To analyze the ways in which environmental issues are framed in public discourse in five European countries, focusing on the period after the Chernobyl accident occurred in 1986.

The project consist of the following :

i) media coverage of environmental problems in the aftermath of Chernobyl, an event that proved to have an important impact on social and political sensitivity towards environmental issues;

ii) European environmental discourse and its repercussions upon the national discourses ;

iii) influence of communication strategies of business actors, environmental movements and organizations on the way in which environmental issues are formed ;

iv) changing role of the established actors in the public discourse on the environment.

The starting point of the project is the analysis of the institutionalization and professionalization of environmental protest, the development of communication strategies and techniques by industry, the changes in public discourse on environmental issues and the changes in the framing of environmental issues.

The approach is the following :

i) A content and discourse analysis of communication strategies employed in regard to environmental issues. This is provided by an analysis of the media coverage of environmental issues contained in by newspapers in Italy, Germany, France, U.K. and Ireland following Chernobyl.

ii) An interview analysis to understand the activity of organizations in environmental issues now and in the past years, their relationships with other actors in the field, their public communication activities and their internal organizational adaptations due to such activities.

On the basis of such analysis, the project will provide a better undertsanding of the changes in the way environmental problems are perceived and defined in European public debates.