Document Type
Book Chapter
Editor
Antonio Lopez
Adrian Ivakhiv
Stephen Rust
Publication Title
The Routledge Handbook of Ecomedia Studies
Publisher
Routledge
Publication Date
8-22-2023
Abstract/ Summary
This chapter examines how today’s highly interlaced and mobile media landscape discursively constructs the “problem of the commons” by considering how positions of the social actors involved in common pool resource (CPR) disputes are represented and in whose interest. After a brief introduction to the concept of “the commons,” the chapter defines both “the global media commons” and “the communication commons” and how these communication spheres function to constrict or expand the sociocultural boundaries of environmental thought and action. Two case examples of CPR conflicts follow, focusing on how the actors in these disputes have been represented by media and communication networks. The conclusion argues that, since the discursive construction of the commons is enmeshed in the interests of the powerful, the gaps between the media commons and communication commons can reveal how CPR disputes present or leave out voices that may offer a different set of ecological values.
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