The Election that Forgot the Environment? Issues, EMOs, and the Press in Australia

Abstract

The 2013 Australian federal election campaign has been described as the campaign that “forgot the environment.” We test this claim by comparing the news representation of the environment and environmental movement organizations (EMOs) in Australian federal elections from 1990 to 2013, and consider how coverage of environmental issues and organizations has changed over time. We also analyze the intensity and range of coverage of EMOs and environmental issues during the 2013 election campaign in relation to behind-the-scenes media practices of EMOs, including the circulation of media releases and other campaign material, and levels of activity on social media and organization Web sites. We find that this activity did not translate into high visibility in news media for EMOs. We offer tentative evidence of a link between the dominance of climate change coverage and the poor visibility of EMOs and other environmental issues.