The Portrayal of the Environment and Development in Two Commercial Movies

Abstract Past content analysis of media concentrated on books, magazines, and TV. Research on movies was not well reported in the literature. In this study, the author examined portrayals of environment and development in two commercial movies and constructed enumeration units from directional categories (unfavorable, neutral, favorable). He devised spatial and temporal units of analysis and found that the two movies differed considerably in their portrayal of the issues, presumably because of their targeted audiences. Because audiovisual media have increased in popularity as a teaching medium and as a means of educating the general public on certain environmental and social issues, the author suggests that further research is necessary.