It is not easy being green: A critical discourse and frame analysis of environmental advocacy on American television

Abstract

Environmental advocacy on American television draws upon utterly exhausted stereotypes, which have become part of a popular discourse. This article serves as an installment in an ongoing project at York University. It analyzes the ideological framing and discursive construction of environmental advocacy, suggesting that such portrayals perpetuate cognitive injustice through the perpetuation of stigmatizing discourses. The power of these discourses reduces the credibility of environmental campaigns, situating discourse in a matrix of power which encourages a culture based on perpetual growth and industrialization, consumption, and anthropocentrism