The 2017 Social Communication Festival Concludes
News on Sustainability in Italian Television Remains Tied to Emotion and Emergency
A recent study conducted by the Pavia Observatory on the representation of sustainability in the media, presented at the 2nd edition of the Pubblicità Progresso Social Communication Festival, revealed that news about sustainability, whether environmental, economic or social, remains strictly linked to emergencies or criseso
News related to progress and good practices is still decidedly in the minority.
Among the criteria that guide the selection of news, proximity continues to predominate. Despite a greater presence of “Foreign News” in media representation in recent years, Italian newscasts remain reluctant to tell the story of the world in its economic and social complexity, with the peripheries (both geographical and thematic) being the tail-end of information in the last five years.
Regarding environmental issues, the results of three years of research conducted by the Pavia Observatory in collaboration with Pentapolis Onlus within the EcoMedia Observatory were illustrated. In the period January-September 2016, the 7 main Italian newscasts (Rai, Mediaset, La7) during prime time produced 35,278 news items, of which 2,702 were dedicated to environmental issues (7% of total news, while in 2015 the percentage was 3%). This is a summary by Giovanni Sarani (Board Member of the Pavia Observatory) on the occasion of the 2nd edition of the Social Communication Festival organized by the Fondazione Pubblicità Progresso.
Specifically, environmental news concerning Italy played the leading role (84% vs 16% foreign); the most covered topics were: accidents and disasters (48%), Weather (17%), Best Practices (17%), Degradation/incivility (13%) and Nature (5%).
The study conducted by the Pavia Observatory shows that in Italy, environmental news is predominantly negative (disasters, bad weather, degradation), while abroad positive and public interest news is more valued (January-October 2015). A more recent study on the relationship between the green economy and politics (2017) carried out by the Pavia Observatory for the Foundation for Sustainable Development shows that ‘environmental sustainability’, ‘climate change’, biodiversity, ‘sustainable mobility’, and ‘recycling’ are words that rarely occur in the speeches of Italian politicians.
In the agenda of Italian newscasts, only 3% of politicians’ statements are on sustainability and development. Considering health/healthcare news in the newscasts in the period January-June 2016 (6 months of observation), they had 4% visibility compared to the total number of news items. In this case too, the dramatization of the news predominates (poor healthcare 22%, bioethics issues 18%, health policy 17%, diseases: news and in-depth analysis 16%, food and health 9%, environment and health 8%, campaigns and initiatives 6%, scientific discoveries 3%).
“Talking about sustainability only when emergencies or critical events occur is not enough: citizens’ awareness of these issues and the impact of everyone’s actions should be stimulated daily, perhaps by promoting good practices that can make people’s lifestyles more sustainable.
The Pubblicità Progresso “Ci Riesco” campaign, which has recorded over 700,000 visits to the site, demonstrates that citizens’ interest in these issues is constantly growing: it is necessary that television also begins to deal with sustainability with greater continuity and effectiveness than in the past,” commented Giovanni Sarani, Board Member of the Pavia Observatory.
For Alberto Contri, President of Pubblicità Progresso: “Enzo Biagi used to say that good doesn’t make history. It is rather inevitable that newscasts chase dramatic news: after all, they require less editorial work. News that needs to be contextualized or argued or explained are the least appreciated by newsrooms, also due to lack of time. If we pay attention, the same jingles of the newscasts have a stressful, hectic, dramatic trend. As for social communication, it is not interesting because there is a stereotypical vision of it, based on images of canteens and tear-jerkers. In the Pubblicità Progresso media library, among the 2800 archived campaigns, in recent years we have collected intelligent and creative campaigns from all over the world on difficult topics such as AIDS, severe disability, Alzheimer’s, violence against women, which use the language of irony to make people reflect better and attract the public’s attention. We have often proposed them … but nothing can be done. Just look at what has been broadcast on the day against violence against women…”
