Ecological Culture and Media

Abstract

The knowledge of ecology, as the specific scientific discipline, has contributed to the preservation and improvement of the environment. It was concluded that the mass media, in particular, can affect and enrich the ecological culture and build environmental awareness. Some theorists (Giddens) believe that the ecological culture could be characterized as more or less strong evaluating system and thinking about the environment, the state of its resources, the dangers to which the environment is exposed and its protection concepts. Until now, when it comes to sustainable social development, the economic, social and environmental factors were emphasized, and the cultural factors were neglected. Disadvantages of cultural aspect in the discourse of sustainability, have become the attention of many authors. Culture gets an important role in defining our attitudes, values, and behavior. Growing partnership in society is key to cultural sustainability and to development of a framework for assessing the impact of culture for the environment. The role of the media in creating ecological culture, as well as the attitude of the media towards the environment is reflected in the constant actualization of environmental threats, constantly redefining the concepts for the protection of that environment, regular reporting on new scientific, theoretical and practical knowledge in the field of ecology. The paper contains the relationship of the ruling cultural models and ecological culture, ecological culture itself through the prism of school curricula and educational function of the media that has flaws contained in the overabundance of information, the lack of the necessary selection, the imperative to be the first in a broadcast, not in quality content broadcast information. The role of specialized programs on television and radio dealing with environmental problems is of great importance, as well as the contribution provided by the print media publishing analytical shaped articles on the subject of environmental protection, environmental accidents, the concepts of environmental protection, and general state of the global environment and the threat to the planet Earth. Realization of informative and educational functions in the field of ecological culture derives from the very nature of the media, as the most important factor in mediated information. In addition, the media should be guided by the program concept and editorial policy, but also its own interests to deal with content related to the environment. These interests put the media in certain professional and ethical obligations.