MEDIA FRAMING AND ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE Construction of the 2019 Brazilian Amazon fires in national and international news

Abstract

In August 2019, large numbers of fires in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest caught international political and media attention, often alluding to their global climatic significance. The local situation however is complexly entangled with various local and global socioeconomic processes that lead to the disproportionate environmental impact on local communities. Considering the media’s importance in public problem-perceptions and policy-making, this study is thus concerned with the framing of the events and local populations in the Brazilian Folha de São Paulo (FSP) and international New York Times (NYT) in late August 2019, and discusses its findings within a framework of environmental justice. The results of the qualitative, abductive framing analysis show that both newspapers mainly construct the fires within political frames. Both FSP and NYT omit frames of justice and rarely highlight implications for the local population, instead focusing on international political, environmental, conflictual and economic aspects. The newspapers frequently thematize local farming and Brazilian economic policies as drivers of the fires, while neglecting global responsibilities in economic, climatic, or post-colonial terms. I argue that this does not only overlook issues of distributive and restorative environmental justice, but also constitutes a form of environmental injustice itself with regard to recognition and representation, hence perpetuating existing inequalities. Therefore, I identify the need for stronger consideration of human aspects, local particularities and interactions with the global in environmental media reporting on the Amazon.