Chapter 1
Embracing Contradiction: Green Popular Culture
This opening chapter elaborates a framework for green media and popular culture under three headings: rationale; characteristics; niche. Parallel lines of âecologyâ and âmedia ecologyâ, which are not coincidental, form the basis of this study. For one of the central ways we shape our relationship to other animals, our place on Earth, and the social structures that arise from these understandings is through media and culture.
The second section identifies green media and popular cultureâs chief characteristic, most particularly in mainstream texts, as contradiction. By suggesting globalisation as the context for this, two further things are argued. First, that popular cultureâs contradictory nature is a central part of its usefulness; it provides a foreground and allows us to confront overriding contradictions framed by globalisation â most particularly, that we both romanticise and consume nature. Second, that in doing so popular culture can offer not just âglimpsesâ of ecology (to borrow Andrew Hagemanâs phrase) but, in places, genuine and complex ecological representation. Subsequently, the closing section will propose that media and popular cultureâs niche is to translate ecological philosophies and principles into forms that engage the audience and make these ideas meaningful to their lives. In doing so, the final section will sketch out some of the key methods of communication and rhetoric by which popular culture makes this happen.
Green media and popular culture: a rationale
Ecology and media ecology
Green media and popular culture is governed by the complexities of ecology itself. For an ecocritic the fact that there exists, independent of green thought, a field of research called âmedia ecologyâ is intriguing. Lance Strate, noting Neil Postmanâs reference to âthe study of media as environmentsâ, positions media ecology as a theory of interrelated networks of media and communication (2006: 17). Sean Cubitt argues that
the principle attraction of ecology for a media scholar is that it is a systems-oriented mode of practice and analysis where, as in media, the communication between the elements of a system is even more important, and precedes, the elements themselves. (2005: 2)
This perception, that the link between media ecology and ecology is more than metaphorical (see Ross 1994: 172), existed from the beginning. Walter J. Ong, describing the emergence of the theory, consciously acknowledged in 1977 that media ecology invokes both a new âecological concernâ and the Darwinian idea of âopen interaction between individuals and environmentâ (see Strate 2006: 15, 16â17). Similarly, for Brian L. Ott and Robert L. Mack, the purpose of media ecology
is to study the interaction between people and their communications technology. More particularly, media ecology looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value; and how our interaction with media facilitates or impedes our chances of survival. The word ecology suggests the study of environments: their structure, content, and impact on people in their daily lives. (2010: 62)
Over the last few years, critics have gradually responded to Andrew Rossâ frequently cited statement that âimages of ecologyâ need to be considered in relation to the âecology of imagesâ (1994: 171). Regarding this âecology of imagesâ â i.e. production, text, audience etc. â the general consensus has been that textual analysis overly dominates green media and cultural studies (Maxwell and Miller 2012: 9) and, conversely, that audience research and media production have been under-emphasised. With regard to the latter, several critics agree that any assessment of the âaesthetic possibilities for presenting an ecological agendaâ (Brereton 2013: 228) ought to take into account the âpredisposition of the viewerâ (Ingram 2013: 47), something which can only be properly measured through detailed ethnographical study (Brereton 2013: 228). Yet, aside from a handful of audience studies into prominent texts â The Day After Tomorrow, Al Goreâs An Inconvenient Truth, the computer game SimCity 4, or Shanahan and McComasâ work on television audiences â this hasnât been done. The difficulty, as Pat Brereton points out, is that comprehensive audience research would be a âlong-term project [that] requires commitment of resources and the assistance of a broad range of scholars over a sustained periodâ (2013: 228). Exceeding the scope of this particular project, the question of reception â of how, exactly, green media or popular cultural texts affect audiences, cultivate environmental awareness, or engender activism â remains largely untested (see also BousĂ© 2000: xiv; Ingram 2009: 83; and see Meister and Japp 2002: 2).
Producing ecology
More work has now, belatedly, been done around production. Notably, recent studies by Miller and Maxwell (2012), Bozak (2012), KÀÀpĂ€ (2013), and Starosielski (2015) have focused on the material ecologies of the technologies by which media or popular culture texts are produced. Such work has concentrated upon the resource impact of production, distribution and exhibition, in terms of energy use, pollution or waste, or the use and consumption of land or the negative environmental consequences of (say) film locations. Taking these in reverse, Sue Beeton has remarked that, within the film industry, âThere is no evidence of initial site selection being based on any long-term community impacts, positive or negativeâ (2005: 7) while Don Gayton has suggested that the substitution of one environment for another, in the selection of film locations â e.g. âCanadian settings doubling for American onesâ â encourages the treatment of place as âa mere commodity, to be traded and substituted at willâ (1998: 8). Correspondingly, Bozak has argued in The Cinematic Footprint that âEmbedded in every moving image is a complex set of environmental relationsâ (5).
The most comprehensive analysis, however, is Richard Maxwell and Toby Millerâs Greening the Media (2012). They identify the foremost contributory factors in the negative environmental impact of media products: massive media consumption; a further acceleration in waste and pollution created by âplanned cyclesâ of obsolescence (e.g. in 2007 only 18% of all cell phones, televisions and computer products were recycled in the US); and toxic risk (most obviously to industry workers) from dismantled and discarded components such as hard drives, cathode ray tubes, wiring, heavy metals etc. Their analysis also demonstrates the ongoing ecological consequences of supposedly low impact new media such as information and computing technology, consumer electronics, and digital or virtual media (see Chapter 6). Given such comprehensive analyses, I will not here be focusing, in the main, on the material ecologies of media production.
Maxwell and Millerâs study was preceded, in some ways, by Jhan Hochman. His unforgettable opening to Green Cultural Studies (1998) is damning about the culture industriesâ exploitation of nature and natural resources. Cultural acts of writing, filming, and recording damage (Hochman contends) the natural world: âAnimal skin is made into vellum and parchment. Trees, standing or pulped, are carved and written upon â their cellulose flesh processed into celluloidâ; while
Mined metals and petroleum products â raw materials for which (eco) catastrophic wars are fought and people and nature less sensationally sacrificed on an ongoing basis â are turned into consumer goods, specifically, recording instruments such as computers, cameras, audio, and printing equipment. (1998: 1)
What this amounts to is that, âIn terms of nature, representation is a caustic enterpriseâ (1). Moreover, the consequences are multiplied, Hochman argues, because this âhuman ob-literationâ is matched by its ârepresentationalâ equivalent, resulting in a two-fold âliterationâ (1):
Even as nature is destroyed and served up as the material on which and with which culture uses to write itself, nature is also conceptually cooked in a cultural cauldron, an often toxic brew releasing scenic to horrific phantasms of represented nature. And this amalgam of cultural concepts about nature created out of natureâs flesh breeds further cultural concoctions and protean chimeras [. . .] representation is unavoidably mis-representation, and taking, mis-taking. (1)
For Hochman, the material conditions of production translate into the form of representation. The examination of that relationship is central to green media and popular culture, something both Bozak and Maxwell and Miller acknowledge. Bozak, for instance, notes the close relationship between âmaterial resourceâ and âimage resourceâ (2012: 13). Maxwell and Miller advocate a âmacrosociological approachâ that would encompass âphysicalâ production, distribution and consumption, political economy, text, regulation, subsidy, profit, as well as âanthropologicalâ questions such as access to cultural production, patterns of consumption and reception, and the generation of meaning (see 2012: 17â18). Accepting that no book can do all these things, I will primarily examine the connections between production and representation. However, seeking to develop Rossâ contention that âThe most useful critiques of media culture remain those that focus on the economic organization of information technologiesâ (1994: 175), Iâll focus chiefly on the less commonly regarded extent to which the political economic (rather than material) dimensions of production impinge on the text. This, though, will be qualified in two ways, encompassing additional aspects of Maxwell and Millerâs âmacrosociological approachâ: the possibility (in certain cases) of a more optimistic assessment of the relationship between production and text; and a modification and extension of the âmedia ecologiesâ approach via a âcircuit of cultureâ model taken from cultural studies.
Green media and cultural studies have considered the political economics (and associated ideological framings) of popular texts, primarily with regard to the more ideological media considered in Part I of this book. In news journalism, for example, there has been a great deal of research on the political, ideological and economic factors that âframeâ the production of news stories. For example, Derek BousĂ© points out, the economic and institutional agendas of âa competitive, ratings-driven industryâ (see 2000: xv, 1) means that in television nature programmes âsocial and environmental issuesâ are marginalised because they âcould alienate some viewers, make it difficult to sell a film overseas, or, worst of all, prevent rerun sales by dating the filmâ (2000: xiv). While thereâs no shortage of textual analysis in this area, often that tends towards a form of critical ideological scrutiny, neglecting the type of close reading which, Brereton rightly argues, might âunpack the richness and polysemic natureâ (2005: 37) as well as the complex, contradictory relations in which texts are produced (see Gustafsson and KÀÀpĂ€ 2013: 6). Likewise, while green media and cultural studies have considered the relationship between political economy and text, it has tended to neglect the wider possibilities of both. For example, Hochmanâs connection between production and representation is valuable, but his associated paradigm of a dual âliterationâ/âob-literationâ seems too one-sided. Here, then, Iâll follow Rossâ more balanced view. His linkage between âimages of ecologyâ and an âecology of imagesâ is founded on the same relationship. Yet Ross suggests that any discussion of how âimage production and image consumption diminishes our capacity to sustain a healthy balance of life in the social world of our cultureâ ought to be balanced with a consideration of how far âimages of ecologyâ could âbe used to activate popular support for the repair of our local and global ecologiesâ (1994: 175) (a ârepairâ which might, in the circular nature of media ecologies, ultimately encompass better media production practices).
The circuit of culture
Any consideration of these possibilities should also encompass the wider circuits in which cultural production occurs. In one of the first âgreen mediaâ books, Alison Anderson suggests that ânews media needs to be situated within a complex web of culture, politics and societyâ (1997: 203). The âcircuit of cultureâ paradigm emphasises not only the meanings and values that we can draw from culture but also the practices that make it up (see du Gay et al. 1997: 3â4, 23). This model has conventionally been connected to de Certeauâs conception of a politics of the âeverydayâ and focused around consumption and the active audience. This has connected to ecological representation through audience theory, for instance, in work cited above on the reception of mainstream texts like The Day After Tomorrow or An Inconvenient Truth. Here, I will consider the implications of the fact that the circuit of culture model also encompasses the existence of, relatively speaking, more autonomous patterns of cultural production. Three particular elements within this can expand our sense of what green media and popular culture is and what it might achieve.
First, there is the potential of what Simon Cottle has called âdifferentiated production ecologyâ (2004: 97) which, in this book, encompasses the extent to which new (digital or web-based) production modes and/or independent or localised media may have expanded media production and introduced more varied (e.g. ecological) perspectives. Second, is the more traditional role played by art, folk and countercultural texts. De Certeau seems slightly dismissive of what he sees as, analytically speaking, âoften privilegedâ countercultural groups (see 1988: xii). Yet given that many forms of popular culture can and do circulate widely, there is certainly scope for studying how the resources of an alternative popular culture might help nurture a popular environmentalism. Last, I will explore one of the key ways in which, perhaps, a grassroots environmentalist popular culture is nourishing the mainstream â namely, the complex cultural circuits by which these autonomous cultural products are, in some cases, forming interconnections with the media industries. Examples here will range across social networking, art film, independent music and âtacticalâ computer games. If the discussion above signals the extent to which, in a cultural ecology, popular forms might well be engaging with, and engaging us with, ecological ideas, we can only gain a clearer sense of what types of text might emerge by first establishing what we mean by ecology.
Environmental and ecological theory
In two books published 10 years apart David Ingram offers different definitions for green popular culture. Green Screen he describes as centred around films âin which an environmentalist issue is raised explicitly and is central to the narrativeâ (2000: vii). In The Jukebox in the Garden, an ecocritical study of American popular music, this becomes âmore or less explicit representations of either ecology or the natural worldâ (2010: 18). In extending his focus to ânatureâ generally, Ingramâs competing definitions alert us to the fact that what is meant by âgreen media and popular cultureâ is complicated not only by the complexity of âmedia ecologyâ but also by that of âgreenâ theory. I have retained in my title, and throughout the book, the word âgreenâ. In the second (2011) edition of his book Green Voices, Terry Gifford regards various, competing terms â âgreen poetryâ, âecological poetryâ and âecopoetryâ â as broadly synonymous but prefers âgreen poetryâ precisely because it presumes neither an understanding of scientific ecology nor any didactic, social purpose (2011: 8). Likewise, the nebulous quality of âgreenâ fits perfectly with the diversity, dialecticism and contradiction that characterises both ecology as a concept and âmedia and cultureâ. Nevertheless, in terms of understanding just how a media or popular cultural ecology can illustrate and help determine the ecological conditions of our existence, weâll need greater precision and clarity.
Environmental and ecological texts
âGreenâ texts broadly fall into two categories, environmental or ecological. A great deal of debate, differentiating the two, has occurred in disciplines ranging from environmental science to political theory. The fundamental distinction, outlined by Michael Allaby, is between an emphasis on the immediate physical environment and a more systemic, paradigmatic way of thinking. When we talk about the environmental, we are referring either to scientifically informed studies of the actual physical habitats in which animals and humans live or, correspondingly, to changes wrought by humans on those environments and/or campaigns to protect or preserve particular areas (2000: 2). In terms of representation, environmental texts are, therefore, those that either depict or evoke, without (necessarily) any particular scientific framework, a landscape or environment â e.g. the Hollywood film A River Runs Through It â or that document the threats (usually human) to those places. The scientific model, ecology regards all living beings, and the Earth, as systemically interconnected (Allaby 2000: 9). Species co-exist with each other, and are dependent on factors such as the atmosphere or water cycle. As an equivalent social or political model, ecology emphasises a reconstruction of society that recognises humanityâs material dependence on and interconnectedness with ânatureâ. It concerns itself, Allaby argues, not with âpiecemeal reformâ but with a more systematic and âradical restructuring of society and its economic baseâ, premised on principles such as the sustainable use of energy and natural resources (2000: 9). An ecological representation might then be texts that suggest the systemic connections and interrelationships (webs or networks) that shape a given environment, or indeed the Earth as a whole. This could be anything from the âcircle of lifeâ motif in Disneyâs The Lion King to the philosophical systems theory that (discussed below) informs the art films of Chris Welsby. In social terms, one could look at documentaries which trace and critique the patterns and ecological impact of our food and energy supply (H2Oil, Gasland, Our Daily Bread) or pragmatic computer games, such as SimCity 4, EnerCities, or the multiplayer World Without Oil, which allow the gamer to simulate running societies on an ecological basis.
In differentiating environmental from ecological, I am not making a qualitative distinction. Paula Willoquet-Maricondi has made a contrast (as weâll see in Chapter 2) between âenvironmentalistâ film, that uses environmentalism mainly for entertainment purposes, and an alternative, activist âecocinemaâ that can motivate and educate people. Yet she makes this distinction without ever really grounding these terms in the scientific, philosophical and socio-political meanings established through many years of âgreenâ theory. Certainly, given ecologyâs more profound systemic interconnectedness, an environmental perspective ought, at some point, to give way to the ecological. Nonetheless, âenvironmentalâ texts â characterised by their greater sense of place, belonging, or home, and/or a more grounded awareness of the mutual interconnections of human and nonhuman â carry affective properties that might, in the context of the mainstream media industries, inform a global ecological awareness. These range from John Denverâs music, for instance denoting West Virginia as âalmost heavenâ, to the anime director and co-founder of Studio Ghibli Hayao Miyazakiâs rendering of land, water, trees, and plants from âfragments of landscapes I had seen in Japanâ (2009: 350, 352), into the enchanted woodland environment of My Neighbour Totoro. Yet such works can also foster in any of us a sense of the ties that âencompass...