Conflicting Discourses on Wildfire Risk and the Role of Local Media in the Amazonian and Temperate Forests

Abstract

This article examines how risk is communicated by different actors, particularly local print newspapers and actors at the community level, in two different geographical contexts that are severely affected by wildfires—the Brazilian Amazon and Atlantic Spain. We analyzed how wildfire risk is framed in local print media and local actor discourse to elucidate how wildfire risk is interpreted and aimed to identify the main priorities of these risk governance systems. The main findings reveal that the presentation of wildfire as a spectacle is a serious obstacle to the promotion of coherent risk governance and social learning, which involves recognizing wildfire risk as a social, political, economic, and environmental problem. Proactive risk governance should communicate the multifaceted nature of risk and stimulate dialogue and negotiation among all actors to build consensus regarding land use and the creation of risk.

Keywords

Discourse analysis / Framing / Galicia / Local media / Risk communication / Rondônia / Wildfire risk

References

[1] Adeney J. Marion, Christensen Norman L., Pimm Stuart L.. Reserves Protect against Deforestation Fires in the Amazon. PLoS ONE, 2009, 4(4): e5014

[2] Araújo, E., P. Barreto, S. Baima, and M. Gomes. 2017. The most deforested protected areas in the Legal Amazon between 2012 and 2015 (Unidades de conservação mais desmatadas da Amazônia Legal (2012–2015)). Belém: Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia. http://imazon.org.br/PDFimazon/Portugues/livros/UCSmaisdesmatadasAmazonia_2012-2015.pdf. Accessed 10 Feb 2018.

[3] Arima EY, Simmons CS, Walker RT, Cochrane MA. Fire in the Brazilian Amazon: A spatially explicit model for policy impact analysis. Journal of Regional Science, 2007, 47(3): 541-567.

[4] Bacchi C. Lombardo E, Meier P, Verloo M. The issue of intentionality in frame theory: The need for reflexive framing. The discursive politics of gender equality, 2009, London: Routledge 39-55.

[5] Barua M. Whose issue? Representations of human–elephant conflict in Indian and international media. Science Communication, 2010, 32(1): 55-75.

[6] Brando PM, Balch JK, Nepstad DC, Morton DC, Putz FE, Coe MT, Silvério D, Macedo MN Abrupt increases in Amazonian tree mortality due to drought–fire interactions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014, 111(17): 6347-6352.

[7] Calviño-Cancela M, Chas-Amil ML, García-Martínez ED, Touza J. Wildfire risk associated with different vegetation types within and outside wildland-urban interfaces. Forest Ecology and Management, 2016, 372: 1-9.

[8] Carroll MS, Cohn P. Daniel TC, Carroll MS, Moseley C, Raish C. Community impacts of large wildland fire events: Consequences of actions during the fire. People, fire and forests: A synthesis of wildfire social science, 2007, Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press 104-123.

[9] Chas-Amil ML, Touza J, García-Martínez E. Forest fires in the wildland–urban interface: A spatial analysis of forest fragmentation and human impacts. Applied Geography, 2013, 43: 127-137.

[10] Cochrane MA, Laurance WF. Fire as a large-scale edge effect in Amazonian Forests. Journal of Tropical Ecology, 2002, 18(3): 311-325.

[11] Cochrane Mark A., Laurance William F.. Synergisms among Fire, Land Use, and Climate Change in the Amazon. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment, 2008, 37(7): 522-527.

[12] Davidson EA, de Araújo AC, Artaxo P, Balch JK, Brown IF, Bustamante MMC, Coe MT, DeFries RS The Amazon basin in transition. Nature, 2012, 481: 321-328.

[13] Debord G. A sick planet (El planeta enfermo), 2006, Barcelona: Anagrama (in Spanish)

[14] De Fries RS, Rudel T, Uriarte M, Hansen M. Deforestation driven by urban population growth and agricultural trade in the twenty-first century. Nature Geoscience, 2010, 3(3): 178-181.

[15] De Marchi, B. 2015. Risk governance and the integration of different types of knowledge. In Risk governance: The articulation of hazard, politics and ecology, ed. U. Fra.Paleo, 149–165. New York and London: Springer.

[16] Dunwoody Sharon. The Media and Public Perceptions of Risk: How Journalists Frame Risk Stories. The Social Response to Environmental Risk, 1992, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands 75-100.

[17] Eriksen C. Gender and wildfire: Landscapes of uncertainty, 2013, London: Routledge

[18] Ewart J, McLean H. Best practice approaches for reporting disasters. Journalism, 2018

[19] Fairclough N. Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language, 2013, London: Routledge

[20] Fra.Paleo, U. 2013. A functional risk society? Progressing from management to governance while learning from disasters. In World Social Science Report 2013: Changing Global Environments, ed. U. Fra.Paleo, 434–438. Paris: UNESCO.

[21] Fra.Paleo, U. 2015a. Introduction. In Risk governance: The articulation of hazard, politics and ecology, ed. U. Fra.Paleo, 1–16. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer Netherlands.

[22] Fra.Paleo, U. 2015b. Structure, process, and agency in the evaluation of risk governance. In Risk governance: The articulation of hazard, politics and ecology, ed. U. Fra.Paleo, 237–273. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer Netherlands.

[23] Fu KW, Zhou L, Zhang Q, Chan YY, Burkhart F. Newspaper coverage of emergency response and government responsibility in domestic natural disasters: China-US and within-China comparisons. Health, Risk & Society, 2012, 14(1): 71-85.

[24] Goffman E. Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience, 1974, Cambridge: Harvard University Press

[25] Guimarey, B., and E. Corbelle. 2012. Characterization of two forest repopulation processes subsequent to the entry of Galicia into the European Union (Caracterización dos procesos de repoboación forestal posteriores á entrada de Galicia na Unión Europea). In Surveying territories: Papers on land use planning (Territorios a examen: Trabajos de ordenación territorial), ed. R. Crecente Maseda, U. Fra.Paleo, 41–56. Lugo, Spain: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (in Spanish).

[26] Jönsson Anna Maria, Boström Magnus, Dreyer Marion, Söderström Sara. Risk Communication and the Role of the Public: Towards Inclusive Environmental Governance of the Baltic Sea?. Environmental Governance of the Baltic Sea, 2016, Cham: Springer International Publishing 205-227.

[27] Kasperson Roger E.. Risk Governance and the Social Amplification of Risk: A Commentary. Risk Governance, 2014, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands 485-487.

[28] Kirby KR, Laurance WF, Albernaz AK, Schroth G, Fearnside PM, Bergen S, Venticinque EM, Da Costa C. The future of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Futures, 2006, 38(4): 432-453.

[29] Krippendorf K. Barnouw E, Gerbner G, Schramm W, Worth TL, Gross L. Content analysis. International encyclopedia of communication, 1989, New York: Oxford University Press 403-407.

[30] Lakoff G. Why it matters how we frame the environment. Environmental Communication, 2010, 4(1): 70-81.

[31] Laurance WF, Williamson GB. Positive feedbacks among forest fragmentation, drought, and climate change in the Amazon. Conservation Biology, 2001, 15(6): 1529-1535.

[32] Le Page Y, van der Werf GR, Morton DC, Pereira JMC. Modeling fire-driven deforestation potential in Amazonia under current and projected climate conditions. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 2010

[33] Lima A, Silva TSF, de Feitas RM, Adami M, Formaggio AR, Shimabukuro YE. Land use and land cover changes determine the spatial relationship between fire and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Applied Geography, 2012, 34: 239-246.

[34] López Iglesias E. The Galician agricultural sector at the door of the 21st century (O sector agrario galego ás portas do século XXI: balance das súas transformacións recentes). Revista Galega de Economía, 2000, 9(1): 167-196 (in Spanish)

[35] Lowrey, W., W. Evans, K.K. Gower, J.A. Robinson, P.M. Ginter, L.C. McCormick, and M. Abdolrasulnia. 2007. Effective media communication of disasters: Pressing problems and recommendations. BMC Public Health 7(1): Article 97.

[36] Lowrey W, Gower K, Evans W, Mackay J. Assessing newspaper preparedness for public health emergencies. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 2006, 83(2): 362-380.

[37] Matlock T, Coe C, Westerling AL. Monster wildfires and metaphor in risk communication. Metaphor and Symbol, 2017, 32(4): 250-261.

[38] MAGRAMA (Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente/Ministry of Agriculture, Nutrition and Environment). 2012. Wildfires in Spain, 2001–2010 (Los Incendios Forestales en España. Decenio 2001–2010). Madrid: Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente (in Spanish).

[39] Matthews J. The role of a local newspaper after disaster: An intrinsic case study of Ishinomaki. Japan. Asian Journal of Communication, 2017, 27(5): 464-479.

[40] Morss RE, Demuth JL, Lazrus H. Hazardous weather prediction and communication in the modern information environment. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2017, 98(12): 2653-2674.

[41] Moscovici S. Farr R, Moscovici S. The phenomenon of social representations. Social representations, 1984, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 3-70.

[42] Nepstad D, Schwartzman S, Bamberger B, Santilli M, Ray D, Schlesinger P, Rolla A. Inhibition of Amazon deforestation and fire by parks and indigenous lands. Conservation Biology, 2006, 20(1): 65-73.

[43] Olson RL, Bengston DN, DeVaney LA, Thompson TAC. Wildland fire management futures: Insights from a foresight panel, 2015, Washington, DC: USDA Forest Service

[44] Pidgeon N, Simmons P, Henwood K. Taylor-Gooby P, Zinns J. Risk, environment and technology. Risk in social science, 2006, Oxford: Oxford University Press 94-116.

[45] PRODES (Projeto de Monitoramento do Desmatamento na Amazônia Legal por Satélite/Amazon Deforestation Monitoring Project). 2018. Monitoring the Brazilian Amazon forest by satellite (Monitoramento da Floresta Amazônica Brasileira por Satélite). http://www.obt.inpe.br/OBT/assuntos/programas/amazonia/prodes. Accessed 10 Feb 2018 (in Portuguese).

[46] Quarantelli EL. The role of the mass communication system in natural and technological disasters and possible extrapolation to terrorism situations. Risk Management, 2002, 4(4): 7-21.

[47] Radeloff VC, Hammer RB, Stewart SI, Fried JS, Holcomb SS, McKeefry JF. The wildland–urban interface in the United States. Ecological Applications, 2005, 15(3): 799-805.

[48] Rausch AS. The regional newspaper in post-disaster coverage: Trends and frames of the Great East Japan Disaster, 2011. Keio Communication Review, 2013, 35: 35-50.

[49] Renn O. Four questions for risk communication: A response to Roger Kasperson. Journal of Risk Research, 2014, 17(10): 1277-1281.

[50] Ritchie, J., L. Spencer, and W. O’Connor. 2003. Carrying out qualitative analysis. In Qualitative research practice: A guide for social science students and researchers, ed. J. Ritchie, L. Spencer, W. O’ Connor, 219–262. London: SAGE Publications.

[51] Saldaña J. The coding manual for qualitative researchers, 2009, London: SAGE Publications

[52] Schon DA, Rein M. Frame reflection: Toward the resolution of intractable policy controversies, 1995, New York: Basic Books

[53] Soeiro C, Guerra R. Forest arsonists: Criminal profiling and its implications for intervention and prevention. European Police Science and Research Bulletin, 2015, 11: 34-40.

[54] Sood R, Stockdale G, Rogers E. How the news media operate in natural disasters. Journal of Communication, 1987, 37(3): 27-41.

[55] Sutton, J., L. Palen, and I. Shklovski. 2008. Backchannels on the front lines: Emergent uses of social media in the 2007 southern California wildfires. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, 4–7 May 2008, Washington, DC, USA, 1–9.

[56] Tang Z, Zhang L, Xu F, Vo H. Examining the role of social media in California’s drought risk management in 2014. Natural Hazards, 2015, 79(1): 171-193.

[57] Tekeli-Yesil S, Kaya M, Tanner M. The role of the print media in earthquake risk communication: Information available between 1996 and 2014 in Turkish newspapers. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 2019, 33: 284-289.

[58] Taylor S. What is discourse analysis?, 2013, London: Bloomsbury Publishing

[59] Tierney K, Bevc C, Kuligowski E. Metaphors matter: Disaster myths, media frames, and their consequences in Hurricane Katrina. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2006, 604(1): 57-81.

[60] Van Dijk, T.A. 1977. Semantic macro-structures and knowledge frames in discourse comprehension. In Cognitive processes in comprehension, ed. M.A. Just, and P.A. Carpenter, 332. Brandon, VT: Psychology Press.

[61] Van Dijk TA. Discourse analysis: Its development and application to the structure of news. Journal of Communication, 1983, 33(2): 20-43.