Environmental communication converted to pixels

by Eleonora Anello

Web 2.0 environmental communication is growing. Sites and blogs of associations, institutions and companies dealing with environmental issues are arising and proliferating. After entering the mobile phone, it's news of these days that, LaStampa.it has been enhanced with a new channel dedicated to ecology and, in particular, renewable energy, climate and sustainability. In addition to news, several sections complete the homepage of La Stampa Ambiente: like one devoted to insights, curated by experts, and that of participatory journalism left to the bloggers. “Voci globali. Il meglio della blogosfera internazionale” (Global voices. The best of the international blogosphere), produced in partnership with Global Voices Online, gives visibility to known and unknown.

Through these choices, the Turin newspaper demonstrates once again that it understands the importance of new communication channels. As already done the online edition of The New York Times, also LaStampa.it, tip on the testimony of citizen journalists that providing new viewpoints and information. Recognizing the importance of bloggers, offering the same level of professional journalists, the e-journals submit their readers a new journalism that comes from below, characterized by the centrality of direct experience, though, the real strength of this new journalism is not so much to cover new ground but to consolidate all that is ignored by the mainstream press. This means that the analysis should always be sought elsewhere, in the signatures of professionals. So, there are special occasions, as in the case of disasters, in which the citizen journalism show its full effect. As we saw with the bombs on the London Underground, the tsunami and the hurricane Katrina, recorded live events, posted online, also have been republished by the big media who had failed to cover the news. The best Internet journalism is so when events happen unexpectedly or in remote and dangerous places.

The Stampa Ambiente also leverages the iconic power of the images through the strong presence of photographs, inserted into the left side of the screen, area which, according to the semiotic science, it is as obvious to the visitor.

Thanks to the spread of the Internet, the literacy of people in new technologies and the new interest allocated to the environment, also Italian online newspapers are aligned to the decision made long ago by the international journalism, allowing the player to interact with the news through freedom of expression that only the new media and the households technologies can afford.

The first newspaper to create a web section dedicated just to the environment was The Guardian. Cozy web 2.0 space, main source of information for environmental professionals, was launched in 2008 to meet the growing desire to take action on the environment expressed by readers. The site has reached a wider success, especially because it helps people making informed choices instead of telling them how to live.

Even in France there are excellent cases, L'Express.fr and Le Figaro.fr, for example, in recent years have taken journalists swept up in the network of community leaders to build a personalized relationship with the reader, establish mutual confidence and, ultimately, loyalty among the community of web users.