2 results
Environmental economics and ecological economics: the contribution of interdisciplinarity to understanding, influence and effectiveness
- SHARON BEDER
-
- Journal:
- Environmental Conservation / Volume 38 / Issue 2 / June 2011
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 09 May 2011, pp. 140-150
-
- Article
- Export citation
-
This paper reviews developments in both environmental economics and ecological economics with respect to their progress towards environmental interdisciplinarity and towards providing solutions to environmental problems. The concepts, methods, theories and assumptions of each field of knowledge are reviewed and the extent to which they depart from the dominant neoclassical paradigm of economics is assessed. The contribution that interdisciplinarity has made to the success of each field is analysed in terms of understanding, influence and effectiveness and the constraints that it has imposed upon that success. Environmental economics has adopted the dominant economic neoclassical paradigm, including the power of the market to allocate environmental resources efficiently and in a socially optimal way. The solution to environmental problems is thus seen as a matter of ensuring that the environment is properly priced to reflect the relative scarcity of natural resources and assets and to ensure that environmental values are incorporated into the market. This specialized view of environmental problems is now reflected in government policy around the world including the use of extended cost benefit analyses, contingent valuations, environmental charges and emissions trading. Nevertheless, environmental problems continue to grow in severity and the solutions provided by environmental economists have proven ineffective. Thus lack of interdisciplinarity does not prevent a field of knowledge from gaining influence and dominance, however its effectiveness in terms of understanding environmental problems and solving them is impeded. Ecological economics seeks to incorporate the research of economists, ecologists, philosophers and social scientists, however its influence seems to be have been limited to areas in which it retains the standard economics framework, and this limits its effectiveness in terms of environmental solutions. Thus interdisciplinarity may increase understanding of the real world but it cannot overcome political and social barriers to translating that understanding into the widespread implementation of effective environmental measures.
12 - Moulding and Manipulating the News
-
- By Sharon Beder, University of Wollongong
- Edited by Robert White, University of Tasmania
-
- Book:
- Controversies in Environmental Sociology
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 14 July 2004, pp 204-220
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The media are accused of bias by people from both ends of the political spectrum, but journalists, editors and owners maintain that they provide an objective source of news. This chapter will consider the ways in which the news is shaped and how this in turn influences the way environmental issues are reported and constructed in the mass media.
In the United States, where the debate over media objectivity is most heated, conservatives criticise the media for having a ‘liberal’ bias and these critics focus on the personal views of journalists, editors and media owners who, they argue, tend to be elitist, left-leaning and politically correct. A number of books have been published recently highlighting this supposed liberal bias including Press Bias and Politics: How the media frame controversial issues (Kuypers 2002), Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News (Goldberg 2003b) and Arrogance: Rescuing America from the media elite (Goldberg 2003a). Goldberg argues that ‘the majority of journalists in big newsrooms slant leftward in their personal politics, especially on issues like abortion, affirmative action, gay rights, and gun control; and so in their professional role they tend to assume those positions are reasonable and morally correct. Bias in the news stems from that …’ (Goldberg 2003a: 4).
Accusations of liberal bias, however, are not new. Richard Nixon and his vice-president Spiro Agnew repeatedly referred to the bias of the media, particularly with regard to the Nixon administration, and Agnew called journalists ‘pointy-headed intellectuals’ (West 2001: 65).