Environment and the media

Media range from entertainment to news media, spanning traditional or mass media such as television, films, books, flyers, newspapers, magazines, and radio, as well as new media such as the Internet in general, Web 2.0, and social media. Traditional media rely on one-to-many (often monodirectional) communications and are sometimes referred to as “mass media,” whereas new or social media involve many-to-many, more interactive, webs of communications. Since the 1990s, the shift from traditional to new media has signaled substantive changes in how people access and interact with information, who has access to it, and who are considered “authorized” definers (e.g., actors with more power and influence than others) of the various dimensions of environmental issues. It is argued that new and social media have democratizing influences, as these channels of communication often offer a platform for more people to become content producers, and therefore have the potential to more readily shape the public agenda. In all media, actors such as publishers, editors, journalists, and other content producers such as