Butterfly Effect – Seminar about the Role of Media in Development Cooperation and Climate Change

The Seminar about the role of media in development cooperation and climate change, under the title "Buttefly Effect" took place in Ljubljana on 26.9.2011 and was organised by Sloga - the Slovenian Platform of development NGOs - and Focus – association for sustainable development - as a part of a project financed by Slovenian Ministry of Public Administration and European Social Fund.

The aim of the Seminar was mainly to discuss with representatives of Slovenian and international media on climate change, interlinkages between solutions for climate change and development challenges, ways of communicating the issues and the role media can play in it. First, Sandra Bašić Hrvatin, professor of media communication from University of Primorska, analised media in Slovenia and their communication of above mentioned issues. She concluded by saying that Slovenian media are subject to pressure for producing large amount of news, which decreases their quality. BBC correspondent and professor of journalism at the Reuters institute for the study of journalism, James Painter conducted a research on media reporting in countries in development on climate change and its impacts. He, on the other hand, implied there is a certain environmental fatigue occuring in media. Simple and relevant stories that the public can relate to, are the key to success. Also Vlasta Jeseničnik, a TV Slovenia reporter from Cancun climate change negotiations agreed with Sandra, that reporters and journalists are usualy subject to pressure from editors and media owners.

Accordingly all the speakers concluded, that the national televisions are the ones which have the most important role in communicating the climate change and developments cooperation issues to public. They also set standards for commercial televisions. NGOs on the other hand can help media by supplying them with stories that are simple and relevant for the common public. And so, like the butterfly effect, we can make small steps here, to make huge effects on people on the other side of the planet.

Information provided by Aleš Rovšnik, SLOGA