Shaping Public Understandings of Environmental Degradation: Measuring Public Participation in Environmental Narratives About Thailand's Forests, 1968-2000

Abstract

"This paper advances a new methodology for understanding the evolution of environmental narratives in developing countries based on the historic analysis of newspaper reporting. The method employed presents a quantitative measurement of different participation in newspaper reports about forest conflicts in Thailand between 1968 and 2000, and an indication of how forest conflicts were framed as either conservationist, livelihood-oriented, or pro-industrialization. The method allows new steps to be taken in understanding the impact of participation upon redefining environmental narratives, and of means of understanding environmental history critically as a powerful, yet politically-shaped contributor to environmental narratives."