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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Digging Your Own Grave, Sharon Beder
Digging Your Own Grave, Sharon Beder
Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)
[Extract] The work ethic is one of the most neglected problems in society today, and at the root of many social ills and environmental problems. It’s at the heart of what I propose is a major environmental problem; there is too much production in affluent countries. All of the things we are producing day after day are not only creating a huge environmental impact - in terms of resource use, pollution, waste disposal and so on - but in order to get people to buy this huge amount of products, we are constantly bombarded with advertisements and marketing and turned …
Moulding And Manipulating The News, Sharon Beder
Moulding And Manipulating The News, Sharon Beder
Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)
The media are accused of bias by people from both ends of the political spectrum, but journalists, editors and owners maintain that they provide an objective source of news. This chapter will consider the ways in which the news is shaped and how this in turn influences the way environmental issues are reported and constructed in the mass media.
Environmentalists Help Manage Corporate Reputation: Changing Perceptions Not Behaviour, Sharon Beder
Environmentalists Help Manage Corporate Reputation: Changing Perceptions Not Behaviour, Sharon Beder
Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)
Environmentalists have traditionally drawn attention to environmental problems by highlighting corporate misdeeds and thereby damaged the good reputation of those companies. However, nowadays those very corporations are drawing on environmentalists to help repair their reputations. Nike and BP are two examples of companies that have adopted some environmental reforms as part of their reputation management strategies and received the praise of environmental groups for doing so. Yet both continue with the practices that earned them poor reputations in the first place. Clearly the role of environmentalists in working with such companies is misguided and ineffective in terms of long-term environmental …
Bp: Beyond Petroleum?, Sharon Beder
Bp: Beyond Petroleum?, Sharon Beder
Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)
[Extract] In 2000 the transnational oil giant BP Amoco rebranded itself as "bp: beyond petroleum." The rebranding was part of an effort to portray BP as an energy company, not just an oil company: one that incorporated solar energy in its portfolio and was willing to move away from oil. BP replaced its logo with a vibrant green-white-and-yellow sunburst named after Helios, the ancient Greek sun god. The logo was meant to connote "commitment to the environment and solar power" and promote the new bp "as the supermajor of choice for the environmentally-aware motorist." The lower-case letters were chosen "because …
The Promotion Of A Secular Work Ethic, Sharon Beder
The Promotion Of A Secular Work Ethic, Sharon Beder
Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)
[Extract] The compulsion to work has clearly become pathological in modern industrial societies. Millions of people are working long hours, devoting their lives to making or doing things that will not enrich their lives or make them happier but will add to the garbage and pollution that the earth is finding difficult to accommodate. They are so busy doing this that they have little time to spend with their family and friends, to develop other aspects of themselves, to participate in their communities as full citizens. ...... Despite the dysfunctionality of the work ethic it continues to be promoted and …
Pharmaceutical Industry Agenda Setting In Mental Health Policies, R. Gosden, Sharon Beder
Pharmaceutical Industry Agenda Setting In Mental Health Policies, R. Gosden, Sharon Beder
Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)
The development of political agenda-setting through the use of sophisticated public relations techniques is threatening to undermine the delicate balance of representative democracy. This has important ramifications for policies aimed at providing mental health services and the implementation of mental health laws. The principal agenda setters in this area are pharmaceutical companies with commercial reasons to promote public policies that expand the sales of their products. They have manufactured highly effective advocacy coalitions that incorporate front groups in order to set the policy agenda for mental health. However, policies tailored to their commercial purpose are not necessarily beneficial either for …
Global Spin, Sharon Beder
Global Spin, Sharon Beder
Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)
This chapter examines the way that corporations have used their financial resources and power to counter the gains made by environmentalists, to reshape public opinion and to persuade politicians against increased environmental regulation. Corporate activism, ignited in the 1970s and rejuventated in the 1990s, has enabled a corporate agenda to dominate most debates about the state of the environment and what should be done about it. This situation poses grave dangers to the ability of democratic societies to respond to environmental threats.