At the launch of the South Asian edition of the book ‘Media and Climate Change: Making Sense of Press Narratives’ Thursday, author Professor Deepti Ganapathy, Chairperson, Centre for Management Communication at IIM Bangalore, said that in a democratic set up like India, it is necessary for the media to bring out the voices of the marginalised communities who are affected because of climate change and it is necessary for them to project government policies and what impact it has on communities.
With a special focus on the Western Ghats, the book looks at the media’s coverage of climate change and investigates its role in representing the complex realities of climate uncertainties and its effects on communities and the environment. It also explores the socioeconomic and cultural understanding of climate change and the influence of communication around it through the news and the public response to it. The book highlights the role of media as a facilitator between scientists, policy makers and the public.
Ganapathy said that the thought behind the book came during a Ricky Kej music concert in 2017 at Vidhana Soudha which focussed on environmental consciousness. “And from there, my journey really began to turn to the archives of the newspapers and what they were reporting about. I then landed up in the communities on the fringes of the forest in the Western Ghat. I started from policymakers, went to the media and then to the communities that were affected. And then I looked at the inter linkages between these three and that’s how the idea for this entire research project really shaped,” she said.
Ganapathy said unless a reader feels or experiences climate change themselves, it is very difficult to make them feel that it is happening for real. “When I spoke to the communities in the Western Ghats and asked them what is climate change for you, they would say that heavy downpour in Bengaluru and the flooding of streets played repeatedly on television was climate change for them. Managing the narrative is the key – problems of painting a doomsday narrative, such as the portrayal of the image of a lonely polar bear in a distant corner of the world, does not galvanise into behavioural change in local cities and towns. It is critical to become a publicly engaged scholar, as there is a convergence of a host of disciplines in the discourse of climate change,” she added.
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Grammy Award winner Ricky Kej said that climate change is the biggest existential threat human beings are facing. “You have things which are interrelated with it, like species extinction and deforestation, plastic pollution, air pollution and then social issues like gender inequality, poverty, hunger, water, sanitation, education. We always wait for governments to make a difference when the truth is that the only way we can actually bring about change is if we bring tiny incremental changes in our own lives. We should think about the difference which the discontinuation of the usage of plastics and reduction of the consumption of fossil fuels will have.”
He said that the communication around climate change should be simplified by the media and artists for the common mass.
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