New Media and Environmental Journalism

By, Angeline Nekesa

New Media has provided an alternative platform of expression for environmental communication. New media is helping environmental activists to combat the powerful propaganda and immense resources of the traditional media. The adoption of new media has given a level playing field and has democratized the environmental communication and its debate.  The presence of low cost internet access and internet based devices have broken the monopoly of professionally run news organizations. 

In today's information environment, practically anybody can create and disseminate “news” contents. These unregulated “Citizen Journalists” can now galvanize populace support as widely and as effectively as any big budget news organizations. Furthermore, the Internet's ability to provide instantaneous news on a 24/7 basis, consolidated and indexed search engines has made it the primary source of news. Apart from that the convergence of media technology has fundamentally altered the way individuals receive news and gather information and has created new dimension to environment Communication like the User Generated Content. 

The Internet has given power to every individual to express himself globally. Any individual with a digital device and Internet connection can create, publish and distribute media contents. This has effectively put a "journalist" on every street corner of the world and no incident is likely to occur without someone seeing it, recording it and reporting it. The journalistic principles and hierarchy which can become a hindrance for a professional journalist do not come in the way of these Citizen Journalists.  

Social networking websites like Face Book and Twitter have brought together individuals with similar friends or interests into virtual communities. The homogeneity of these communities, and sense of bonding among “friends” with common interests, makes these communities susceptible to being organized and galvanized to support causes. Hence new media has created an omnipresence of “journalists,” coupled with technology that enables to report the news as it develops, communicate the information effectively to large group of like mined people thereby creating a mass movement on issues, happenings etc.

The launch of new media has certainly countered the threat of uncertain and dwindling environmental news in traditional media. Editors and journalists are now delivering sophisticated, in depth reports on various topics ranging from climate change to green marketing using new media platforms. The contributors in these platforms are wide ranging from a specialist to a common man giving it a holistic approach. These information platforms are in turn becoming the primary sources of information to many other media forms.  New media has reduced the distance and increased the proximity between the source and the receiver of the information.