This blog post is a little different
from the content I normally post on Digital Media Savvy, but it is nonetheless
related. As our world becomes increasingly connected, we must be weary of
trapping ourselves in filter bubbles. This digital phenomenon occurs when we
continue to view certain types of content online (such as content from a single
political party or news from our home country) and feed an algorithm that
continues to show us like content. We can get stuck in our own digital worlds
we’ve created and become ignorant to what’s happening on the worldwide
web. This semester in college, I have been keeping up with French news in my
Comparative International Media class to broaden my perspective.
I have been passionate about
climate change ever since taking an environmental science course in high
school. Although I don’t have the scientific knowledge to create the next
technology that will sustain us after our fossil fuels are depleted, I do
believe I have the communication skills to spread the word about the alarming
realities of climate change. I hope to one day work for a company with an environmentally
sustainable mission or work in the Corporate
Social Responsibility department of a company. This being said, I wanted to
study the climate protests happening in France the second half of this year.
Throughout the semester, I gathered
ten rounds of news articles (we call these assignment news journals)
surrounding climate change and climate protests in France. My earliest news
journal was based off of articles from The
Guardian and Public
Radio International. The French news outlet France
24 also reported on the same story of hundreds of protesters marching in southwestern France
holding upside down portraits of the French President, Emmanuel Macron that
they stole from town halls and civic buildings. This protest took place during
the G7 Summit, where the worlds’ top leaders gathered in Biarritz, France to discuss climate change. The
Summit itself took place as Brazil was facing devastating forest fires in the Amazon,
on which the Brazilian administration blames French meat and dairy consumption
(as well as Leonardo
DiCaprio). Public Radio International, reported that the riot was
part of larger protests in Bayonne, France during which French riot police used
water cannons and tear gas on August 24 to disperse anti-capitalism protesters.
The march itself was called “Le Marche des Portraits” or “The Portraits March.”
Macron’s response to climate change, or lack thereof, inspired these protests, which
were part of the larger “Take Down Macon” movement that began in February. According to a later report from the French news outlet Expatica,
eight activists went on trial in September for stealing the portraits. According
to the article, “The theft of the portraits fits a pattern across Europe of
increasingly radical protests by campaigners to highlight the risks of climate
change, with the group Extinction Rebellion at the forefront.”
The name Extinction Rebellion actually came up several
times while I was studying the French media. Extinction
Rebellion (XR) “is an international movement that uses non-violent civil
disobedience in an attempt to halt mass extinction and minimise the risk of
social collapse.” On Saturday,
October 5, hundreds of activists occupied part of the Italie 2 mall in
southeast Paris prior to the 60 planned protests across the globe by XR. According
to an article from the AFP,
security ordered protestors to leave the area. Images on social media show the police
trying to enter the building while protesters blocked entrances with tables and
chairs. Some members of the Yellow Vest anti-government movement were in
attendance alongside the climate change protestors. The Yellow Vest Movement is
a parallel protest that has been going on every weekend in France since November
17, 2018. In broad terms, the movement opposes President Macron’s ruling on
behalf of the urban elite.
Prior to the planned global climate protests, XR said on
their website, “You can’t count on us or Greta to do this for you. Look inside
yourself and rebel” which was made in reference to 16-year-old Swedish climate
activist Greta Thunberg. Thunberg, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this
year, is another important figure in addition to President Macron that
influenced climate protests in France. In September of this year, she and 15
other youths filed a complaint against Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey for failing
to uphold their obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Her speech ignited climate
protests all around the world, led mostly by Generations Y and Z. Based on this
article from RFI,
the French administration did not respond positively to Thunberg’s speech and
the complaint filed by the young activists.
I have created a timeline of the protest developments
pulling stories from Expatica.
·
September 11, 2019 Climate
change activists on trial for stealing portraits of Macron used in protests
All this to say, why should anyone care about the climate
protests happening in France? The UN has issued four reports in the past 12
months that all conclude the effects of climate change are already upon us.
The first report was issued in October 2018 and “reset
the threshold for a climate-safe world from 2C to 1.5C” according to article
from AFP which has since been removed. Even still, a 1.5C increase in temperature
is expected to kill “70 percent of the tropical corals upon which
half-a-billion people and a quarter of marine species depend.”
The second report was released in May 2019, and it
predicted that “a million species – one in eight – faces extinction.”
The next report in August assessed “how we use and abuse
land: deforestation, unsustainable agriculture, destruction of ecosystems.”
This report said our global food system is responsible “for a quarter of carbon
pollution.”
The final UN report was on “oceans and Earth's frozen spaces,
known as the cryosphere.” The world's two ice sheets in
Greenland and Antarctica have lost more than 430 billion tons of mass into the
ocean each year since 2005. The
sea is expected to rise between 3.2 and 6.5 feet by the end
of the century, putting 300 million people in flood zones by 2050. France is
already facing devastating
floods that have taken several lives.
France's media system is best
described by Hallin and Mancini’s Polarized Pluralist Model. The French government
plays a strong role in French media as its owner, shareholder, regulator and
sponsor. France, like other Western countries, struggles in a fake news and
post-truth reality world. France experiences a low circulation of newspapers,
and many French media outlets still express a political orientation or have a
partisan sponsorship.
Coverage of the climate protests is influenced by all of the factors that make up the country’s media system. Since the media are owned and
regulated by the state, their pieces criticizing the French administration’s
stance on climate change are moderated. Politics surrounding climate change are
reflected in the press, and thus different publications take different approaches
to the issue based on their political ties. As the protests became more
violent, the press was quick to blame groups like Extinction Rebellion and the
protesters of the Yellow Vest Movement as opposed to the administration’s lax
stance or the police’s violent measures to control the crowds.
The development on climate
protests was reported rather thoroughly, despite having this governmental bias.
There was however a large gap in reporting from October 5 - December 5. It is
possible that no major climate protests took place in the month of November.
I enjoyed following the French
climate protests this semester, as climate change is a cause I feel passionately
about. The French media system is considerably different from that of the U.S.,
and I learned how “the truth” depends upon who is telling it.
Comments
Post a Comment