ABSTRACT
Representations of road protest, a prominent focus for environmental debate in the United Kingdom during the 1990s, provide a useful point of departure for our discussion. The road protest movement fiercely criticised increasing dependence on private road transport and mounted sustained opposition to new developments. Television and newspaper reporting of the activities of road protesters gave extensive coverage to non-violent, and occasionally violent, confrontations between protestors, police, officials and developers. As a result, verbal and visual representations of the anti-road movement disseminated widely through society. The term ‘eco-warriors’ entered common currency as a description for those involved in civil disobedience in support of environmental causes. Coverage of protests commonly conjured up images of two sets of entrenched protagonists. On the one side were hirsute and colourfully dressed protesters living in camps made from temporary shelters (benders), maintaining treetop vigils and placing themselves between the development site and bulldozers. On the other side were clearance machinery, contractors and security staff in hard hats and yellow jackets, with an accompanying police presence. The contested terrain comprised barbed wire fences, posted eviction orders and swathes of open ground bulldozed through the trees.
