This paper explores news representation of environmental movement, and tries to understand how opposing parties in environmental movement are represented in newspaper.
This study uses generic analysis to look into news reporting of Taiwan ’s environmental movement. In generic criticism, rhetorical artifacts are grouped according to similarities; one group of rhetorical artifacts is seen as sharing some important characteristics that differentiate it from other groups. Generic criticism represents conventionalized patterns of thought or structures of meaning. Besides, because of reporters ’ "news value", when reporters report environmental movement news generic characteristic will emerge.
The findings of this paper are that when news reporters present environmental movement news, the protester ’s positions are unclear and difficult to identify. The reporters’ description of protesters usually focus on protesters ’ personal experiences. By contrast, protestees (often represtentinp government or institations) are clearly identified in news and scientific grounds mainly based on rational.