Mediated communication and the privatization of public problems - Discourse on ecological risks and political action

This article presents an account of an empirical study of discourse on the environment, the media and political action in Denmark. The study applies a n interdisciplinary framework for discourse analysis which draws on the fie lds of social psychology, communication studies and linguistics. It analyse s the discourse of six couples in the light of key social developments invo lving a 'democratization of responsibility' whereby individuals feel person al responsibility for solving public problems, including global and local e cological risks. The role of the mass media in producing and disseminating knowledge of the problems is stressed. Discourse analysis shows that people draw on discourses which provide them with ways of coping with the prolife ration of ecological risks and the burden of responsibility for those risks . People's sense of responsibility is limited in its strength by being cons tituted within a discourse which constructs political action beyond a limit ed amount of political consumption as belonging to a separate realm to whic h they have access only via the mass media.