Spectacular environmentalisms: Celebrity and the mediation of environmental change

这个网络是从过去一系列没有资金的会议中产生的，这些会议证明具有挑战性和富有成果。本次竞标的目标是发展这个萌芽网络，并通过艺术家和非政府组织媒体从业人员的参与，利用这项研究为公众辩论做出贡献。哈里森·福特（Harrison Ford）的胸部可以很好地概括我们正在探索的现象。这位美国演员和杰出的环保主义者发布了一段自己接受残酷的胸部脱毛的视频，以代表非政府组织“保护国际”引起人们对森林砍伐对气候变化的威胁的关注。他的行为体现了媒体和名人在环境事务中的日益突出地位，以及特别“引人注目”的环境媒体的增长。因此，大卫·阿滕伯勒被选为英国最值得信赖的名人；像Global Cool和Ecorazzi.com这样的组织得到了名人的支持；史蒂夫·欧文的去世是2006年b谷歌上搜索最多的新闻。学术工作开始调查名人和环境之间日益强大的联系：报纸上把名人和气候变化联系在一起的文章在2005-2006年间大幅增加，仅前一年就增加了500%。名人与环境的相互作用并不新鲜。20世纪60年代，亚当森夫妇因与狮子的关系以及在东非倡导保护狮子而名声大噪。上世纪30年代，《灰猫头鹰》曾在英国和加拿大吸引了大批观众。20世纪初，约翰·缪尔因其在美国保护环境中的作用和他对梭罗坟墓的朝圣而受到尊敬。在欧文与鳄鱼摔跤之前，弗兰克·巴克在20世纪30年代跳上了一只（死）老虎的镜头。几十年来，野生动物电影一直在制作名人保护主义者（如阿滕伯勒、库斯托、古道尔、杜雷尔）。然而，互动的长期性使得最近的发展变得更加有趣，因为这意味着我们能够更好地理解它们的不同之处。例如，我们可以看到名人对气候变化问题的参与（如迪卡普里奥、麦当娜）如何重塑了之前与环境的互动，保护非政府组织如何（重新）制定他们与名人的互动，野生动物电影如何为当代观众进行重组，名人本身如何扩大其渠道，特别是其力量/影响。将分析镜头转向当今名人与环保主义之间的关系，使我们能够探索媒体事件的文化和政治经济/生态，以及政治家，非政府组织和“绿色”企业资本的工作。这个由不同学科的学者组成的网络——与环境媒体/传播从业者相结合——与这些现象及其影响的探索有关。这个拟议网络的研究兴趣包括野生动物电影的历史，保护非政府组织的活动，气候变化“产业”，野生动物保护的政治经济学，名人行动主义，可持续消费以及电影和文本中环境话语的解释。从业者包括与名人代言活动合作的非政府组织成员、其他“引人注目”的媒体/营销形式，以及致力于更广泛地表达环境关注和“环境”的电影制作人。他们的观点是非常宝贵的，能够将见解转移给参与创作这些代表的人，这些代表对公众对环境问题的看法和我们的政治反应有很大的影响。我们认为，只有像本文提出的那样，由来自英语、文化/媒体研究、地理学、社会学和发展研究领域的学者组成的跨学科团体，与那些从事环境媒体传播和营销的学者结合起来，才能揭开名人、环保主义和媒体力量之间日益复杂的联系。

This network has emerged out of a series of past unfunded meetings which have proven challenging and fruitful. The goal of this bid is to develop this embryonic network and to use this research to contribute to public debate through the involvement of artists and NGO media practitioners.The phenomenon we are exploring is best summed up by Harrison Ford's chest. This US actor and prominent environmentalist released a video of himself receiving a brutal chest wax to draw attention to the threat of deforestation to climate change on behalf of the NGO 'Conservation International'. His actions epitomise a growing prominence of media and celebrity in environmental affairs and the growth of particularly 'spectacular' environmental media. Thus, David Attenborough has been voted Britain's most trusted celebrity; organisations like Global Cool and Ecorazzi.com enlist celebrity supporters; and Steve Irwin's death was the most searched for news in Google in 2006. Academic work is beginning to investigate the increasingly powerful connections between celebrity and environment: newspaper articles linking celebrities and climate change have increased substantially with the period of 2005-2006 showing a 500% increase from the previous year alone.The interaction of celebrity and the environment is not new. The Adamsons won fame for their relationship with lions and advocacy for conservation in East Africa in the 1960s. 'Grey Owl' spoke to packed audiences in the 1930s in the UK and Canada. John Muir was revered the early 1900s for his role in US conservation and his pilgrimage to Thoreau's grave. Before Irwin was wrestling crocodiles, Frank Buck jumped on a (dead) tiger for the cameras in the 1930s. Wildlife film has been producing celebrity conservationists for decades (e.g. Attenborough, Cousteau, Goodall, Durrell). Yet, the longevity of the interactions makes recent developments all the more interesting, for it means we are better able to understand what is different about them. For example, we can see how celebrity involvement in climate change issues (e.g. DiCaprio, Madonna) reshapes previous interactions with the environment, how conservation NGOs have (re)formulate their interactions with celebrity, how wildlife film has restructured for contemporary audiences and how celebrity itself has expanded in its outlets and, especially, its power/impacts. Turning analytical lenses to today's relations between celebrity and environmentalism allows us to explore the cultural and political economies/ecologies of media events alongside the work of politicians, NGOs and 'green' corporate capital. This proposed network of scholars from a variety of disciplines-in combination with environmental media/communications practitioners-is tied to the exploration of these phenomena and their implications. The research interests of this proposed network include the history of wildlife film, the activities of conservation NGOs, the climate change 'industry', the political economy of wildlife conservation, celebrity activism, sustainable consumption and interpretations of environmental discourse in film and text. Practitioners include members of NGOs working with celebrity-fronted campaigns, other 'spectacular' media/marketing forms and film-markers devoted to representing environmental concerns and the 'environment' more broadly. Their perspective is invaluable to enable the transference of insights to and from those engaged in the creation of these representations which have great impact on public perceptions of environmental issues and our political responses. We contend that only a cross- and inter-disciplinary grouping as proposed here-scholars from English, cultural/media studies, geography, sociology and development studies-in combination with those engaged in the dissemination of environmental media and marketing, will be able to prise open the complexities of the growing imbrications among celebrities, environmentalism and media power.