Deadline January 15, 2013
The Global Media Journal, African Edition invites submissions for its next issue with a theme of media and governance in Africa. This special issue on climate change and global warming is primarily focused on Public risk perceptions as crucial drivers of natural hazards policy and management response (Kellstedt, Zahran & Vedlitz 2008).
Despite the fact that information about global warming is readily available to average global citizens, understanding ecological risks is underdeveloped. This is particularly true in developing countries where either there is confusion regarding stratospheric ozone depletion and greenhouse effects or there are common misunderstandings of climate variability in terms of the relationship between CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and temperature change (Sterman & Sweeney 2002).
Often perceptions of climate change risks also correspond strongly with demographic, ideological, identity-related and institutional trust variables (O’Connor, Bord, Yarnal &Wiefek, 2002). News reporting and media coverage, as “a sort of instant historical record of the pace, progress, problems and hopes of society” (Bennett 2002, 10), is a key contributor in shaping both policy discourse and public understanding of risks. Media shape the way people rank problems and make sense of their everyday choices. Local practices of journalism also affect translations between science and policy (Weingart et al. 2000).
If climate change is a major challenge for journalism globally, in Africa the urgency of the challenge is even bigger. To begin with, the continent is very vulnerable to the effects of global warming. In many parts of the continent, agriculture is heavily dependent on rainfall patterns, and increasingly frequent and unpredictable droughts and floods cause enormous disasters.
Social problems such as the poor state of economic development, extreme poverty and low adaptive capacity serve only to increase the problems. In addition, the media landscape includes many complicating factors. In n many African countries, where legacies of colonialism, strong state-control over the public sphere, low rates of literacy and technological capacity shape the landscape. As such, journalism in Africa is often trapped within the gap between; on the one hand, the knowledge produced by climate science, and on the other, the political media realities. One the one hand there are the links between local elites and global climate politics. One the other hand there are the hard realities of everyday life and survival (Saleh 2010).
Submission guidelines are available at: http://globalmedia.journals.ac.za/index.php/pub/about/submissions#authorGuidelines
Please send any queries before the deadline to (isaleh@aucegypt.edu & jre09is@gmail.com)
Ibrahim Saleh, Editor of the Global Media Journal, African Edition
University of Cape Town, South Africa
Gabriel Botma, Publisher of Global Media Journal, African Edition
Stellenbosch University, South Africa