Perspective Chapter: Sustainability and Media Influence – The Role of Global Media in Creating a New Environmental Culture

Abstract

Media in today’s world, particularly those that disseminate information through digital platforms, are one of the most influential sources of impact on people and society. The chapter is an attempt to review some basic points about the role of media—traditional and digital—in creating a new environmental culture within the context of the environment and environmental crisis. The chapter explores issues about the origin and development of environmental crisis as cultural phenomena, as well as some ideas about the moral assessment of media influence in informing, presenting and forming a position toward the problems of the environment. The concept of sustainability is changing both its content and its ground, becoming associated not only with the development of the natural and social environment, but also with attempts to build a new environmental culture. The role of the global media is to inform and motivate all members of society, especially young people for sustainability. More important conclusions are that media, ethics, and environmental knowledge must be developed in cooperation in order to explain and form specific moral consciousness, a new type of culture that does not allow indifference to the environment.