Dodgy science or global necessity? Local media reporting of marine parks

The digital age and globalization has brought international issues to our doorstep

and placed the local in the context of the global. News media have played a crucial

role in allowing recognition and exploration of the global origins and outcomes of

many environmental crises such as climate change, deforestation, threatened species

management and biodiversity loss (Cottle, 2011c). The modern environmental movement

has responded to the global scale of these crises with campaigns for global solutions.

Many of these campaigns rely heavily on coordinated, collective action across

a multitude of jurisdictions around the world, with the success of global campaigns

dependent on the success of multiple local-scale actions. The slogan "think global,

act local" has become the rallying cry of the modern environmental movement. Yet

the individual success of these actions depends significantly on local conditions,

particularly community and political support. The media, including local news and

community-based media, play a crucial role in influencing both these factors.