Whale Wars and the Public Screen: Mediating Animal Ethics in Violent Times (original) (raw)

Sustaining Environmental Action: The Sea Shepherds, Conflict and the Politics of Communication

Environmental groups today are operating in a political climate that for many is characterised by an increasing threat to democratic values in democratic countries. At the same time, a functioning democracy is seen as the pre-requisite for environmental protection. The problems arising out of this tension for environmental action and debate are evident for example in the debate over climate change denial and the question of political funding by corporations. Within this context, this paper will discuss current conceptualisations of the cultural and political role of environmental action. The campaigning and media communications strategies practiced by Paul Watson’s Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and of this particular form of radical environmentalism, are used as a case study to analyse the role of various forms of communicating environmental risk and conflict by various groups in putting environmental problems on the social agenda. But rather than focusing exclusively on the Sea Shepherd’s media practices, the focus in this paper will be on Paul Watson’s whole philosophy of conflict. What kind of environmental risk communication and framing of environmental issues is actually brought into being by Sea Shepherd? What kind of debates and actions actually develop out of and around the symbols produced by Sea Shepherd’s activities? What has been developing as the recognised risk or crisis within the media sphere and public debate around the Sea Shepherds is not whaling as an issue, or even the wider environmental crisis of species extinction, but a number of other political issues, such as the risk to international relations and the handling of social conflicts over environmental issues. Hence, is Sea Shepherd’s symbolic politics further polarising existing antagonisms in the conflict over whaling rather than growing environmental awareness and fostering possible action, and what would be the implications of this for the question of the current and future role of environmental action?

Whale Wars: A Somewhat Psychoanalytic Review

Freudian metapsychology can be used to understand cultural phenomenon, especially when there is conflict between differing groups. Reality television, in depicting such conflicts, provides an opportunity to glimpse the underlying unconscious currents motivating group behavior that are at times, seemingly irrational. The television show Whale Wars is a prime example of this aspect of reality-based television. Through its portrayal of the real conflict between Japanese whalers and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the show reveals unconscious motivations and group dynamics that conform to Freud's theories. This paper will review the psychology of the Sea Shepherds and their relation to the Japanese whalers in an attempt to bring greater perspective and understanding to the conflict.