Handbook

Note: the course code for this course has been updated to MDIA3096 from 2023.

Media and the environment have had a long, entangled relationship. Media technologies play key roles in the sciences of climate change and extinction. For example, the natural sciences use computer modelling extensively, and also rely on global media networks that both circulate environmental data and allow for collaboration and discussion among scientists. Media technologies also play a role in bringing climate change and the natural science to the public. In the process, they help frame the way climate change and extinction are discussed. They thus play a fascinating if often conflicted series of roles in setting key social and political agendas with regard to the Anthropocene, climate change, and the extinction crisis. On the other hand, dealing with climate change and extinction have challenged the way that media and communications work. The mainstream media has had to change its approach to what counts as news, and to the way it sets agendas. Journalists have had to grapple with complex science in new ways. At the same time, social media has augmented and often by-passed more traditional media platforms. This has transformed communications around environmental issues such as climate change and extinction. All this has created an increasingly complex setting both for the communication of science and for political communication around the Anthropocene. You will gain insight into the history, present and future of the increasingly important relations between media, communication and life and death. You will explore the ways in which climate change and extinction are taken up in media and communications theory, in everyday and working life, and in practices such as journalism, science, documentary making, online discussion and political communication.