Description
Book SynopsisThis is a collection of essays about the media, the environment, and the whole of humanity at the brink of extinction. As the demands of overpopulation and of an unsustainable consumer economy dry up existing natural resources and destroy vital ecosystems that we need to survive, the corporate-controlled media saturate worldwide audiences with a barrage of hypnotic images and narratives to stimulate over-consumption and to distract us from the consequences of rampant consumerism, while remaining silent about the systematic destruction of the environment and our future. Academicians from the across the sciences, the social sciences, the arts, and the humanities engage in an interdisciplinary discussion informed by a vision of an interconnected humanity and focused on the role of the media in forging public discourse. Contributors to the collection argue that today's media are failing humanity. Rather than providing pictures of reality on which the world's citizens can act, the corpora
Table of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction: One Humanity, One Planet, and the Media Luigi Manca and Jean-Marie Kauth Section One: Imagining a Better Future for Humanity Envisioning a Simple One Planet—One Humanity Utopia: Exploring John Lennon’s Imagine Kit O’Toole A Generic Cosmopolitanism Is Not an Alternative to the Damages of Globalization Federico Francioni The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations: Reality or Utopia? Joaquín Montero Utopian Hackers and the Drive to Change the World Chris Birks Section Two: Media, Humanity, and the Common Good An Hypothesis about the Role of Gateopener in the Westley-MacLean Model Luigi Manca Occupy the Media: Towards a Communication System for the 99 Percent Steve Macek Public Radio and Public Access: Applying HD Radio Technology to a New Form of Broadcast Localism Craig Stark The Press and the Politics of Genocide Marian Mesrobian MacCurdy Solidarity Know-How in Local Development: Translating Civil Virtues into Practice Maria Lucia Piga The Communicative Dimension in a Globalized World and the Globalization of Social Rights Francesco Villa Section Three: Environmental Science and the Media Lost in Translation?: Public Perceptions and Mass Media Coverage of Climate Change Risks Pierpaolo Duce Viable Scientific Communication and the Mass Media Timothy W. Marin The 50th Anniversary of Silent Spring: An Opportunity Lost Elizabeth Dobbins Pope Francis on the Ecological Crisis: Its Nature, Causes, and Urgency Martin Tracey Section Four: Ecocriticism and the Popular Imagination Windmills and Dandelions and Polar Bears, Oh My!: Contested Icons of Environmental and Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Jean-Marie Kauth Environmental Perceptions of College Students Anne Marie Smith Good Company? The Non-Ephemeral Catalog as Intervention Elizabeth Kubek Post-Apocalyptic Storytelling as Global Society's Environmental Unconscious Jean-Marie Kauth Nature and Art: Seeing Beauty amidst the Ruins William Scarlato Index About the Contributors
