It's really just about giving the media access to the story ultimately.… New media is increasingly important, but the mainstream media is still very much the main game of the environmental campaigns. (Dan Cass, Communications Team Leader, Greenpeace Australia Pacific) That's where the website is terrific. We all do it; just copy and paste whatever you want off there. It is heaven sent for the media. But if the exercise for the green groups is to win converts, they still have to do the hard work and get journalists to take pictures and to tell the story. They can't rely on the web. (Bruce Montgomery, former journalist, The Australian newspaper) 1Print and electronic news media have played a central role in environmental politics for 30 years: negotiating access, shaping meanings, circulating symbols. Environmentalists have responded with strategies and tactics created for and communicated through the news media. Protest action is one such strategy that has become 'reflexively conditioned' to an unprecedented level in its pursuit of media attention (Cottle, 2008: 853). It is for this reason that the internet and the worldwide web have been a tantalising source of hope for activists over the past decade, offering the potential for independent information distribution devoid of the mediating effect of news journalists and the established news media industries. This article investigates and analyses how the recursive relationship between online digital 'new media' and print and electronic news media -or 'old media ' -has unfolded (Jenkins, 2006), which is an important task if the precise dimensions of the power struggle occurring between environmental activists and news media sources are to be understood.

Environmental politics and values gain legitimacy through their constant presence in the media. This article outlines and critiques a theoretical approach that can increase understanding of the relationship between environmental protest and news media representation. Manuel Castells, pre-eminent theorist of the information age and 'the network society', is useful in this regard. He describes the relationship between media organizations and environmentalists as 'tap-dancing'. His explanation of this dance and its choreography, however, is overly general, ignoring its specific features and workings in terms of representation. In order to detail some of these features, we have selected for study Australia's most famous environmental protest and a globally significant moment for green politics: the 1982 Franklin Dam blockade in Tasmania. We argue that it was during this blockade that an enduring pattern of media environmentalist relations was established in Australia, and substantiate this case by examining subsequent protests. The article concludes by critiquing current understandings of media environmentalist relations and explains the dynamics of the mediation process that determines the reporting of protests.

Contemporary 'mediatized environmental conflict' involves complex interactions between (i) activist strategies and campaigns, (ii) journalism practices and news reporting, (iii) formal politics and decision-making processes, and (iv) industry activities and trade. This article theorizes how these interactions occur, drawing on evidence produced by a nine-year period of investigation into environmental media practices, content and technologies. Indicative of power dynamics in a globalized world, mediatized environmental conflict is enacted by the events and negotiations that occur at the 'switching points' between the four identified spheres of action. The conflicting messages, representations, debates, and practices that dynamically constitute these switching points are how environmental conflicts are contested, bringing together interlocking networks of media, political, and economic power. These networks traverse the local, national, and transnational in varying degrees depending on the particular issue or site in question. The groups and decision-makers who exercise greatest influence in the midst of conflict are those able to determine what is made visible to opponents and wider publics, meaning that both 'mediated visibility' and 'invisibility' are important strategic resources in battles over the environment conducted in media saturated social worlds.

This article critically revisits the operation of 'mediated visibility' in the context of environmental conflict. Challenger groups have long gained access to news media and influenced political decision-makers by staging highly visible protest events that draw public attention to environmental threats and destruction. The advent of the world-wide web and digital media tools has since added to the tactical arsenal available to groups wanting to infiltrate and disrupt government and corporate networks of power. In turn, governments and corporations deploy these same tools to maintain their reputation and check opponents who oppose their activities. These developments have, we argue, produced a significant flow-on effect. The function of invisibility -or the coordinated avoidance of media communication, attention and respresentation in order to achieve political and/or social endsis an under-examined feature of contemporary environmental politics. The case study and evidence presented here are drawn from fieldwork conducted in the Australian island state of Tasmania, and extensive content analysis of news media, social networking platforms and websites.

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