The edited volume makes clear that this is linked yet separate from climate change as it directly links human influence and action. The book pays particular attention to whether the media recognize the extreme harms that such a geological event means for the quality and reproducibility of human life on earth, or whether they neutralize the risk or even present it as a positive development for investment and increasing the interpenetration of capitalism with nature.
Over the course of 14 chapters, there are discussions of the emergence of the concept as well as separate content analyses of media split across continents and regions including Africa, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, North Asia, South Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, the Middle East and Oceania.
In a chapter on North Asia, Sklair, Mok and Kang state that publications in China for party members are optimistic or neutral on framing the Anthropocene. This is in line with China’s policy on ‘Ecological Civilisation’. Also, most of the coverage comes from Western thought leaders such as Crutzen and Zalasiewicz as well as Elizabeth Kolbert. The rest of the media, such as that in Taiwan, may be cited as freer but tend to be optimistic or pessimistic. South Korea holds positive news stories to break up the gloom, whereas Mongolia and Afghanistan do not mention the Anthropocene. The overall coverage is stated to be practically based on treatments but not as future-oriented as the authors state it should be.
In a chapter on Africa, McQueen and Sklair state that there are ‘dense pockets’ of coverage among zero mentions suggesting a ‘hierarchy of themes’ as the concept emerges. They state that this is possibly due to the particularly low literacy rates of sub-Saharan countries but this does not explain the continuing presence of rich climate change coverage. The authors state that due to Africa being particularly vulnerable to the injuries of climate collapse they must particularly understand the affects of Anthropocene to adapt to it. However, there may be the other possibility that the ‘Anthropocene’ for African commentators, activists and policymakers may be considered as belonging more to an intellectual avant-garde.
Sklair, Das and Kuppuswamy in a chapter on South Asia find a far more expansive treatment of the Anthropocene with a reference to scholars from the region. This builds into an emerging theme of ‘Provincialising the Anthropocene’. Unsurprisingly countries like Bangladesh with its deep experience of flooding show positively dystopian framings of the Anthropocene. Despite this, there are still attempts at reassurance.
Vuletic´ and Buljubašic´’s chapter on ‘latecomers to capitalism’, or Russia and Eastern Europe show some rich climate change coverage ultimately dwarfing mentions of the Anthropocene. Likewise, a pessimistic framing ultimately puts catching up with the core countries of Western Europe over climate concerns on the part of Poland. Meanwhile, Russia disavows Eurocentric framings that make sense in light of geopolitical rivalries. However, they ultimately accept these themes as well.
This, of course, is only a selection of how the different chapters covered their different regions but a lot of the core themes conclude a media that is either more concerned with neutralizing. The Anthropocene and continuing to emphasize the more popularly conceived climate change.
Besides geographical chapters, there are disciplinary chapters before the conclusion looking at media coverage of the Anthropocene in the social and environmental sciences and a separate one on the arts. The Anthropocene seems to have a foothold as a theme for artists working in sculpture, multimedia and literature. The images that accompany all the chapters give a very good visual aid for these interventions. However, this still underlines how the Anthropocene may be seen as a more niche concern for the arts pages of media and thus the rest of journalism treats it as interchangeable with climate change or marginal to it.
The books’ approach and structure present a very interesting lens for analysis. Although, there is a question to be drawn over why a continent as large as Africa warrants one chapter, while Asia and the much smaller continent of Europe get two.
Second, it is surprising that the work of Thomas Kuhn is not mentioned anywhere in these chapters. Kuhn’s view of paradigm shifts and how science as a practice determines what theories hold sway in the discipline as opposed to the inevitable progress of knowledge may shed some theoretical light on Sklair et al.’s findings. This lack of wider coverage may have something to do with high-profile sceptics of the Anthropocene in the world of science. But Sklair presents them as a relative minority. There are brief references to how climate change eventually became prominent in policy and media in the late 20th century. It would be interesting to see more about this perspective of the acceptance of certain paradigms in science and popular culture for the benefit of the non-specialist.
It is clear, however, that for Sklair et al., it is the neutralizing and optimistic framing of the Anthropocene that is the biggest threat rather than outright contradiction and denial. If one was to look at the disquieting conclusions of the book one may be tempted to say, as with prophets, the concept of the Anthropocene is not appreciated in its own time. And as anyone that takes a cursory glance at the physical science measurements of the rate of collapse, time is one thing that is not available.
Overall, this is an interesting resource for students of media, environmentalism and even Science and Technology Studies practitioners for how scientific concepts enter (or do not enter) the public consciousness.