The evaluation of environmental risk often leads to conflict and legal disputes since risks are “threats to outcomes that we value” (Fischhoff and Kadvani, 2011: 22). Yet while some outcomes, such as car mortality, are defined as risks, other outcomes such as climate change are contested and their measurement often leads to legal controversies (Russo, 2018). Legal verdicts and actions are in turn mediated by news media, which call lay people to think about them either as active participants or interested observers. During the last decade, news media have intensified their role as a channel for the communication of legal discourse regarding environmental risk and conflict (Russo 2017a; Russo 2017b). In order to make risk decisions, citizens seek information, which is circulated through broadsheet news media, and later arises in social media such as facebook and twitter, or face-to-face conversations. This process of mediation is defined by Norman Fairclough as a ‘chain’, which through the networking of different social practices constrains and transforms language realisations (Fairclough 2003). This spreading of news across ‘genre chains’, is central to the present study on the recontextualisation of mining legal disputes and climate change in new media discourse since it may affect the citizens’ evaluation of legal decisions (Blommaert 2005: 46). The paper provides an analysis of the recontextualisation and appraisal of legal discourse in a media genre chain regarding the Stop Adani legal action campaign network against the instalment of a coal megamine in central Queensland. The analysis was carried out by analysing a corpus (2014-2017), specifically compiled to represent different interrelated media discourse genres. The data is analyzed according to an approach which draws upon findings in Critical Discourse Analysis, Appraisal Linguistics, and Corpus Linguistics (Baker 2006; Martin and White 2005; Thomson and White 2008). Accordingly, the paper situates quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis within a wider analytical framework which includes extra-linguistic social variables (Reisigl and Wodak 2001).

Stop Adani: Risk Communication and Legal Mining Conflicts in Australian Media Discourse

Katherine Russo
2019-01-01

Abstract

The evaluation of environmental risk often leads to conflict and legal disputes since risks are “threats to outcomes that we value” (Fischhoff and Kadvani, 2011: 22). Yet while some outcomes, such as car mortality, are defined as risks, other outcomes such as climate change are contested and their measurement often leads to legal controversies (Russo, 2018). Legal verdicts and actions are in turn mediated by news media, which call lay people to think about them either as active participants or interested observers. During the last decade, news media have intensified their role as a channel for the communication of legal discourse regarding environmental risk and conflict (Russo 2017a; Russo 2017b). In order to make risk decisions, citizens seek information, which is circulated through broadsheet news media, and later arises in social media such as facebook and twitter, or face-to-face conversations. This process of mediation is defined by Norman Fairclough as a ‘chain’, which through the networking of different social practices constrains and transforms language realisations (Fairclough 2003). This spreading of news across ‘genre chains’, is central to the present study on the recontextualisation of mining legal disputes and climate change in new media discourse since it may affect the citizens’ evaluation of legal decisions (Blommaert 2005: 46). The paper provides an analysis of the recontextualisation and appraisal of legal discourse in a media genre chain regarding the Stop Adani legal action campaign network against the instalment of a coal megamine in central Queensland. The analysis was carried out by analysing a corpus (2014-2017), specifically compiled to represent different interrelated media discourse genres. The data is analyzed according to an approach which draws upon findings in Critical Discourse Analysis, Appraisal Linguistics, and Corpus Linguistics (Baker 2006; Martin and White 2005; Thomson and White 2008). Accordingly, the paper situates quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis within a wider analytical framework which includes extra-linguistic social variables (Reisigl and Wodak 2001).
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11574/190084
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