Environmental issues of an urban area represented in local press

Abstract

The paper presents the results of the content analysis of the local press in Smolensk. The focus of the sociological study is environmental problematics and its reflection in the pages of the daily Smolensk newspaper “Rabochii put” (“The Work Path”). Research objectives are revealing mostly urgent environmental issues, attention to them by local press and interest of different social groups in those issues. Assessment of attitude towards environmental issues was monitored by the frequency of occurrence of the count units for semantic categories in the negative, positive and neutral contexts. Categories of actors were also identified: a) business, b) officials, c) local communities, d) NGOs, e)educational institutions, f) public associations, g) newspaper editors. In the process of searching for publications of codes on the main categories of analysis, their belonging to one or another social group was simultaneously established. The main research results indicate that in the newspaper environmental issues are covered rather negatively. The most urgent environmental risks for Smolensk are unresolved issues in the waste disposal, the strong concern about climate change and the probability of environmental crisis. Following the results of the study, conclusions are also possible on the assessment by various social groups of the ecological situation in the city, as well as on the features of the environmental consciousness of the local urban community in Smolensk.