Construcția legitimității în tranziția verde: Guvernanță discursivă și dependență mediatică în proiectul „Europe's Yellowstone” din România
Shaping Legitimacy in the Green Transition: Discursive Governance and Media Dependency in Romania's „Europe's Yellowstone” Project

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the media construction of legitimacy around the „Europe’s Yellowstone” project, a large-scale conservation initiative in Romania’s Southern Carpathians. Drawing on framing theory, discursive governance, legitimacy studies and political ecology approaches to conservation, it investigates how conservation is represented as a moral and technical necessity and how local contestations become marginal within public debate. The study is based on a qualitative content analysis of 150 media texts published between 2014 and 2025 in local, national and international media, complemented by the analysis of public debates and organizational communications. The findings identify a pattern of structural information dependency in which journalists rely heavily on organizational narratives, sources and communication resources. As a result, conservation is framed through storylines that emphasize ecological restoration, scientific expertise and green development, while conflicts related to property rights, local participation and distributive justice receive limited visibility. The article argues that transnational conservation organizations can exercise communicative power not only through material resources but also through their capacity to shape the informational environment in which public debate takes place. These findings contribute to understanding the role of media in legitimizing contemporary conservation projects in Eastern Europe.

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