Media Analysis on Global Environmental Change
A MEDIA ANALYSIS OF 50 ARTICLES ON HOW GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IS BEING REPRESENTED BY PRACTITIONERS OF SOCIAL WORK IN A PROFESSIONAL DOMAIN
Introduction
Global environmental change refers to the transformation and evolution of the natural landscape due to human activity at wider scale (Ife, 1991). It has been posing environmental crisis at this present time while being well documented by many researchers until now. The environmental issues like acid rain, overpopulation, greenhouse gasses, depletion of ozone layer, topsoil erosion, food chain poisoning, melting of glaciers, fluctuating weather patterns, deforestation, oil spills, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and droughts are apparently affecting the overall communities, individuals and livelihoods (Dominelli, 2011). Scientific and academic debates have continued to present significant solutions for meeting the global environmental change challenge but undoubtedly when all of these issues combine together, they represent an ecological crisis that is difficult to be ignored (Giddens, 2009).
Several conceptual and workable articles/journals and media reports on current global environmental crises such as global warming or climate change can be found, but still there is a lack of systematic assessment of the prime knowledge of the issue within many of the professional fields (Mason, Shires, Arwood, & Borst, 2017). However, so far, the global environmental change has remained outside of the domain of social work discourse (Coates, 2005). Since past five decades, social workers are increasing their engagement with the environmental issues and human rights that has given rise to the new concept like environmental social work or green social work (Ramsay & Boddy, 2017).
The social workers’ movement towards environmental engagement has gone international as the social workers have been presenting resolutions and statements related to environmental crisis like global warming and climatic change through International Federation of Social Workers (Rinkel & Powers, 2017). Other associations like American Academy of Social Work, Professional Social Work Association of Australia and Britain and Council on Social Work are also working for addressing the issues faced by the natural environment (Boetto & Bell, 2015).
On one hand, the science of climatic change is questioned with researchers lining up with different concepts like sustainability associated with finding solutions for climatic change while on the other, media is revolving around two school of thoughts; the greens and the sceptics (Giddens, 2009). The former argue that human race is responsible for bringing the climatic change due to emission of greenhouse gases that destabilizes the worlds’ climate and damage the environment while the later argue that people play a minimal role in causing climatic changes. However, these debates have been distorted by the media assertions that claimed the data collected by Climate Change center in Britain to be fabricated (Dominelli, 2011). Darby (2011) also extended the difference between skepticism and green socialism. The article suggested that it is the role of social worker to advocate the strong link between individuals, their behavior and the environment in which they reside. Similarly, the media article by Dominelli (2010) indicated the people’s skepticism over the abuse of overall humanitarian aid concerning climate change. According to the report, social workers are primarily responsible for taking a proactive part in raising consciousness, lobbying for preventive measures, mobilizing communities and dialoguing with policy makers to bring changes in human actions that affect climate. Social workers are still responding sluggishly towards identifying the need for changing human actions that harm the environment (Dominelli, 2010).
Jim Ife, in his article “Rethinking human rights in the 21st century” published in 2017, put forward the argument of sceptics that “humanity” does not exist in isolation and the environmental crises are found to be largely caused by the humanity’s disregard to the mother nature. Humans have prime domination over the natural world due to which global warming has caused devastating penalties to the environment including mass extinction of species, melting of glaciers, pollution and land degradation. The article also suggested that such a disastrous path cannot be followed for long as the human race will reach, or are reaching, the limits to growth if sustainable development is not taken seriously.
The social work is moving towards internationalism while failing to engage with the ever-evolving international discourse regarding environmental change while at the same time it is maintaining its ever-increasing commitment with idea of social justice (Ife, 2007). Although social workers have been playing an important role in addressing the global issues that have dominated the international agenda including poverty, human rights, environmental degradation, global environmental crisis, HIV/AIDS, human rights and inequality. Still, social workers are not given a high-profile status and are continued to be taken as marginal when compared with economists, lawyers and international relations experts (Ife, 2007).
In this 21st century, when all the other agendas have been dominating the headlines of the media, the most significant have been identified to be related to war on terror and global warming. While looking at both of these issues, initially it appears to be unrelated to social workers’ interests but, in reality both of these issues raise critical issues that require special attention and great concern of the social workers (Ife, 2007).
When it comes to global environmental change, there are certainly number of strands of the current environmental crises faced by the world today with global warming being the most prominent issue at the moment. Global warming is considered to pose a serious and long-lasting impact on the world including built up toxic chemicals, desertification, water crises, nuclear waste, topsoil erosion, flooding and over-fishing of the oceans (Ife, 2007). With its threats being twofold, global warming is impacting the economies and lifestyles. Firstly, there is the direct impact of global warming itself causing world’s poor areas to be most vulnerable resulting in mass movement of climate refugees due to their homelands becoming inhabitable.
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Section 2: Literature review is outlined in this section with major focus on fifty media releases discussing the role of social workers in addressing the issue of global environmental change in professional sphere. While most of the work is related to Jim Ife’s contribution to global environmental change, other authors and writers are also researched to reach the affirming conclusion.
Section 3: Research methodology is briefly outlined in this section through which the analysis has been done.
Section 4: The results obtained from the literature review are discussed under this section. Five broad categories are developed under this section; Social workers and climate change issues, Social justice and environmental justice, Sustainability, Global warming and Climate change and economy. All the categories are further dissected into sub-categories.
Section 5: Discussion and limitations of the study are penned down in this part of the report.
Section 6: Conclusion and recommendations are made concerning the response of social workers towards global environmental change.
Literature Review on Media Analysis
Although many of the professions and groups are working to create the policies and models that will aid people in adapting to gradual climate change, the current social work profession is sluggish in engaging with this issue (Bowles, Boetto, Jones, & McKinnon, 2018). For years, the environmental crisis has remained to be largely outside the discourse of social work as indicated by Coates (2005). However, with time passing gradually, international associations of social workers are recognizing the responsibility of the profession towards environment. According to Marlow & Van Rooyen (2001), the debate within social work community lacks the recognition of environmental crisis. In general practice, the social work profession has emphasized more on social dynamics rather than considering the interaction of society with natural environment. However, it is imperative to understand that it is the depth of the natural environment that set tone for human behavior and let the society develop and thrive.
The focus on environment and in social work practice is mostly concerned with the increasing onset of environmental issues and their debilitating effects on people and communities due to global warming, over population, water scarcity, extreme temperatures, scarcity of resources, fluctuation in weather patterns, climate change etc. Social work practitioners engage at many levels around environmentally oriented or conscious practice with individuals, families, all levels of government and social organizations (Shaw, 2013). As a result, they constantly highlight the efforts aimed at improving and creating better understanding towards complex issues in general. However, the profession is considered to be slow to embrace the environmental issue directly (Jackson, 2019). Many of the efforts are currently being released for considering the ways in which the social workers can contribute towards saving environment.
Research Methods
Meta-analysis research approach is used for finding the role of social workers’ practitioners in understanding the current climate change. A meta-analysis approach combines the results of multiple studies to reach at a conclusion (Cooper, 2015). A key benefit of this type of analysis is that it aggregates all the information of different authors so that a more robust result can be obtained. Total 50 number of media articles by social practitioners were taken as sample for conducting the research from various databases including Australian Association of Social Work, Social Work Today Magazine, Social Worker Career Magazine, Social Work Today Magazine, Social Work New Magazine, USC Social Work and various leading social work journals.
The articles are analyzed as to whether they provide the integration of environmentally oriented conscious in social work practice or not. By selecting the social practitioners’ articles, the main focus was built around social work concepts and practices that are environmentally informed and can be adapted in dealing with environmental issues/crises. The review required the type of data to familiarize the reader with the existing environmental social work practices and its limitations in dealing with environmental crises. Due to the limited scope of the review, specific concepts of environmentally oriented social work, be it theoretical or practical will be discussed.
