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Climate change: adaptation, science, and the media

By Joseph J. Bailey, University of Nottingham, UK.

One is never short of media coverage on climate change, but there has been a flurry recently in relation to its purported role in the ‘sinking’ of several islands in the Solomon Islands, following a publication by Australian researchers (Albert et al., 2016). Dramatic headlines included: “Five Pacific islands lost to rising seas as climate change hits” (The Guardian, 2016a) and “After the Pacific Ocean swallows villages and five Solomon Islands, a study blames climate change” (The Washington Post, 2016), to list just two. Such headlines would lead anyone to think that climate change had solely caused the sea levels to rise and destroy these islands and, therefore, that climate change sank the islands. Perhaps not, though.

The Guardian was quick to release a subsequent article: “Headlines ‘exaggerated’ climate link to sinking of Pacific islands” (The Guardian, 2016b) after they spoke to the paper’s lead author, who identified that many headlines were “certainly pushing things a bit towards the ‘climate change has made islands vanish’ angle”. The Solomon Islands’ sea level rise is above average because of a range of factors, including natural climatic cycles and increases in the strength of the trade winds. These changes are operating alongside global warming which does indeed increase average global sea levels but also increases the intensity of these trade winds, as outlined in the article. It is a complicated climatic system that has been simplified and widely misrepresented in the media to varying extents.

Taking the line ashore. A villager in his canoe takes the line ashore at Halavo, Nggela (Florida) Island, Solomon Islands. Source: This photograph, which has not been edited, was taken by Jenny Scott and downloaded from Flickr (link to photograph) for non-commercial use on this blog under a Creative Commons 2.0 License.

Interestingly, all of this happened about one week after Lord Krebs wrote an article for The Conversation about media responsibility in reporting climate change, and the need for scientists to engage with the media to support more accurate reporting (Krebs, 2016). The issues discussed and articles referenced by Lord Krebs are potentially of a more serious nature than the case of sea level rise affecting the Solomon Islands. However, despite differences in the seriousness of the misrepresentation and simplification of the science between Lord Krebs’ examples and the more recent reports surrounding the Solomon Islands, there is overlap in the associated issues and questions raised. Namely: how can the public and politicians fully understand the science and respond to it in the face of inaccurate and pervasive media reports? Furthermore, if people are not clear on the science of climate change, how does this affect our resilience and willingness to adapt to probable changes in the future?

A recent article in Geography Compass explores climate change adaptation in much detail (Eisenhauer, 2016). Climate change adaptation describes the process whereby people seek to decrease the risks and impacts of climate change through societal and economic strategies, for example (details). The paper focusses on pathways, which describe “alternative trajectories of development” (p. 209), in the context of climate change adaptation because such adaptations are part of continual change towards desirable socio-ecological conditions. Four approaches to pathways are proposed and discussed. They aim to fill the current gap between usable knowledge and action that the paper identifies. In particular, these actions generally relate to governance or development. The importance of local people in adaptation planning is also highlighted.

Discussion of this gap between usable knowledge and action, and attempts to address it, is important because the creation of knowledge is one thing, but identifying which aspects of it are of the greatest relevance and usefulness for the task at hand is another. Subsequent dissemination to stakeholders must then follow, and is it here that the media has great potential. But, as we have seen time and time again, including only this month, knowledge can be misrepresented or simplified to the point where it is no longer presents what the authors intended. Some simplification is necessary to create readable news articles and, as the lead author of the Solomon Islands paper, Dr Simon Albert, told The Guardian, ‘dramatic’, eye-catching headlines can attract readers and raise the profile of important issues. However, caution is required and a balance between a headline’s accuracy and ability to draw in readers must be struck.

Climate change is one of the most geographical issues, covering all aspects of the human, natural, and physical world, and the connections and interactions therein. The ability of communities to adapt will play a large role in determining its impacts in the future. It is vital that scientific findings are made to be usable and relevant for policy-makers and stakeholders so that effective strategies can be instigated. We have seen here the presentation of science and of geographic phenomena in the media can be inappropriate at times. This makes it difficult for people to be properly informed and make sound decisions about climate-related environmental changes. Additionally, the Solomon Islands coverage should be used as a cautionary example that not all environmental changes are because of climate change: the world is complicated. Communication between scientists and the media and, subsequently, between the media and observers to disseminate accurate and useful knowledge will no doubt be a key ingredient in the initiation of positive action.

REFERENCES

Albert, S. et al. (2016). Interactions between sea-level rise and wave exposure on reef island dynamics in the Solomon Islands. Environmental Research Letters, 11 (5).

Eisenhauer, D. C. (2016). Pathways to Climate Change Adaptation: Making Climate Change Action Political. Geography Compass, 10 (5), 207 – 221.

Krebs, J. (2016). Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change (online). The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/lord-krebs-scientists-must-challenge-poor-media-reporting-on-climate-change-58621 (last accessed 12^th May 2016).

The Guardian (2016a). Five Pacific islands lost to rising seas as climate change hits (online). Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/10/five-pacific-islands-lost-rising-seas-climate-change (last accessed 12^th May 2016).

The Guardian (2016b). Headlines ‘exaggerated’ climate link to sinking of Pacific islands (online). Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/10/headlines-exaggerated-climate-link-to-sinking-of-pacific-islands (last accessed 12^th May 2016).

The Washington Post (2016). After the Pacific Ocean swallows villages and five Solomon Islands, a study blames climate change (online). Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/05/09/after-the-pacific-ocean-swallows-villages-and-five-solomon-islands-a-study-blames-climate-change/ (last accessed 12^th May 2016).

Housing Refugees: Prejudice and the Potentials of Encounter

By Julian Shaw (King’s College London)

Syrian Refugees at Keleti Railway Station in Budapest, Hungary
Photo: Mstyslav Chernov/Wikimedia Commons

This summer the British media opened its eyes, cleared its collective throat, and eventually gave voice to a global refugee crisis that has been growing for years. Initially the tragedy traversed the narratives of public and political figures, then it made its way into the private discussions of British families (via TV news and online petitions). Now the tragedy’s spatial journey appears to have followed suit – moving from the public spaces of train stations and border checkpoints, it is now poised to enter private space. In The Independent it was revealed that “one in 14 people – the equivalent of almost two million UK households – said they would be prepared to offer a room or space in their home to a refugee” (The Independent, 2015); what an amazing thought.

Concurrently in September’s issue of The Geographical Journal, Valentine et al. published the latest instalment in their investigation of the geography of encounter; looking in this article at “encounters…within the context of family life” (Valentine et al., 2015: 280). Their article specifically turns the significance of everyday intimate encounters with diversity in the home, and how these may have the potential to challenge wider prejudices evident in public life.

Turning to the cities of Leeds and Warsaw, Valentine et al. surveyed over 3,000 social attitudes and made in-depth qualitative explorations with 60 of these respondents. Their findings revealed that indeed “intra-familial diversity does produce more positive attitudes in public life” (ibid.: 291). Should such a result be consistent across the UK, this has made me wonder about the wider positive implications that could occur if British families were to house refugees in their spare rooms, as was suggested in The Independent.

Of course, housing someone does not necessarily make them family – or at least not in the traditional sense. However, Valentine et al. acknowledge in their study that the intimate encounters they explore do not presume the traditional sense of family – in the modern world family structures are much more malleable and changeable than they used to be. Instead they extend their investigation of families to the wider spatial setting of “the home and associated spaces of family life” (Valentine et al., 2005: 281). In this case, I suggest that their findings could be directly relevant to UK families welcoming refugees into their homes.

However, the obvious caveat here is that likely volunteers to house refugees are those already holding positive views towards them. I guess the challenge is – if intimate encounters can break prejudice – enabling intimate encounters with refugees to enter into the homes of those harbouring intolerance? Yet, don’t most of us have some distant or extended family members that we might reluctantly describe as being intolerant, even while we hold broad and accepting views ourselves? If this is the case then the intimate encounters described by Valentine et al. (2015) could indeed happen in the families of those offering to house refugees. Let’s hope the offer becomes reality.

References:

60-world2 The Independent (2015) Online article: “Revealed: the extraordinary response to the Syrian refugee crisis – and how it shames David Cameron”, by Adam Withnall and Matt Dathan on 23rd September 2015, Accessed online at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/refugee-crisis-the-true-extent-of-the-british-publics-extraordinary-response-revealed-10514341.html (Accessed on 23rd September 2015)

books_icon Valentine, G., Piekut, A., and Harris, C., (2015) Intimate encounters: the negotiation of difference within the family and its implications for social relations in public space, The Geographical Journal, 181(3): pp.280-294 (open access).

Breaking Bad, Masculinity and Media Pilgrimages

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By Ashley Crowson, king’s College London

Depending on your TV viewing habits, the house below is either an entirely unremarkable suburban residence or it is the home of television’s greatest antihero, unassuming high school chemistry teacher turned underworld kingpin Walter White.

Walter White’s house. Albuquerque, New Mexico. Image: Karl Kaktus Creative Commons 2.0

This house has recently featured in the entertainment press as Breaking Bad creator, Vince Gilligan, while discussing the show’s new spinoff series Better Call Saul, has chastised fans for repeatedly throwing pizzas on to its roof. The house, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is home to a retired couple and was used for exterior shots in the show. The pizza throwing fans are replicating an infamous scene, in which an enraged Walt hurls a ‘party pizza’ on to the garage roof.

Walt’s infamous pizza throw. Image: funnyordie.com

Visits to the White residence, alongside many other sites used as locations on the show, have been driving something of a tourism boom in Albuquerque. Fans can take Breaking Bad tours and buy merchandise at numerous themed gift shops. This impulse to undertake a pilgrimage to locations associated with popular films and TV series is something that has intrigued geographers.

Couldry (2003) argues that such pilgrimages are implicitly connected to the symbolic authority of the media; they represent a symbolic journey in which the distance between the ‘ordinary world’ and the ‘media world’ is momentarily collapsed, giving the impression that this boundary is traversable.

Writing in Area, Stijn Reijnders take issue with this approach, arguing, “We should take into account the cultural embeddedness of media pilgrimages.” And that we need to acknowledge “the way the authority of the media is related to other power structures, such as gender and ethnicity.” Reijnders does this by focussing on the relation between media pilgrimages and masculinity, looking specifically at why fans travel to James Bond film locations.

Reijnders explains, “Scholars interpret Bond as a paragon of manliness – a paragon with a strongly conservative and hetero-normative disposition… The respondents recognise this sexual ideology, but without explicitly condemning it. On the contrary, these fans – the majority of whom are white, heterosexual men – adore the character of Bond. Exploring his world and repeating some of his actions affords these fans the opportunity to embody and act out a certain idealised masculinity.”

Breaking Bad is also a show with a lot to say about masculinity. One reading might interpret it as a cautionary tale about the foolishness of traditional notions of masculinity. In one scene, big-time drug dealer Gus Fring tells Walt, “A man provides. And he does it even when he’s not appreciated, or respected, or even loved. He simply bears up and he does it. Because he’s a man.”

This is a concept of masculinity that our protagonist seems to embrace. When Walt gets his cancer diagnosis, pride prevents him from accepting assistance from very wealth former colleagues. Instead, in a bid to ‘provide for his family’, he embarks on a course of violence, criminality, brutality and, ultimately, tragedy.

An alternative reading might see the show as revelling in the transformation of Walter White from a meek and nerdy teacher to a hyper-masculine gun-toting criminal mastermind. The audience is invited to celebrate occasions when Walt dominates and out-manoeuvres his prototypically macho brother-in-law, who previously mocked his bookish demeanour.

Reijnders concludes that media pilgrimages are about more than simply closing the gap between the ‘ordinary world’ and the ‘media world’. Imitating Bond “at the very place where he was sitting, running, ﬁghting or making love” enables fans to “recollect the roots of their own masculinity, to refresh it and to deﬁne it.”

Unlike Bond, who arrives as a fully formed paragon of heteronormative masculinity, Walter White transforms into something not too dissimilar on screen. Many of the male pizza tossing fans, then, who travel great distances, often at considerable expense, to replicate the antics of their hero might be considered not just to be closing the gap between ‘real world’ and ‘TV world’, but to be engaged in processes of defining and redefining their own masculinity, processes in which location is of crucial importance.

Stijn Reijnders, 2010, On the trail of 007: media pilgrimages into the world of James Bond, Area 42(3) 369-377.

Nick Couldry, 2003, Media Rituals: A Critical Approach. Psychology Press.

Radio Geopolitics

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By Ashley Crowson, King’s College London

Last month saw the release of the final episode of the podcasting sensation that is ‘Serial’. The true crime podcast, a spin off from long-running radio show ‘This American Life’, has experienced record-breaking download numbers, spawned a number of fan podcasts, and encouraged feverish debate on a lively subreddit devoted to the show. The same month also saw the horrific massacre of 141 students and teachers in their school in Peshawar, Pakistan. The man responsible for ordering the attack has been named by the press as Taliban commander Umar Mansoor, known locally as ‘Mullah Radio’. He gained this nickname from his popular pirate radio broadcasts in Swat Valley that apparently earned him legions of followers and convinced many to join and fight for the Taliban.

Image Via Wikimedia Commons

Radio, then, remains a medium with the capacity to entertain, engage and enthrall audiences with simple yet captivating storytelling techniques. It also remains a potent tool for the dissemination of ideologies, manipulation and indoctrination; it is a tool that has been used to this end on countless occasions, in the course of numerous conflicts, by both state and non-state actors.

An article by Patrick Weir in the December edition of Geography Compass seeks to review geographical approaches to the conceptualisation of radio’s role in geopolitics, an area of study that has often overlooked this medium, tending to focus instead on visual culture and visual representations.

Weir suggests that ideas of assemblage, which emphasise non-human objects, infrastructures and forces, as well as the linkages between the material and the discursive, “can provide a new frame of understanding for the geopolitics of radio”. Weir argues that just as no meaningful distinctions can be made between the material and the cultural components of, for instance, treaty negotiations, which, he suggests, consist of “a shifting landscape of technical, diplomatic and bureaucratic objects, regulations and directives, and vehicles, bodies and buildings”, no worthwhile separation of radio into its material and non-material constituent parts can take place.

As an example of the geopolitical agency of radio, Weir points to what he calls the ‘radio war’ that took place within the Algerian war of independence during the late 1950s. He cites Franz Fanon’s description of liberationist radio station The Voice of Fighting Algeria in A Dying Colonialism:

The French authorities… began to realize the importance of this progress of the people in the technique of news dissemination. After a few months of hesitancy legal measures appeared. The sale of radios was now prohibited, except on presentation of a voucher issued by the military security or police services… The highly trained French services… were quick to detect the wavelengths of the broadcasting stations. The programmes were then systematically jammed… The listener, enrolled in the battle of the waves, had to figure out the tactics of the enemy, and in an almost physical way circumvent the strategy of the adversary.

Weir cites this passage as, he claims, it ‘perfectly illustrates’ how radio’s assemblage “includes material components (batteries, transistors, aerials) interact with legalistic structures (taxes, vouchers) and ideological concepts (colonialism, sovereignty, peoples).”

As Martin Müller notes, engaging in this type of geopolitical analysis of organisations and institutions means “tracing the ways in which the non-human and the human become bound up with each other and constitute organizations as geopolitical actors”. With media and popular culture playing ever more important roles in the conduct and construction of geopolitics, the incorporation of notions of assemblage is likely to become something of a priority in geopolitical analysis.

Patrick Weir, 2014, Radio Geopolitics, Geography Compass 8(12) 849-859.

Martin Müller, 2012, Opening the black box of the organization: Socio-material practices of geopolitical ordering, Political Geography 31(6) 379–388.

Franz Fanon, 1967, A Dying Colonialism. Monthly Review Press: New York.

Vexed Natures: Geoengineering in the UK Media

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By Martin Mahony

The idea of human control over the weather is certainly not new; neither are many of the accompanying anxieties. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Geoengineering – or “deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climate system, in order to moderate global warming” (as defined by the Royal Society) – is a topic which always divides opinion in debates about how to tackle climate change. As levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continue to rise at break-neck speed, many insist that efforts to de-carbonise our economies will not be sufficient to avoid dangerous levels of climate change. The only solution, the argument goes, is to counteract humankind’s alteration of the atmosphere’s chemistry with similarly large-scale – but planned – interventions in the operation of the earth system.

The technologies conventionally captured under the label “geoengineering” can perhaps be more usefully thought of in terms of solar radiation management (SRM) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR). SRM technologies range from the mundane to the fanciful: from painting roofs white to reflect more sunlight, to the deployment of giant mirrors between the earth and the sun to intercept solar energy before it even reaches earth’s atmosphere. Other suggestions include the artificial fertilisation of the ocean to encourage it to absorb more carbon dioxide, and the injection of reflective sulphate aerosols into the high atmosphere. The CDR category contains slightly less vaulting technological ambition; technologies here would seek to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (with things like synthetic trees and carbon ‘scrubbers’ in power stations) and squirrel it away in underground stores.

For advocates of geoengineering research and deployment, it is essential that we prepare the way for technologies which could deliver us from a full-blown climatic catastrophe. For opponents, geoengineering is another example of the kind of hubris which got us into the environmental crisis in the first place, and the technologies will simply lead us into a vicious circle of unintended consequences and even more risky and uncertain remedial actions. The geoengineering debate thus takes us to the core of deeply ideological debates about the relationship between humans and nature, about technological progress, and about the democratic governance of risk and the environment.

New research from the Science, Society and Sustainability (3S) Group at the University of East Anglia has shone some light on how these diverse normative, ideological and technological assumptions have played out in media coverage of geoengineering debates. In a paper in The Geographical Journal, Kate Porter and Mike Hulme explore the dominant framings of UK newspaper coverage of the issue. Questions of innovation, risk, governance, economics, morality, security and justice are all identified as framings which direct – implicitly and explicitly – the ways stories about geoengineering are assembled and presented to the reading public. Risk framings, for example, tend to emphasise the trade-offs between the avoidance of serious climate change and the uncertain outcomes of large scale geoengineering interventions. Morality framings, by contrast, tend to translate these calculations into a Biblical language of guilt, blame, judgement and punishment.

What will perhaps be of most interest to geographers is Porter & Hulme’s account of the different conceptions of ‘nature’ which can be traced through these diverse framings. Nature emerges, variously, as a powerful self-regulating system in need of palliative care; as something much bigger than and outside of human agency against which dreams of total knowledge and control are futile; and as something more ephemeral which is inherently threatened by geoengineering. This latter conception stands close to Francis Bacon’s notion of natura vexata – a nature once free and unconstrained, which is now oppressed and frustrated by human action. These different understandings of the relationship between the human and the nonhuman have deep roots. Any attempt at a deliberate, global modification of the planet’s energy flows will have to negotiate these competing visions. How to do this in a way which is robustly and justly democratic is a question which we are yet to come to terms with.

Any discussion of geoengineering is freighted with normative assumptions and political preferences (you’ll probably have noticed some of mine). Porter & Hulme’s work offers a preliminary guide to the rhetorical resources and ideological frames which populate the geoengineering debate, and raises further interesting questions. How do these debates play out differently in different places and cultures? Who is trusted as a source of information on geoengineering? How do different conceptions of ‘nature’, ‘risk’ and even ‘democracy’ shape the debate? These are important discussions which geographers are well-placed to contribute to.

Kate Elizabeth Porter and Mike Hulme, 2013, The Emergence of the Geoengineering Debate in the UK Print Media: A Frame Analysis, The Geographical Journal, DOI: 10.1111/geoj.12003

Rogue geoengineering could ‘hijack’ world’s climate, The Guardian

Carbon dioxide levels show biggest spike in 15 years, Times of India

Radio Space: North Sea Memories

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Benjamin Sacks

Uniquely amongst the major world powers, Britain’s international image is disproportionally defined by its broadcasting capabilities. The BBC’s announcement on 11 August to establish World Service FM stations in the Libyan rebel-held cities of Benghazi and Misrata (91.5 Arabic and English) raised few eyebrows; observers have come to expect the World Service to install itself in any democratic-leaning region. ‘We know the people of Libya are keen listeners of BBC Arabic’, Liliane Landor, BBC controller for languages, noted, ‘The new FM stations will give the people of Benghazi and Misrata somewhere to turn to for news they can trust and know is accurate’. Similarly, within weeks of the collapse of Iraq’s totalitarian Ba’ath regime, the World Service opened FM repeater stations throughout the country. In 2005 the World Service and the British Department for International Development (DfID) established Al Mirbad Radio, serving Basra, Missan and Dhi Qar provinces. Locally produced Al Mirbad Radio rapidly became one of the most popular stations in Iraq. The BBC continues to organise and train new Iraqi media groups, with special emphasis on women and journalistic-independence.

Historically, the BBC’s influence was the result of a government policy that remained largely unchanged until the 1970s. A state institution, the BBC was conceived to ‘speak peace unto the nation’; to be the nation’s voice, a symbol of Britain’s strength, culture and public image, both at home and abroad. A broadcasting monopoly theoretically ensured this cohesive voice.

The BBC’s ubiquitous control began to falter after the Second World War. From 1955 onward, ITV competed with BBC Television for viewers. But the radio monopoly survived until 1972, when the Sound Broadcasting Act extended the Television Act 1964 to radio. The Independent Television Authority was renamed the Independent Broadcasting Authority, charged with the registration, organisation and monitoring of commercial (non-BBC) radio stations. The debates leading to the Sound Broadcasting Act highlighted the deep extent to which the BBC had become an integral part of British domestic and international life – an inimitable British geography with distinct cultures, populations and regulations.

But what catalysed Parliament’s about-face in British broadcasting policy? Such recent examinations as the 2009 film Pirate Radio have rekindled interest in the broadcasting ‘war’ that led to the de-monopolisation of British radio and the alteration of British broadcasting geography. In ‘Sinking the Radio “Pirates”: Exploring British Strategies of Governance in the North Sea, 1964-1991’, Kimberley Peters (Royal Holloway) critically examines the vital role offshore pirate radio played in fashioning contemporary British maritime policy. As Peters points out, when the first illegal offshore pirate station (Radio Caroline) broadcast on Easter Sunday 1964, the BBC was reeling from a precipitous drop in listeners. A network that principally catered to middle-aged, middle-class audiences, the BBC was increasingly perceived as being ‘out-of-touch’ with 1960s youth culture, which demanded contemporary rock-n-roll artists. Situated on converted fishing vessels anchored beyond Britain’s three-mile nautical limit, Radio Caroline and its cohort ‘flouted British rules and laws’, but nonetheless placed intensive pressure on the BBC to establish programming geared to a new, revolutionary generation (pp. 281-83).

The Area article also critiques the apparent contradiction between Britain’s historical support for ‘freedom of the seas’ and its determination to eliminate ‘obstacles to free navigation’ which, for purposes of convenience, included the so-called “pirate” radio stations. This approach proved both awkward and questionable: Peters argues that ‘certain methods of governance that were enacted were inherently problematic, challenging therefore Britain’s long history as a protector of the high seas’ (p. 283). London’s frustrating experience in stopping the nautical broadcasts led not only to Britain’s eventual acquiescence to commercial radio, but also to policy-makers’ review of how, where and when maritime law can be applied.

‘Al Mirbad: Local Radio for Southern Iraq’, BBC World Service Trust, accessed 12 August 2011.

McAthy, Rachel, ‘World Service Launches on FM in Libyan Cities’, Journalism.co.uk, 11 August 2011, accessed 12 August 2011.

‘More About Our Work in Iraq’, BBC World Service Trust, accessed 12 August 2011.

‘Our Work in Iraq’, BBC World Service Trust, accessed 12 August 2011.

Peters, Kimberley, ‘Sinking the Radio “Pirates”: Exploring British Strategies of Governance in the North Sea, 1964-1991’, Area 43.3 (September, 2011): 281—87.

‘Sound Broadcasting Act 1972’, Parliament 1972 Chapter 31 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1972), pp. 477—96.

Out and about with Geography: geography-media-web relations

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by Fiona Ferbrache

My involvement with Geography Directions began after I attended the RGS IBG postgraduate mid-term conference in Aberythswyth, 2010 (RGS Postgraduate forum). The theme was Engaging Geographies and plenary speaker Professor Klaus Dodds talked enthusiastically about the ways in which geography, and we as geographers, should engage beyond the academe with media, government and the general public. He suggested that to some extent the future of geography lies in its outreach beyond the university (see also Castree, forthcoming). It is thus encouraging to read that “geographical issues are gaining wider attention from the public, as many critical issues facing society today are embedded in this academic area” (Harris, 2011:155). In The Geographical Journal’s Commentary, Harris notes that Geography is a comprehensive discipline capable of addressing both the science behind an issue, and the social and economic impacts arising from it. Harris’ paper highlights geography-media relations and argues that the media plays an important role in connecting geography with wider populations.

I became involved with Geography Directions because I saw the web posts as an opportunity for academic geography to access a wider audience (see also Wiley Geodiscoveries). Anyone viewing our website has the opportunity to engage some of the resources, new developments and latest issues taking place in the academe as our news editors repackage journal articles and present them in association with real-world examples. In contrast to web-based news sites, podcasts and blogs, Harris’ paper focuses on traditional forms of media and is written from her experiences of working with Radio 4. However, our goal is the same: to increase the public profile of geography as a discipline that can contribute to many debates facing society today.

Castree, N. (in press) The Future of Geography in English Universities. The Geographical Journal. Forthcoming.

Harris, F. (2011) Getting geography into the media: understanding the dynamics of academic–media collaboration. The Geographical Journal. 177,2. pp.155-159

RGS IBG Postgraduate Forum

Wiley Geodiscoveries

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