Criminal Anthroposcenes by Anita Lam & Matthew Tegelberg

Author:Anita Lam & Matthew Tegelberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030460044
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Conclusion

By extending the scope of green criminology’s engagement with mediated representations of nonhuman animal victims, this chapter deployed an AI detective to investigate how polar bears have been visualized as ideal climate victims in wildlife photography in both old (print) media and new (social) media. In doing so, it brought together and connected what have often been discrete discussions in separate research fields: wildlife photography , climate change communication and victimology. Thus, the chapter first explained why polar bears became a global icon in climate change communication with reference to the ways in which its popular media representations, in wildlife photography and mass advertising, resonated with findings from victimology. Specifically, there had been a tendency to visualize polar bears (in the West) as feminized, infantile and pristine white bears. Strikingly, this anthropomorphic characterization aligned with the gendered and racialized attributes assigned to ideal (human) crime victims. When responding to ideal victims, we believe in their innocence and sympathize with their suffering. Because polar bears have been primarily constructed in the same vein as ideal crime victims in media images, their victimization by climate change ought to provoke a moral, emotional reaction from human viewers. Yet despite numerous representations of vulnerable, cute and cuddly polar bears, there is a growing sense that polar bear images have not been the most effective representations of climate change’s devastating effects, despite the polar bear’s status as the ‘symbol-species’ of anthropogenic climate change. For example, The Guardian recently acknowledged its own less-than-effective editorial choices when it came to representing environmental harms through polar bear imagery:Often, when signalling environmental stories to our readers, selecting an image of a polar bear on melting ice has been the obvious – though not necessarily appropriate – choice. These images tell a certain story about the climate crisis but can seem remote and abstract – a problem that is not a human one, nor one that is particularly urgent. (Shields 2019b)

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