Ympäristö, politiikka ja julkisuus

"Drawing on the debate on mediatization of politics this study identifies cultural meanings, institutional practices and styles of argumentation as three theoretical dimensions that illuminate both the construction of journalistic publicity and its potential uses in political action. Based on the theoretical model, environmental politics is identified as a specific context for mediatization. In environmental politics, the interplay of cultural meanings, institutional practices and styles of argumentation define the construction and use of journalistic publicity in a way that differs from other fields of politics. The empirical part of this study analyzes the newspaper coverage of three Finnish environmental conflicts from 1971, 1994 and 2012. The theoretical model is transformed into an analytical framework that focuses on discursive construction of the conflicts (cultural meanings), journalistic frames, narration and opinion-giving in the coverage of the conflicts and the publicity practices adopted by actors during the conflicts (institutional practices) and legitimation of arguments (styles of argumentation). According to this study, the relation between media and politics in th