Media and Environment: a case study at portuguese television

Abstract

Mass media play a determinant role in the dissemination and construction of social threats and risks. Studies have
shown that public learns a lot of things about science through consuming mass media news. The present paper examines media
discourse about the environmental risk and the importance of the environment communication. In order to perform this analysis
we have selected the environmental programs on portuguese television broadcasted between january 2010 and december 2011.
This sample of programs has been recorded and viewed in order to select the news we wanted to analysis. We have selected all
the pieces of news that either directly relate to any environmental problem (pollution, climate change, global warming…) or refer
in any other way to the environment and the nature (about the weather, earthquakes, hurricanes or other meteorological event).
Qualitative techniques of analysis have been applied, in order to categorize the information, looking for common and divergent
discourses at some dimensions, such as: causes; consequences; possible solutions; and discourses. The media have to
enhance environmental science communication, since within the majority of portuguese public sphere this is the only way of
environmental knowledge.