Environmental Links
Asynchronous Session
Addressing Environmental Issues in Indonesia: The Role of Environmental Information-seeking Behavior View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Durrotul Masudah
Various studies suggest that the media plays a pivotal role in addressing environmental issues, hence affecting public discourses and policies about the environment. However, for this expected role to come into effect would depend on the popularity of the media’s environmental news coverages; how many times they are read, how often they are shared, and to what extent people talk about them. Aiming at making environmental news coverages gain more popularity, an Indonesia-based media research body launched a digital environmental campaign called #1Hari1IsuLingkungan (one day one environmental issue). Participants of this campaign were challenged to seek and read one environmental news coverage per day during one month period on 1 - 30 November 2022. They were then asked to create an Instagram story to share their opinion regarding the news coverages. Guided by theories examining information seeking behavior, this study aims to investigate the behavior of the campaign’s participants in seeking information related to environmental issues. To this end, this study employed a mixed, two-phased data collection method consisting of a computer-aided analysis to map the pattern of their participations, and continued with in-depth interviews with 10 selected participants to deeper explore on their information-seeking behavior during their participation in the campaign. This study demonstrates that the participants’ information-seeking behavior during the campaign helped enhance their knowledge of and attitude towards the environmental issues around them. Practically, this study may prompt environmental activists, campaigners, or general public to think about innovative ways to engage people in actions addressing environmental issues.
Changemakers Addressing Challenges of Human Social Responsibility: An Analysis of Multimodal Discourses of Renewal in Volunteer Programs View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Carmen Daniela Maier
The premise of this paper is that the necessary transition from corporate social responsibility (CSR) to human social responsibility (HSR) is happening now across organizational borders and is made visible through a wide range of social practices and discourses. Such social practices and discourses are based on the idea that equality and justice in terms of rights and responsibilities has a powerful role in tackling the present relentless challenges of solidarity decline and environmental destruction. The purpose of this qualitative study is to explain how discourses of renewal are used in web context to recontextualize meaningful changes performed by tech companies’ employees engaged in diverse volunteer programs. Taking into consideration the research purpose and the selected data, the theoretical framework includes perspectives upon social change, empowerment, and volunteerism. Multimodal discourse analysis is used in order to show how advocating discourses of renewal are multimodally generated through language and still or moving images. The recurrent discursive strategies are examined to demonstrate how employees are identified as changemakers - both as empowering benefactors and empowered beneficiaries - while engaged in social actions that not only transform organizational behaviour but also contribute towards a more socially responsible world. Furthermore, the recurrent discourse strategies employed for legitimizing these social actions’ motivations and beneficial consequences are also identified and clarified. Thus, this paper proposes a systematic approach for exploring the complexity of empowering discourses of renewal that reinforce the values of equality and justice for effectively defending human and non-human life.
Creating a Sustainable Future for Africans: A Solarpunk Concept View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Christabel Ebubechukwu Okoroafor
This study investigates the conceptualization and integration of the formerly known literary genre and art form; now a subgenre of climate activism, Solarpunk, as a way of building a sustainable future for Africans; a future that is laser focused on the preservation and protection of the planet “earth” and creating a “safe space” for Africans to thrive, survive and develop using local resources. Solarpunk is a speculative concept that seeks to reimagine the future of sustainability and mitigate the effects of climate change by building resilience in communities already experiencing the effects of climate change; it envisions an ecotopian future where advanced technology especially renewable resources like solar, wind and geothermal energy exist in total ecological harmony/symbiosis with nature. It has an optimistic view on climate change eliciting various ways it can be practicalized, a sustainable solution that embodies the core concept of African philosophy - being a whole person and being one with your surroundings, particularly focusing on community and its strength, a core concept for the Africa scene. It promotes social action through sustainability education and climate awareness. It integrates perspectives from reviews, personal correspondence and ongoing projects focusing on building eco-villages that foster the Afro-futuristic mindset among Africans, building afro-centric architecture (green buildings)/technology and social action groups that fight climate change and create awareness and promote biodiversity preservation through various green solutions.
