Fracking on YouTube: Exploring Risks, Benefits and Human Values

Abstract

Fracking or the extraction of shale gas through hydraulic fracturing of rock has become a contested topic, especially in the United States, where it has been deployed on a large scale, and in Europe where it is still largely speculative. Research is beginning to investigate the environmental and economic costs and benefits as well as public perceptions of this new energy technology. However, so far the social and psychological impact of fracking on those involved in it, such as gas workers, or those living in the vicinity of fracking sites, has escaped the attention of the social science research community. In this article we begin to fill this gap through a small-scale thematic analysis of representations of fracking in fifty YouTube videos, where the trailer of a controversial film, Gasland (Fox, 2010), has had a marked impact. Results show that the videos discuss not only environmental and economic costs and ? = username $REMOTE_ASSR = IP address

Evaluating the effects of living with contamination from the lens of trauma: a case study of fracking development in Alberta, Canada

“…Social-scientific literature on fracking is also emerging, with some studies focused on political and media discourse (Vasi et al 2015;Upham et al 2015;Hilson 2015;Hudgins and Poole 2014;Jaspal, Turner, and Nerlich 2014); state responses (Carter and Eaton 2016;Crowe, Ceresola, and Silva 2015a); civil society organizational responses (Neville and Weinthal 2016;Dodge 2015;Vesalon and Cretan 2015;Jalbert, Kinchy, and Perry 2014) and attitude studies (Crowe et al 2015b;Boudet et al 2016Boudet et al , 2014Heuer and Lee 2014;Kriesky et al 2013;Theodori 2009). A smaller set of studies focuses on social impacts.…”

‘If they only knew what I know’: Attitude change from education about ‘fracking’

“…An emerging literature has begun to explore how unconventional gas development via hydraulic fracturing (UGD) 1 has been framed in news media (Ashmoore et al 2016;Evensen et al 2014a;Mazur 2016;Olive 2016;Vasi et al 2015), social media (Hopke and Simis 2015;Jaspal, Turner, and Nerlich 2014) and public discourse (Bomberg 2015;Cotton et al 2014;Cotton, 2015;Hilson 2015;Kroepsch 2016;Molinatti and Simonneau 2015;Williams et al 2015). The foregoing research reveals the complex and nuanced ways in which perspectives on this issue are negotiated and emerge -supported by substantial research on public perceptions of UGD (e.g., Anderson and Theodori 2009;Boudet et al 2014;Braiser et al 2013;Clarke et al 2015;Evensen et al 2014b;Evensen 2015a;Evensen and Stedman 2016;Israel et al 2015;Malin 2014;Morrone et al 2015;Perry 2012b;Sangaramoorthy et al 2016;Schafft and Biddle 2015;Stedman et al 2012;Stedman et al 2016;Willow 2014; see Thomas et al 2017 for a review).…”

Conceptualizing the above ground factors in shale gas: Toward a research agenda on regulatory governance

“…Objects of analysis include effects on employment, income or the property market but also social dynamics [20,22,26,49,53,66,81,114,115,152], local risks, risk perception and risk governance [63,64,90,131,135] or questions of energy justice [41,105]. 3 With regard to discipline, studies in these areas are biased toward sociological approaches and ethnography but also law.…”