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ISSN 1392 – 0758 SOCIALINIAI MOKSLAI. 2011. Nr. 4 (74) Politicized Discourses on Environmental and Technological Risks: the Case of Lithuania Audrone Telesiene Kaunas University of Technology Donelaicio 73, LT-44029 Kaunas, Lithuania Ausra Rimaite and Kristina Juraite Vytautas Magnus University Donelaicio 58, LT-44248 Kaunas, Lithuania http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ss.74.4.1032 contents depend on time, space and situation. Risks, apart from having physical descriptions, are constructed by different social agents, including the mass media. The mass media together with other social agents play a particular role in selecting, transforming and transmitting environmental constructions in modern society (Juraite, 2002). American sociologist Tuchman (1978) argued that the news reconstructs the social world and is a window onto that world, determining, what individuals want to know, what individuals have to know and what individuals should know. After all, most of the modern environmental problems for instance global warming, ozone layer depletion, toxic contamination, acid rains or nuclear radiation are usually invisible to the naked eye. Studying the construction of environmental problems in the mass media is of particular importance in terms of global environmental issues particularly dependent on external sources of information. Time constraints, location, information sources, media frames, and gate-keeping are important factors in shaping media coverage. Canadian sociologist Hannigan (2006) differentiates three key issues central in understanding environmental reporting. First of all, there is a direct relationship between environmental issues and economic and political structures and policies. Second, environmental and health discourses are hardly separable. Third, environment is often regarded as a policy area like health care, education and social welfare. The mass media generally raise, select and define issues to be presented as social problems in public debate and decision-making. Therefore, the more environmentrelated information people receive from the mass media, the more they consider it an important social issue (Juraite, 2002). Special Eurobarometer 295 survey (2008), carried out to compare European citizens’ attitudes towards the environment, revealed that people having more information on environmental issues also expressed higher concern for and personal engagement in environmental protection. European average level of being informed about environmental issues is 55 percent, and 42 percent of Europeans feel they are not informed. Among the countries with the highest numbers of not-informed inhabitants are Lithuania and Romania (respectively 60 and 64 percent of Abstract The aim of this article is to analyze the scope and depth to which discourses on environmental and technological risks are marked by political domination. Authors explain the reciprocal model of interconnections between 1) environmental and technological risk discourses and 2) such factors as high trust in science and technologies, ascription of responsibilities to political authorities, low civil participation and low rates of trust in civil sector organizations. The article is based upon national media monitoring research, Eurobarometer data, ISSP national survey and several other national opinion polls. The results show the political (and expert) domination of public discourses on environmental and technological risks, as channelled through popular newspapers in Lithuania. Keywords: discourse, environmental and technological risks, risk communication, political domination. Introduction Environmentalism has been identified as one of the key features of modernity by contemporary sociologists such as Ulrich Beck (1992, 1998, 2008), Anthony Giddens (1990, 1991) and Scott Lash (1999; Beck, Giddens and Lash, 1994). In the contemporary risk society individuals are facing environmental and technological risks. Society is constantly informed about risks of nuclear power plants, air pollution, genetically modified products, climate change, ozone layer depletion and other environmental changes. Within sociology and contiguous sciences explanations of risks follow two principal approaches: the realistic approach, which claims that risk is objective and amenable to scientific measurement, and the constructionist approach, which claims that risk perceptions are socially constructed and mediated (Balzekiene, 2006, 2009). The authors of this article follow the social constructivist approach and understand risks as social and cultural constructions, whose shapes and 20 Social Sciences / Socialiniai mokslai. 2011. Nr. 4 (74) A. Telesiene, A. Rimaite, K. Juraite. Politicized Discourses on Environmental and Technological Risks: the Case of Lithuania the respondents saying they are not informed). Newspapers and television news are considered by Europeans to be the main sources of information on environmental issues. Furthermore, various other Eurobarometer surveys show that Lithuanians are more optimistic about technological development, ascribe more trust than average EU to public officials and scientists, are among least trusting in NGO’s and civil sector (Special Eurobarometer 340, 2010) and show least rates of active civil participation (Flash Eurobarometer 189a, 2006). The presented data introduce Lithuania as an atypical case within the European Union family of countries, with low rates of being environmentally informed, high rates of technological and scientific trust and optimism, low rates of civil activism. Thus it is important to analyze the causes or channels through which Lithuanians form their environmental consciousness, and to analyze media discourses as well as ways in which these discourses are interconnected with public opinion. Understanding the content and other characteristics of information provided by the mass media on environmental risks, including nuclear energy, climate change and GMOs, was amongst the main objectives of the national research project RINOVA: Risk Perception, Public Communication and Innovative Governance in Knowledge Society (Rinova, 2009). Some of the findings of qualitative and quantitative research carried out under this project showed politicization of public discourses on issues of nuclear power, climate change and GMO’s. This served as an inspiration to search for a wider explanation why this is the case, and also an inspiration to look deeper into the data in order to see in what ways this politicization occurs. Thus the research problem to be addressed in this article is defined by the following questions: how can the politicization of risk discourses be traced media texts? What features of public attitudes and behaviour serve as grounds for this politicization? How can the reciprocal interplay of media discourses and public opinion be explained? The aim of this article is to analyze the extent to which discourses on environmental and technological risks are marked by political domination (in Lithuania). This is supposed to have interconnections with low civic participation on issues of technogenic risks, distrust in NGO’s and civil sector, high rate of trust in scientific expertise and an influence upon Lithuanian’s tendency to delegate decisions to political institutions. Several objectives have been identified: to analyze the rates of public trust in science and technologies at EU level and in Lithuania; to study the levels of civic participation and rates of trust in civil sector organizations; to analyze who is assigned the responsibility in issues of environmental and technological risks; to analyze the media framing of environmental and technological risks. conducted as part of the RINOVA project, conducted in 2007-2009, financed by the Lithuanian State Science and Studies Foundation (Contract no. C-10/2007), and coordinated by Kaunas University of Technology, Department of Sociology. Research methodology, applied in the RINOVA research project, followed the mixedmethods approach, including surveys, content analysis and interviews. The project involved the following thematic research groups: ‘Risicus’ analyzing the public perceptions of risks, ‘Media’ analyzing the public communication of risk and ‘Civicus’ analyzing the governance of risk. Three groups of risk-related issues were under focus of this project: nuclear energy, climate change and GMO’s. The authors of this article were members of the RINOVA group of researchers. This article mainly draws upon the data of the research on public risk communication, but also employs some survey data on public perception of risks. The Media thematic research group aimed to explore environmental risk coverage and understand the media contexts in which environmental and technological risks are being communicated in the mainstream media. Following the principles of discourse analysis (e.g. Titscher et al., 2000; Ezzy, 2002), the Media research was constructed around a twofold analytical facet including content and context of risk communication (Juraite and Telesiene, 2009). The research methods employed were a multi-stage purposeful sampling of texts from three most popular national dailies for time period April-July 2008, a review of texts and illustrations; qualitative and quantitative text analyses. Within this article only several variables from quantitative and qualitative content analysis are covered: sources of information as referred to in texts on environmental and technogenic risks, location of the texts within newspapers, length of the news articles, dominant story-lines of texts on environmental and technogenic risks. The empirical basis consists of 401 texts. In order to research the public perceptions of risks, the Risicus group conducted a national representative survey in 2008, N=1000. The article also draws upon pieces of data generated during other research projects. The data about Lithuanians’ attitudes towards science and technologies are taken from project ‘Monitoring of social problems: implementation of International Social Survey Program (ISSP)’ (see information at the end of the article). One of the main aims of the project was to carry out an internationally comparative analysis with a focus on various social problems (following the International Social Survey Program – ISSP – methodology). The project was implemented by the Institute of Politics and Public Administration at Kaunas University of Technology. Audrone Telesiene was member of the project team. This article employs data gathered through national representative survey conducted in 2010 (N=1023). The data about public perception of political and public institutions in Lithuania is taken from national research project ‘Perception of public institutions and political action: Support for democracy or massive protest?’ (see information at the end of the article). The project aimed to explore public perceptions of the state institutions, public and political engagement, and the role Empirical basis and methods The article employs data from several sources. The bulk of the analysis (sections analyzing the content of environmental and technological risk discourses) is based upon the results of media monitoring research that was 21 Social Sciences / Socialiniai mokslai. 2011. Nr. 4 (74) A. Telesiene, A. Rimaite, K. Juraite. Politicized Discourses on Environmental and Technological Risks: the Case of Lithuania of media in shaping and supporting political awareness and participation. The research was coordinated by the Department of Sociology, Vytautas Magnus University. Kristina Juraite was member of the project team. The national representative survey was conducted in 2010 (N=1048). In addition to drawing upon data of various national research projects, the article also employs data from various Eurobarometer surveys, as presented by the European Commission and available through open database site ‘Public Opinion’ (http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion). ensure security of nuclear energy. High rates of Lithuanians’ trust both in scientific expertise and in technological capabilities to tackle environmental and technological risks are reported also in a national representative survey on nuclear risk perceptions in Lithuanian society conducted in 2006 (Balzekiene and Rinkevicius, 2006). The most recent representative national public survey conducted as part of the ‘Monitoring of social problems’ project in 2010 (N=1023), also supports the thesis that Lithuanians are scientific and technological optimists. Three out of four Lithuanians did not agree that modern science does more harm than good. Two thirds of respondents did not agree that ‘We believe too often in science and not enough in feelings and faith’. Another 76.8 percent of respondents ‘strongly agreed’, ‘agreed’ or marked ‘neither agree nor disagree’ for the statement ‘Modern science will solve our environmental problems with little change to our way of life’. The high rates of trust in science and technology in Lithuania is a significant precondition for openness of public discourses to expert domination. This thesis needs further elaboration. Still, within this article, high public trust in science and technologies is assumed as the high probability factor giving answer to question ‘Who are allowed to actively participate and thus dominate public discourses on environmental and technological risks’. Before exploring the actual data of political and expert domination within public discourses, let us further analyze the tendency to delegate responsibility to political authorities and experts. The following part of the article also provides the analysis of the low levels of civil participation and low trust in civil sector organizations among Lithuanians. Trust in scientific and technological expertise Risk societies, as noted by Beck (1992), are increasingly characterized by decreasing trust in science and technologies. Risk society questions the capabilities of modern social institutions to assess and control the allencompassing new types of risks (Rinkevicius, 2002; Rimaite and Rinkevicius, 2008; Balzekiene, 2009). Technological development induced risks and exposure to unforeseen consequences of scientific research and development should reduce society’s confidence in science, experts and technologies (Beck, 1992). As stated in the Special Eurobarometer 340 report on Science and Technology (2010, p. 43), the image of scientists in Europe is quite pessimistic. The majority of European citizens, 53 percent of respondents at the EU27 level, indicate that scientists, because of their knowledge, have a power that makes them dangerous. The results of the same survey show that Europeans are quite optimistic about the effects of science and technology but are less optimistic than in 2005. This indicates the slight decrease of technological optimism in the European Union and supports the Risk society theses. However, in Lithuania the trust in science and technologies is relatively high (Special Eurobarometer 340, 2010). With reference to the question ‘How much you agree or disagree with statement: Science and technology can sort out any problem’, Lithuanians appeared to be the second most optimistic among Europeans – 37 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, compared to EU27 average of 22 percent (Romania being most optimistic and France being least optimistic). If compared to other EU countries, Lithuania is also more optimistic when judging the positive effects of science and technologies: ‘The application of science and technologies will make people’s work more interesting’ (Lithuania having the highest rates of agreement with the statement), ‘Thanks to science and technologies, there will be more opportunities for future generations’ (Lithuania being 4th most optimistic), ‘Benefits of science are greater than any harm’ (Lithuania being among 10 most optimistic countries). This proves Lithuanians to be scientific and technological optimists. The thesis that Lithuanians have positive attitudes toward science and technologies is also supported by national scientific surveys. For example, the representative survey conducted in 2008 (Balzekiene, Telesiene and Rinkevicius, 2008; Rinova, 2009) shows that 54 percent of Lithuanians trust the ability of science and technologies to Delegation of responsibility to political authorities and experts Post-industrial societies witness the rise of participatory governance and growing civic engagement. Still in Lithuania the research records low levels of civic participation and low rates of trust in civil sector organizations (Imbrasaite, 2009, 2011). This is also typical of the other Baltic countries. Furthermore, the responsibility on issues of environmental and technological risks is assigned to scientists and political bodies rather than nongovernmental organizations, civil society or business sector. Therefore, public participation in the decision-making becomes vital and important when it comes to risk management issues. The public participation and engagement is a linking element between decision makers and society. It, as a discursive device, facilitates establishment of both way connection of delivering desirable values into decision making (Bennet, Calman and Curtis, 2010). The results of Flash Eurobarometer 189a on EU Communication and the citizens (2006) show that in 2005 the average intensity of political participation in Lithuania was much lower than in most of the other EU member countries. Among the member states, political activism 22 Social Sciences / Socialiniai mokslai. 2011. Nr. 4 (74) A. Telesiene, A. Rimaite, K. Juraite. Politicized Discourses on Environmental and Technological Risks: the Case of Lithuania was the lowest in all three Baltic countries: Lithuania was ranked the 23rd, Latvia ranked the 24th, whereas Estonia ranked the 25th. Low rates of public participation have resulted in relative distrust in the abilities of civil societies’ institutions to have significant role in decision-making process. The results of Special Eurobarometer 340 (2010) show that only 11 percent of Lithuanians (compared to 24 percent of the EU average) agree that environment protection associations and only 6 percent (compared to 23 percent of the EU average) of respondents agree that consumer organizations are best qualified to explain the impact of scientific and technological developments on society. This shows the low trust in the abilities and knowledge held by civil society institutions in questions regarding science and technologies. Lithuanians rarely become members of nongovernmental organizations, rarely participate in public initiatives and thus do not assign these organizations a dominant role in problem solving in issues such as environmental and technological risks. Furthermore, the results of the national representative survey, conducted in 2008, show (Balzekiene et al., 2009; Rinova, 2009) that Lithuanians feel that decisions about climate change, nuclear energy or GMO development should be regulated by scientists and various political bodies, including national government, national parliament, the European Union and United Nations (Figure 1). There is a relatively low reference to the role of nongovernmental organizations, local authorities or business sector. Interestingly, this tendency to assign the dominant role of decision making to political sector is dominant throughout the European Union (Special Eurobarometer 322, 2009; Special Eurobarometer 341, 2010). The delegation of decision-making power in issues of environmental and technological risks to scientists and political bodies indicates elitist worldviews that predominate collective consciousness in Lithuania. There is a general belief, shared both by the public and by the elite groups, that the private sector is selfish, thus not trusted, local authorities are powerless and not competent enough, thus not trusted, the public sector is incompetent and not in charge of anything (a relic of communist ideology, still deeply rooted in the minds of some of the members of our society), and the environmental non-governmental organizations are brawlers and jesters, not competent to represent public interest. In such a situation scientists seem to have high trust and high competence, but are they given access to public discourse on environmental and technological risks? This will be discussed further in the text, but first one has to note the contradictory public opinion about the role of political bodies. Figure 1. Distribution of respondents by their attitudes towards who should take care of nuclear energy development and security/climate change mitigation/secure development of GMO’s in Lithuania (Lithuania, 2008, N=1000) 23 Social Sciences / Socialiniai mokslai. 2011. Nr. 4 (74) Parliament A. Telesiene, A. Rimaite, K. Juraite. Politicized Discourses on Environmental and Technological Risks: the Case of Lithuania 4.4 Political parties 5 Government 12.1 People 16.8 Courts 21.8 Local authorities 21.6 Labour unions 34.9 NGOs 34.9 Police 39.7 TV 37.4 Dailies 38.9 Internet 41.7 Radio 42.7 Army 56.1 Church 56.3 Universities 65.8 President 68.4 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Figure 2. Trust in public and political institutions, in percentage (Lithuania, 2010, N=1048). risks have not yet become part of daily agenda either in public opinion or in media discourses (Juraite, 2002; Balzekiene, Telesiene and Rinkevicius, 2008; Rimaite, 2009). Thus these questions are still lacking substantial concern and discussions. The public tends to assign responsibility to political bodies for all the common issues that are less familiar, sound complicated or in cases where there is much of uncertainty. In this way the public is hiding their ignorance and lack of awareness. Let us return to the question, if the scientists, whom the public tends to trust a lot, are given access to media discourses. The following part examines the broader questions of who is given access to media discourse on environmental and technological risks, and how technogenic issues are framed. The recent national research project ‘Perception of public institutions and political action: Support for democracy or massive protest?’ showed that there is an extremely low trust in most of political and state institutions, including parliament, government and political parties, except for the president in Lithuania (Juraite and Jasnauskaite, 2011). The research showed that Lithuanians neither particularly trust other people, local authorities nor NGOs (Figure 2). Political bodies are assigned the decision-making responsibility, but at the same time Lithuanians tend not to trust the national government and national parliament. In general, Lithuania is among the most sceptic nations with regard to political institutions. For instance, Eurobarometer 307 (2009) survey data also show that Lithuanians fall behind other European countries in least trusting their national government (16 percent in Lithuania, whereas the EU average is 34 percent), as well as low trust in regional and local public authorities (31 percent in Lithuania, whereas the EU average is 50 percent). Low trust in public and political institutions is very much related to the low rates of public and political participation. To some extent this is due to the lack of social habitus and political tradition which has been developed during the past 20 years. This means that the public had quite short time to develop civic participation culture, but also political parties are not coherent in their political ideals and are more oriented towards gaining new elections rather than promoting certain values and ideas. How can it be so that Lithuanians do not trust the main national political institutions, but tend to assign them the main role of decision-making on issues of climate change, nuclear power and GMO? Probably this is the outcome of the fact that issues of environmental and technological Media framing of environmental issues This section presents the data of quantitative content analysis of media texts, generated as part of the Rinova project. The data reveal the main characteristics of media framing of environmental risks. Among the quantitative characteristics of media content, sources of information were assessed (Table 1). As the research data show, officials are the most frequently mentioned and/or cited as sources of information in the news articles on environmental risks (totality of 217 out of 401 texts). The officials included various political or governmental representatives from parliament, government, ministries of other subordinate institutions. Business representatives and other specialists were identified as main sources of information in 25 percent and 18.7 percent of articles, respectively. Scientists amounted to 9.5 percent of the whole news sources share. It also should be noted here that 24 Social Sciences / Socialiniai mokslai. 2011. Nr. 4 (74) A. Telesiene, A. Rimaite, K. Juraite. Politicized Discourses on Environmental and Technological Risks: the Case of Lithuania representatives of NGO’s and the public were mentioned as sources only in 3.7 and 3.6 percent of the texts respectively. As seen from the data presented in Table 1, officials are prevailing in the media texts on nuclear energy (48.6 percent). The data show that the representatives of political bodies gain access to media discourses on technogenic risks more often than the representatives from other sectors and this supports the main thesis of this article, namely, that media discourses on environmental and technological risks are marked with political domination. As presented in the previous sections of this article, the public assigns political bodies the main responsibility for technogenic risks. An assumption might be made here about a high probability that the domination of political officials in the texts on technogenic risks has an influence upon public opinion and amounts in high rates of responsibility delegation to political bodies. There is another assumption that low rates of trust in public sector organizations might be a result of constant lack of access to media discourses as experienced by these organizations. The third assumption: scientists, despite high rates of public trust, also lack the access to media discourses on issues of environmental and technological risks. Another variable in the quantitative media texts analysis is the location of the texts on technogenic risks within the newspapers. Location of texts reveals the level of importance ascribed to the issues by media agents (as a reflexive perception of the needs of the audience). It is believed that location of the news also plays an important role in public awareness raising on the issues covered. For instance, the article published on the front pages will be more effective than those reported on following pages. The analysis reveals that only 8 percent of texts on environmental risks were covered on the dailies’ front pages. Every third article was published on the 2nd to 5th pages, usually containing information on public affairs, political and economic news on national and international levels. News stories on the nuclear energy issues were more likely to appear on the first pages of the dailies than the rest of the environmental risks’ stories (climate change or GMO’s). The length of the news article represents another variable measured while analyzing media framing of the environmental and technogenic risks. The majority of the texts were either very short or medium, i.e. from 14 to 600 words (84 percent). Most of the articles included illustrations (photos, pictures, graphs). Texts on GMOs and climate change were more often supported with the illustrations (90 and 62 percent, respectively), whereas stories on nuclear energy included visual information more rarely (57 percent respectively). In general, environmental risks including nuclear energy, climate change and GMOs were mainly framed as political issues rather than environmental ones in the top Lithuanian dailies. Most of the news stories were presenting official news sources provided by the politicians and state officials, as well as business representatives and specialists. However, scientists and NGOs were extremely rarely reported in the texts, indicating that environmental risks are being primarily treated as political and economic issues. Apparently, such stories were lacking a deeper analysis and balanced reporting from people with different approaches. Table 1 officials business representatives scientists 1 GMO statistical data Climate change Sources of information: LEO Lt1 (nuclear energy as secondary theme) Texts on: Nuclear power Quantitative characteristics of environmental risks’ coverage in Lithuanian dailies: sources of information (%, N=401 texts) 6 9 21.6 20 All texts 14,2% 59.2 54.5 40.5 40 48.6% 16.3 40 13.5 30 25% 4.7 1.8 21.6 10 9.5% 0.4 0 2.7 10 3.3% 2.7 10 3.7% medicine representatives NGOs’ representatives other specialists 2.1 0 18.5 15.5 10.8 30 18.7% public 6.4 2.7 5.4 0 3.6% artists 0 0 0 10 2.5% 110 texts were coded as having main theme on Leo Lt, a consortium for nuclear power plant construction. 25 Social Sciences / Socialiniai mokslai. 2011. Nr. 4 (74) A. Telesiene, A. Rimaite, K. Juraite. Politicized Discourses on Environmental and Technological Risks: the Case of Lithuania Instead, the news stories covering environmental issues mainly included factual information about what, where and when happened. It also should be mentioned here that business representatives were only popular sources of information in texts with nuclear energy as secondary theme. With these texts excluded, business representatives would be referred to only in every fifth publication on environmental and technogenic risks and thus it could be stated that they are not constructed as important ‘voices’ in the risk discourses. The quantitative analysis of media texts only shows the structural characteristics of media discourses on environmental and technological risks. The following part of the article will examine the content and the latent as well as manifest popular narratives on nuclear energy, climate change and GMOs. narrative about Lithuanian obligations towards the European Union to decommission Ignalina nuclear power plant (NPP) and Lithuanian struggle to prolong the work of the plant. The same story-line also denotes a narrative about Lithuania’s efforts to build a new nuclear power plant in order to become less dependent on Russia’s energetic resources. It is very often referred to that if Lithuania had a nuclear power station (either new or old), it would easily solve energetic dependence from Russia. On the other hand, if Lithuania did not have a nuclear power station, this would mean energetic isolation within the EU and dependence on imperialist Russia’s interests. Sometimes the texts use the words, such as ‘independence’ or ‘combat’ to show that Lithuania’s struggle for regaining of independence in late 1980s and early 1990s is still present. Lithuania regained the political independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, and made its finances and economics independent from Russia in the proceeding decade. However, there is still a need to struggle for energetic independence, and this theme is present (as latent narrative) in today’s media discourse on nuclear energy: Main story-lines in environmental and technological risk discourse Quantitative content analysis revealed certain characteristics of environmental risks’ framing in the media. In the second stage of the content analysis, qualitative approach was used to study the main storylines, i.e. dominating narratives on nuclear energy, climate change and GMOs. Hajer (1995) describes story-lines as narratives of generative type that encompass certain cultural categories under which the natural and social phenomena are given a certain meaning within a specific discourse. Discourse story-lines are meta-narratives, narratives about the nature of social reality. Various ways of speaking about a problem or an issue intertwine and compose certain set of symbolic significations that are then used by discourse actors. If an actor denotes one of the symbolic significations, s/he denotes all the set of symbolic significations. That is by referring to a story-line an actor refers to the latent narratives and meanings that come along with this story-line. The scientific inquiry presented in this article looked for story-lines, for the latent narratives, underlying almost all texts whenever environmental risks are communicated in Lithuanian newspapers. Differences were found among the story-lines underlying texts on nuclear energy, texts on climate change, or texts on GMO. These different storylines for each of the three risks are described further in the text. This is followed by a short comparative analysis of underlying narratives of all three risks. As mentioned above, environmental risks’ stories, particularly those on nuclear energy were often reported from the political perspective. Even more – texts found under keywords of nuclear energy more often speak about national energetic policies, financial relations between state and business enterprises, but not environmental risks of nuclear energy. Risks of nuclear energy are most often presented as political risks and are discussed in terms of energetic dependence/independence from Russia or energetic isolation within European Union or need for private-public partnership. Thus the main story-line in the texts on nuclear energy: it is a weapon used to strive for energetic independence. This story-line encompasses a ‘Speaking about the countryʼs energetic security the minister stressed that creation of a common EU energy market by integrating isolated regions remains a top priority for Lithuania.’ (Respublika, 5 July 2008, p. 12). Another story-line underlying the texts on nuclear energy comes under the following headline: we need a public and private partnership as well as international cooperation in order to build the new nuclear power plant. This story-line predominates the narrative on Lithuania’s negotiations with neighbouring countries concerning the construction of the new nuclear plant. It also covers a narrative on government-private sector negotiations and partnership. However, such a partnership is presented as troublesome and even disorderly. It should be noted that there is no discussion on whether Lithuania needs a new power plant – this need is taken for granted, as if everyone knows and agrees with the profits and benefits that come together with Lithuania’s status as a nuclear state. This story-line underlines the narrative about the possibilities to construct a new nuclear power plant in Lithuania and the negotiations that are going on between the Lithuanian government and private partnerships. In fact, the joint governmental and private capital enterprise under the acronym ‘Leo LT’ becomes the main headline for about one third of all texts on nuclear power. These texts analyze the nexus of administration and control questions of Leo LT, also cover discussions on who (government vs. private capital) and to what extent should invest in the initial stage of the project. Thus, this story-line illuminates a debate between the state authorities and private investors, primarily highlighting and legitimizing the political power which is given discursive priority to control nuclear energy related issues in the media. Also, an image of Lithuania as a leader in nuclear energy issues in the region is constructed: ‘The day before yesterday representatives of the four countries’ energy companies who intend to build nuclear power plant in Lithuania met in the International Energy Conference in Spain. (...) Our country offered the three partner countries until the end of summer to establish a joint project development 26 Social Sciences / Socialiniai mokslai. 2011. Nr. 4 (74) A. Telesiene, A. Rimaite, K. Juraite. Politicized Discourses on Environmental and Technological Risks: the Case of Lithuania company, in which LEO LT would manage 51 percent of the shares. The remaining 49 percent would be equally shared by the other partners’ (Lietuvos rytas, 18 June 2008, p. 16.). there is only a vague discussion about whether climate change is taking place at all. The discourse excludes discussions on the nature of climate change and the processes that accompany the climate change. Alternative views towards climate change causes are underrepresented in the media discourse, too. The third group of the texts, texts on GMO’s, diverged from the rest of environmental risks covered in the Lithuanian dailies. These risks are usually related to food security (and need for greater governmental control), food labelling, consumer rights, scientific achievements and agriculture. The main story-line of the texts on GMO implies that GM food is unsafe, incompatible with a healthy diet. GM food is presented as having undetermined effects upon human health, for instance birth defects, allergies, illnesses. GM food is discursively opposed with natural, organic foods: The interpretation of what is omitted in the nuclear energy discourse is as insightful as the interpretation of what is manifested in this discourse. With reference to the public communication of nuclear energy risks, one should note that the nuclear energy issue is presented in media discourse as a familiar theme to the readers, i.e. this theme does not require any broader explanations or prehistory, which would involve the narrative on Ignalina NPP built by the Soviets in early 1980s. The prehistory would also entail a successful development of the town Visaginas due to profitable work of Ignalina NPP. Thus, the current discourse on nuclear energy is reinforced by success stories and nuclear energy supportive stories of Ignalina NPP. But this prehistory would exclude the fact that the third reactor of Ignalina NPP was decommissioned due to the environmental protests in late 1980s. Also discourse on nuclear energy excludes the theme of the catastrophe in Chernobyl NPP, as well as the themes on risks related to nuclear fuel storage or other environmental risks. Somewhat different story-lines were derived while analyzing the texts on climate change related issues. Climate change did not come as the main theme in most of the news stories containing climate change as the keyword. The main story-lines, dominating in the publications related to climate change issues included the stories on the effect of climate change on weather conditions and humans; the role of the EU in fighting against climate change; and Lithuania’s efforts to extend the operation of Ignalina NPP in addressing global climate change. As the main aim of this article is to argue the politicization of media discourses on technogenic risks, only the story-line on the role of the EU in fighting against climate change will be shortly discussed. One of the story-lines in climate change prevailing in media discourses in Lithuania in 2008 was the story line that emphasizes the role of the EU as a global leader in the fight against climate change. Here again risk communication is accompanied by political stories, as it was revealed in the case of the nuclear energy stories. The articles on climate change are presenting the European Union as the world leader in discussions on climate change, as well as the hero in the global fight against climate change related problems: ‘Adverse combinations of genes may lead to new human, animal, and plant diseases, cancer and increase the resistance to antibiotics. They can also be a cause of allergy.’ (Lietuvos rytas, 3 June 2008, p. 14.). This story-line usually contains connotative meanings, metaphors, e.g. proverb ‘we are - what we eat’ is used repeatedly. Thus, the risk communication reveals the latent narrative of fear of becoming culturally modified nation. On the other hand, the metaphor of golden mine is used with a reference to the global food crisis, denoting that huge profits are possible when GMOs are used. Another group of the texts on GMO stresses the need for adequate GM food labelling to insure the consumer rights. Texts often report on labelling violations and producer subterfuge. The story-line could be summarized as follows: Labelling of GM products must ensure consumer choice: ‘All products available on the Lithuanian market, containing GMOs, are really marked. However, so far, the inscriptions are of the same font as other inscriptions on the label. There are no bold or underlined letters, manifest labels. Thus it might be simply overlooked that a product is genetically modified.’ (Respublika, 22 July 2008, p. 19). The comparative analysis of the story-lines underlying the texts on nuclear energy, climate change and GMOs related risks shows that nuclear energy is most often presented as a manifest political issue, climate change issues are usually accompanied by the latent political narratives of leadership, whereas GMOs related risks are presented through the manifest narratives of public health. ‘Europe today is seeking to become a leader in the fight against climate change.’(Respublika, 7 June 2008, p. 13). Lithuania, according to A. Paulauskas, supports the leading positions of the EU in addressing climate change concerns not only within Europe but also globally, to lead the international negotiating process. By setting itself to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the EU is already showing itself as an example encouraging other countries to take concrete steps.’ (Respublika, 4 July 2008, p. 2). The cyclic process of the politicization of risk discourses and amplification of certain social attitudes and norms Leaning upon the various data presented above in the article, a hypothetical model is derived. This model explains the influence of certain societal attitudes and norms upon politicization of technogenic risk discourses and also explains the amplification of those social attitudes and norms by the discourse itself (as a reciprocal process). The cyclic process, as seen in Figure 3, has several stages. Firstly, high rates of trust in science and technology and ascription of responsibilities to political authorities and experts opens up public discourses for political The dominating narrative of this story-line implies that every time one speaks of climate change, they mention the European Union or the Member states supposing that climate change issue is well-known in these countries, which are capable to deal with climate change related risks and can be a good example for other countries in the world. As mentioned above, in Lithuanian newspapers, 27 Social Sciences / Socialiniai mokslai. 2011. Nr. 4 (74) A. Telesiene, A. Rimaite, K. Juraite. Politicized Discourses on Environmental and Technological Risks: the Case of Lithuania domination. When there is a high rate of trust in science and technology, one would suppose the openness of public discourses to scientists. Technogenic risks discourses are to some extent open to scientists and independent experts, but the inner system/tradition of academic sphere is marked by the principle of normative neutrality and thus scientists rarely expose their normative opinions on issues like environmental or technogenic risks. Often they are addressed for clarification of some technical details. Still the sophistication of risk discourse highlights the need for some elitist comments of bodies with high legitimate power and responsibilities. Here the political authorities find their niche. The tendency to ascribe them the responsibility for assessment and management of technogenic risks serves as an impetus and opens up public discourses for political authorities. On the other hand, discourse may contain dialogues between many stakeholders. But civil organizations are not trusted and thus their say on matters concerning technogenic risks is not welcomed by media. The civil participation also has low rates and thus autonomous individuals rarely engage in such a discourse by their own initiative. Thus we have a second-order factors that serve as restraints for civil sector actors to participate in public discourse. Secondly, when the politicization of public discourse on technogenic risks occurs (and our data show this), it legitimizes the role of dominant actors. The public tends to ascribe more and more responsibilities to the ones whom they see as common speakers in risk discourse. And these are political authorities. Thus discourse serves as an important mediator and increases the trust in and ascription of responsibilities to political authorities in matters of technogenic risks. The increase in positive attitudes towards authorities will again open more and more of discursive arenas to political domination. Thus is the essence of the mechanism of the politicization of risk discourses and amplification of certain social attitudes and norms (Figure 3). The authors borrowed the term of amplification from the theory of risk amplification as developed by Kasperson et al. (2003, 2010). According to this theory, social amplification of risk is a social experience constructed from various social institutions, groups, individuals and their behaviour thereby contributing to an ever increasing perception of risk consequences. According to Dobson and Saiz (2006, p. 79), ‘the information system and characteristics of public response that compose social amplification are essential elements in determining the nature and magnitude of risk.’ Low levels of civil participation Low trust in civil sector organizations Politicization of public discourses on environmental and technological risks Amplification Serve as restrains for civil sector actors to participate in public Opens public discourses for political domination High rates of trust in science and technology Ascription of responsibilities to political authorities and experts Figure 3. Interconnections between public opinions/practices and public media discourse: model explaining politicization of public discourses on environmental and technological risks 28 Social Sciences / Socialiniai mokslai. 2011. Nr. 4 (74) A. Telesiene, A. Rimaite, K. Juraite. Politicized Discourses on Environmental and Technological Risks: the Case of Lithuania Despite the fact that traditionally decision making was a one-way flow of information from risk experts, in a contemporary word it is assumed that every decision should be derived from the interests of stakeholders. However, such approach poses a risk to achieving the most effective decision. Saying that it is important to stress the possible lack of full and correct information in the hands of any stakeholder thereby limits the achievement of an effective decision making. With reference to Lithuania, the media discourse reveals that information about environmental and technological risks is highly politicized and without a substantial involvement of stakeholders in the discussion and decision making. This amplifies the domination of political claims within the discourses on environmental and technological risks. hiding their ignorance and lack of awareness on issues of environmental and technological risks. The questions to be addressed by further research are the following: who opens or restricts arenas of public discourses? Thus what is the role of media ‘gatekeepers’? Who are these gatekeepers? Are they doing this unconsciously or based on some interests? What are these interests and whom do they benefit? What other significant factors are there in answering the question: why are there high rates of trust in scientific expertise and low rates of trust in civil sector organizations? And finally, why do Lithuanians tend to ascribe responsibility for nearly all issues to the political sector, lacking active personal civil engagement? Acknowledgements The article employs data from two research projects: Project ‘Monitoring of social problems: implementation of International Social Survey Program (ISSP)ʼ. The research was funded by a grant (No. SIN-15/2010) from the Research Council of Lithuania; coordinated by Kaunas University of Technology. 2. Project ‘Perception of public institutions and political action: Support for democracy or massive protest?ʼ. The research funded by a grant (No. SIN-12/2010) from the Research Council of Lithuania; coordinated by Vytautas Magnus University. Conclusions and broader implications 1. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of media texts show that discourses on environmental and technological risks are marked by political domination: politically coloured narratives prevail as latent or manifest story lines in texts on nuclear energy, climate change and GMOs; political representatives are given wider access to the discourse and usually become sources of information in texts on technogenic risks; scientists and especially representatives of civil sector are denied wider access to media discourses; news on environmental and technogenic risks are most often framed as political or economic or health issues rather than environmental issues. Hypothetically one may claim that the politicized media discourses on technogenic risks have great influence upon public opinion: Lithuanians tend to trust media in reporting risk related or environmental information and also Lithuanians report that most of the information on nuclear energy, climate change or GMOs they acquire through media. The influence of politicized media discourses might be twofold: 1) high rates of trust in scientific expertise and relative technological optimism; 2) political representatives, rather than civil sector organizations and public, are assigned the responsibility for environmental and technological risks. Despite the decreasing trust in scientific expertise in EU countries, Lithuania experiences high rates of trust in scientists and regards science optimistically, believing that science and technologies can solve environmental problems and do less harm than give benefits. Lithuanians hold somewhat elitist views and ascribe responsibility for environmental and technological risks to political bodies and scientists. Scientists are trusted, but not given proper access to discourse, politicians are not trusted, but given a wide access to discourse. Political bodies have very low trust rates among Lithuanians. This paradox (Lithuanians do not trust political bodies, but ascribe them the main responsibility in technogenic issues) is due to the fact that public generally tends to assign responsibility to political bodies for all the common issues that are less familiar, sound complicated or in cases where there is much of uncertainty. In this way Lithuanians are References 1. Balžekienė, A. (2006). Socialinis branduolinės rizikos suvokimas: teorinės įžvalgos ir jų refleksija Lietuvos visuomenės požiūriuose į Ignalinos AE (Daktaro disertacija, Kauno technologijos universitetas, 2006). 2. Balžekienė, A. (2009). 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Santrauka Šiame straipsnyje autorės analizuoja aplinkosauginių ir technologinių rizikų diskursą žiniasklaidoje, keldamos diskurso politizavimo hipotezę. Straipsnyje taip pat siekiama paaiškinti ryšį tarp politizuoto rizikų diskurso ir visuomenės nuomonės dimensijų, tokių kaip pasitikėjimas mokslu ir technologijomis, atsakomybės priskyrimas valdžios atstovams, nepasitikėjimas nevyriausybinio sektoriaus organizacijomis, taip pat ryšis tarp politizuoto rizikų diskurso ir žemo pilietinio dalyvavimo. Straipsnyje analizuojama: visuomenės pasitikėjimas mokslu ir technologijomis Europos Sąjungos ir Lietuvos lygiu; piliečių dalyvavimo lygmuo ir pasitikėjimas visuomeninėmis organizacijomis; atsakomybės priskyrimas sprendžiant aplinkosaugos ir technologijų rizikos problemas; aplinkosauginių ir technologinių rizikų pateikimas žiniasklaidoje. Straipsnio autorės remiasi įvairių šaltinių duomenimis. Aplinkosauginių ir technologinių rizikų diskurso turinio analizė remiasi projekto „Rizikos suvokimas, viešoji komunikacija ir inovatyvus valdymas žinių visuomenėje“ (RINOVA) duomenimis. Projekto tikslas buvo ištirti rizikos suvokimą, rizikos komunikaciją ir valdyseną pagal tris temas, tai: branduolinė energetika, klimato kaita ir GMO. Šiame straipsnyje taip pat pristatomi duomenys iš kitų nacionalinių mokslinių tyrimų projektų bei Eurobarometro apklausų. Straipsnio įvade aptariama pasaulinė aplinkosauginių ir technologinių rizikų tyrimų tradicija, apžvelgiami Lietuvoje atlikti tyrimai šia tematika. Konceptualizuojant rizikų socialinio tyrimo galimybes nurodoma, jog paprastai tyrimai vykdomi remiantis dviem prieigomis: realistine ir socio - konstruktyvistine. Realistinio požiūrio teorijos remiasi fiziniais bei gamtos mokslais ir teigia, kad rizika yra objektyvi ir ją galima moksliškai tiksliai pamatuoti. Socio - konstruktyvistinė prieiga teigia, jog greta fizine prasme objektyvių rizikų ir jų poveikio egzistuoja dar ir gretutinis, sunkiai pamatuojamas visuomenės nuomonių, socialinių konstruktų, kolektyvinių rizikos reprezentacijų laukas, turintis savitą ir savarankišką poveikį socialiniam žmonių gyvenimui. Straipsnio autorės pasirenka socio - konstruktyvistinę rizikos aiškinimo paradigmą ir aplinkosaugines bei technologines rizikas apibrėžia kaip socialinius konstruktus, medijuojamus diskursų pagalba. Čia svarbų vaidmenį atlieka žiniasklaida, parinkdama, transformuodama ir skleisdama ekologinių problemų ir reiškinių socialiai sukonstruotus apibrėžimus. Straipsnyje remiamasi ir Rizikos visuomenės teorija. Rizikos visuomenė dažniausiai charakterizuojama akcentuojant augantį nepasitikėjimą mokslu ir technologinį skepticizmą. Straipsnyje remiantis įvairių apklausų duomenimis įrodoma, jog, lyginant su kitų ES šalių gyventojais, lietuviai - technologiniai optimistai, dauguma jų pasitiki 21. 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Politicized Discourses on Environmental and Technological Risks: the Case of Lithuania mokslu ir mokslininkais. Kita ryški tendencija, atskleista remiantis apklausų duomenimis, – lietuviai yra linkę atsakomybę už aplinkosauginių ir technologinių rizikų vertinimą bei valdymą priskirti valdžios atstovams, politinėms institucijoms. Straipsnio autorių nuomone, technologinis optimizmas bei atsakomybės priskyrimas politikos atstovams atveria rizikų diskursus politiniam dominavimui. Technologinis optimizmas ir pasitikėjimas mokslininkais sukuria poreikį elitistiniam sudėtingų problemų (tokių kaip nagrinėjamos rizikos) aiškinimui. Tačiau mokslininkai, laikydamiesi vertybinio neutralumo principo, retai išdėsto savo normatyvines pozicijas viešajame diskurse. Tad kelias atveriamas kitiems elitistinio aiškinimo atstovams – politikams. Kaip rodo žiniasklaidos turinio kiekybinės analizės duomenys, būtent politikai ir įvairių politinių, valdžios institucijų atstovai dažniausiai pasirenkami kaip informacijos šaltiniai ar „veikėjai“ rizikų diskurso tekstuose. Dalyvaujančiosios demokratijos imperatyvas reikalauja įvairių socialinių veikėjų įsitraukimo sprendžiant problemas ar diskutuojant apie sudėtingus visuomenės ateitį lemiančius klausimus. Tai pagrindžia NVO ar piliečių dalyvavimo rizikų diskurse poreikį. Tačiau autorės pastebi žemą pilietinio dalyvavimo lygį (lyginant su ES šalimis) ir žemą lietuvių pasitikėjimą nevyriausybinio sektoriaus organizacijomis. Taip viešoji erdvė yra apribojama, nubrėžiant užkardas trečiojo sektoriaus atstovų įsitraukimui į diskursą. Tai tik dar labiau sustiprina diskurso politizavimo tendenciją. Kokybinė žiniasklaidos turinio analizė patvirtina teiginį, kad aplinkosaugos ir technologijų rizikos diskursai populiariuose Lietuvos dienraščiuose yra labai politizuoti. Nagrinėjamų diskursų politizavimas pastebimas analizuojant pagrindines tekstus persmelkiančias siužetines linijas. Politikai tampa pagrindiniais žinių šaltiniais – rizikos ekspertais. O žinios apie aplinkosaugos ir technologines rizikas diskurse yra apibrėžiamos politikos, ekonomikos ir sveikatos problemų kategorijomis, bet ne aplinkosauginėmis temomis. Daugumoje žiniasklaidos pranešimų politiniai siekiai ar interesai tampa tiek branduolinės energetikos, tiek klimato kaitos latentinėmis ar aiškiai manifestuotomis temomis. Kalbančiąją klasę sudaro išskirtinai valdininkai, prie kurių šliejasi įvairių sričių ekspertai, taip pat verslo sektoriaus atstovai. Kitokios tendencijos tik GMO diskurse – čia mokslininkai, biotechnologijų verslo ir valdžios atstovai yra ryškiausi socialiniai veikėjai. Bendra tendencija visuomenės, nevyriausybinių organizacijų atstovai lieka žiniasklaidos artikuliuojamų aplinkosauginių ir technologinių rizikų diskursų užribyje. Straipsnio pabaigoje autorės pristato viešojo diskurso ir visuomenės nuomonės abipusio ryšio modelį, kuris paaiškina dvejopus procesus. Viena vertus, tokie visuomenės nuomonės aspektai kaip technologinis optimizmas, pasitikėjimas mokslininkais, nepasitikėjimas NVO, atsakomybės priskyrimas politinio sektoriaus atstovams įgalina ir nulemia diskurso politizavimą. Kita vertus, vyksta ir atgalinis poveikis. Kartą politizuotas diskursas legitimuoja kalbančiuosius veikėjus, kurdamas jų, kaip pagrindinių kalbėtojų, įvaizdžius, tad pasitikėjimas elitine nuomone ir atsakomybės priskyrimas politinio sektoriaus atstovams tik stiprėja. Susidaro uždaras diskursų politizavimo ir visuomenės nuomonės amplifikavimo ratas. Išvadų ir apibendrinimo skyriaus pabaigoje autorės pristato tolesnio mokslinio tyrimo klausimus, kurie leistų detaliau paaiškinti visuomenės nuomonės amplifikacijos ir diskursų politizavimo abipusio poveikio modelį. Raktiniai žodžiai: diskursas, aplinkosauginės ir technologinės rizikos, rizikos komunikacija, politinis dominavimas. First received: October, 2011 Accepted for publication: November, 2011 31