Fracking the online: An exploration of the digital in shaping contention over shale gas

This thesis applies a post-political lens to online activity on shale gas, using Lancashire, England as its case study. Its focus is upon the ways in which online activity may both contribute to, and constrain, the expression of dissent. It argues there is a dual gap in the current literature: empirically, in considering how online activity may be influencing the development of the debate and theoretically, in how we conceive of conflict over shale gas. It seeks to address these gaps using a combination of 37 stakeholder interviews and social media postings from anti-shale gas groups. The first results chapter draws from post-political theory to build a framework through which to understand the conflict over shale gas in England. It identifies three main areas of dispute: over the legitimate modes for public participation in the debate; over the scope of the threat presented by development, and over the credibility of existing knowledge on shale gas. The second results chapter uses this framework to consider the role of online information in the developing dispute. It shows how a lack of technical information led to an online information divide which constrained how the dominant institutional actors engaged online. Anti-shale gas campaigners remained relatively unconstrained but the substantial burden of online activism contributed towards perceptions of disempowerment, spurring a move to direct action. The third results chapter applies a collective action frame analysis to social media postings aimed at mobilising supporters to take part in direct action. It argues that while mobilising on social media has significant advantages for campaigners, it also has the potential to dilute a movement’s messages amidst pressure to maintain local approbation. The apparent paradoxical effects of digitally mediated activism and the implications for practice and theory are discussed in the final chapter, alongside recommendations for future research.

Towards a paradigmatic shift in sustainability studies: a systematic review of peer reviewed literature and future agenda setting to consider environmental (un)sustainability of digital communication

The materiality of digital communication inflicts substantial environmental damage: the extraction of resources needed to produce digital devices; the toxicity of e-waste; and the rapidly increasing energy demands required to sustain data generated by digital communication. This damage, however, is paradoxically under-theorized in scholarship on environmental sustainability. Despite the existing critique of the “techno-fix” approach in sustainability studies, digitization – and digital communication in particular – continue to be celebrated as the tool for environmental sustainability; an approach we coin “digital solutionism.” The article presents the first systematic review of the literature to map the implicit assumptions about the relationships between digital communications and environmental sustainability, in order to examine how digital solutionism manifests, and why it persists. We propose a concept matrix that identifies the key blind spots with regards to environmental damages of the digital, and call for a paradigmatic shift in environmental sustainability studies. An agenda for future research is put forward that advocates for the following: (1) a systematic account of material damages of devices, platforms and data systems adopted into sustainability research and practice, resulting in changes in both research framing and methodological foundations; (2) a reconceptualization and denaturalization of the digital itself as a promising solution; (3) a theoretical dialogue between sustainability studies and environmental communication. (4) an expansion of environmental communication as a field, from focusing on the communication aspect of environmental change to include the environmental footprint of communication itself

Shale gas policy in the United Kingdom: An argumentative discourse analysis

Shale gas has become an energy policy priority in the United Kingdom in light of profitable extraction activities in the United States. Since 2012 the Coalition Government has created key economic drivers to encourage shale exploration, whilst growing activism in affected site communities has stirred significant media and academic commentary. This study examines the growing national debate as a matter of discourse, adopting an argumentative discourse analytic approach to assess data collected from stakeholder interviews (n=21) and key policy actor statements quoted in broadsheet newspapers. We explore three dominant "storylines" emerging in relation to shale gas policy: (1) "cleanliness and dirt" concerns the relative framing of the environmental benefits and harms of shale gas; (2) "energy transitions - pathways and diversions" concerns geographic metaphors of transitions to carbon intensive and low-carbon energy systems; and (3) "geographies of environmental justice" concerns divisions of economic benefit distribution, environmental impact and procedural fairness. We find that central government policy rhetoric emphasises economic development, regulatory oversight and distribution of benefits to site communities, whilst minimising discussion of the implications of shale gas for anthropogenic climate change. The role of these discourses in influencing shale gas policy is discussed