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- Creators: School of Social Transformation
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
- Status: Published
Media witnessing and storytelling for environmental justice (EJ) provide an avenue to understand the relationships between “multiple realities of environmental injury” and to analyze “fleeting phenomena with lasting form; thereby transforming phenomena that are experienced in a plurality of lives into publicly recognized history” (Houston, 2012, 419, 422). This creates opportunities to challenge and eradicate the oppressive structures that deem certain individuals and groups disposable and ultimately protect the possessive investment in whiteness. Therefore, for the purposes of EJ, media witnessing creates space for dynamic, citizen-based storytelling which can undermine narratives that promote the life versus economy framework that has perpetuated oppression, injustice, and state sanctioned violence. Media witnessing in an EJ context demonstrates the potential for collective understanding and action, political opportunities, and healing.<br/>This paper is an analysis of the process of media witnessing in regards to the Flint Water Crisis and the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and will apply an EJ lens to this phenomenon. It will discuss how media witnessing in response to these two crises can be used as a precedent for understanding and utilizing this framework and digital storytelling to address the crises of 2020, primarily the COVID-19 pandemic and racial injustice. It will then examine how the intersectionality of race, gender, and age has implications for future media witnessing and storytelling in the context of EJ movements. Finally, it will explain how media witnessing can motivate holistic policymaking in the favor of EJ initiatives and the health and wellbeing of all Americans, as well as how such policymaking and initiatives must acknowledge the double-edged sword that is social media.
Low-income areas are more likely to be exposed to poor air quality and hazardous levels of criteria pollutants, including particulate matter. While this relationship is well documented in environmental justice and equity literature, there is less discussion of how it is addressed by regulatory air quality departments and their monitoring networks. Socioeconomic clustering in highly polluted areas presents a challenge for local regulatory agencies as it may result in over- or under-monitoring of certain income brackets. This is significant because, for regulatory bodies, what is monitored determines where environmental regulations are enforced. In this study, I look at the spatial concentrations of low-income neighborhoods and their proximity to regulatory fine particulate matter monitoring stations in Maricopa County, Arizona and Santiago Metropolitan Region, Chile. This study also evaluates which monitors are most often in exceedance of air quality standards for PM2.5. Using census data, individual monitor readings, and monitoring network assessment data to create tables and maps, I illustrate that, in both case studies, regulatory PM2.5 monitors are frequently positioned in proximity to very low-income or highly impoverished communities. The monitors most often and furthest past exceedance of federal air quality standards are those in (or closest) to the poorest parts of the urban center of the region. In both cases, these populations and monitors are heavily concentrated to the south and west of the region’s primary city. This is likely due to compounding factors attributed to urban geography and zoning that should be explored in future studies. I use these findings to suggest that income and poverty level should be evaluated as an environmental justice factor and as an area for improvement in assessments of regulatory monitoring networks, and to provide further evidence in the debate about equitable air quality monitoring.
The Difference Engine at Arizona State University developed the Women’s Power and Influence Index (WPI) in order to combat the systemic inequality faced by women in the workplace. It aims to analyze data, such as Equal Employment Opportunity data, from various Fortune 500 companies to provide a measure of workplace inequality as well as encourage these institutions to adopt more equitable policies. By rating companies based on what truly matters to women, ASU’s Difference Engine hopes to help both women in existing career paths as well as women seeking a new career or position in companies. However, in order for the WPI to become a relevant scoring metric of gender equality within the workplace, we must raise awareness about the issue of gender equality and of the index itself. By raising awareness about gender inequality as well as inspiring companies to further equality within their workplaces, the WPI will serve to have an integral role in increasing gender equality in the workplace. Our approach for raising awareness utilizes two different strategies: (1) establishing a new version of the WPI website that is both informative and aesthetically pleasing and (2) generating social media content on TikTok that appeal to a variety of audiences and introduce them to the WPI and our mission.
The Difference Engine at Arizona State University developed the Women’s Power and Influence Index (WPI) in order to combat the systemic inequality faced by women in the workplace. It aims to analyze data, such as Equal Employment Opportunity data, from various Fortune 500 companies to provide a measure of workplace inequality as well as encourage these institutions to adopt more equitable policies. By rating companies based on what truly matters to women, ASU’s Difference Engine hopes to help both women in existing career paths as well as women seeking a new career or position in companies. However, in order for the WPI to become a relevant scoring metric of gender equality within the workplace, we must raise awareness about the issue of gender equality and of the index itself. By raising awareness about gender inequality as well as inspiring companies to further equality within their workplaces, the WPI will serve to have an integral role in increasing gender equality in the workplace. Our approach for raising awareness utilizes two different strategies: (1) establishing a new version of the WPI website that is both informative and aesthetically pleasing and (2) generating social media content on TikTok that appeal to a variety of audiences and introduce them to the WPI and our mission.
The Difference Engine at Arizona State University developed the Women’s Power and Influence Index (WPI) in order to combat the systemic inequality faced by women in the workplace. It aims to analyze data, such as Equal Employment Opportunity data, from various Fortune 500 companies to provide a measure of workplace inequality as well as encourage these institutions to adopt more equitable policies. By rating companies based on what truly matters to women, ASU’s Difference Engine hopes to help both women in existing career paths as well as women seeking a new career or position in companies. However, in order for the WPI to become a relevant scoring metric of gender equality within the workplace, we must raise awareness about the issue of gender equality and of the index itself. By raising awareness about gender inequality as well as inspiring companies to further equality within their workplaces, the WPI will serve to have an integral role in increasing gender equality in the workplace. Our approach for raising awareness utilizes two different strategies: (1) establishing a new version of the WPI website that is both informative and aesthetically pleasing and (2) generating social media content on TikTok that appeal to a variety of audiences and introduce them to the WPI and our mission.
The Difference Engine at Arizona State University developed the Women’s Power and Influence Index (WPI) in order to combat the systemic inequality faced by women in the workplace. It aims to analyze data, such as Equal Employment Opportunity data, from various Fortune 500 companies to provide a measure of workplace inequality as well as encourage these institutions to adopt more equitable policies. By rating companies based on what truly matters to women, ASU’s Difference Engine hopes to help both women in existing career paths as well as women seeking a new career or position in companies. However, in order for the WPI to become a relevant scoring metric of gender equality within the workplace, we must raise awareness about the issue of gender equality and of the index itself. By raising awareness about gender inequality as well as inspiring companies to further equality within their workplaces, the WPI will serve to have an integral role in increasing gender equality in the workplace. Our approach for raising awareness utilizes two different strategies: (1) establishing a new version of the WPI website that is both informative and aesthetically pleasing and (2) generating social media content on TikTok that appeal to a variety of audiences and introduce them to the WPI and our mission.