How the Media is Portrayed in Flight Behavior

Media; the Informational Anti-Hero

Kingsolver's Exploration of the Impact Media Has on the Spread of Misinformation

Kingsolver explores the nuances of digital media throughout Flight Behavior. She does not adopt a strictly negative or positive outlook, instead acknowledging the media’s impact on our society and its potential benefits and limitations. 

Kingsolver illustrates that digital media can help the public understand complex social issues through widely accessible information. Dellarobia was subject to an education system that neglects academics, for instance, with “footballers teaching sports in place of science class” (Kingsolver 224). Nevertheless, Dellarobia is able to learn about the monarch butterflies that descend in their backyard through Google. She would not have been able to satisfy her curiosity without this resource due to their community’s lack of focus on academia. Additionally, Kingsolver shows how videos that go viral can, purposefully or not, bring attention to vital issues like climate change. Dovey films Dr. Byron talking back to a reporter, Tina Ultner, who claims that the monarchs are simply “a beautiful sight” (365), ignoring the climate alarm bells their presence sets off. Within hours, the video garners “hundreds of thousands” of views (374). Even if people originally only tune in to “watch [a scientist] rip into an ice-queen newscaster” (374), they still end up hearing the truth about climate change. Due to its myriad formats, digital media can disseminate information to a diverse audience that would not tune in otherwise.

However, Kingsolver also provides many examples of the media spreading false information in Flight Behavior. Most profoundly, she shows how a twisting of the truth affects Dellarobia personally. Dellarobia is often misrepresented in the media without her consent. She feels “scared and exposed” (214) when an edit of her in The Birth of Venus circulates online. Moreover, she highlights how a previous “reporter had only wanted to discuss Dellarobia. Not actual Dellarobia, but the one who’d had a vision, who could see the future” (76), with the use of italics emphasizing how the media portrays a charade of Dellarobia, not her truth.

Capturing the truth is an essential theme in Flight Behavior, as the novel partly addresses the misinformation surrounding—and politicization of—climate change. Juliet explains how “climate change denial [was] introduced from the outside, corporate motives via conservative media” (395). Climate change is a large, seemingly insurmountable issue that would force many to change their lifestyles. As Dr. Byron says, “a person can face up to a difficult truth, or run from it” (322). Through the sheer amount of media present today, people can find evidence—true or not—to fit their specific viewpoints. Misinformation online makes it easier to deny the magnitude of climate change instead of helping to slow it down. The impact of factual ignorance is constantly highlighted by Kingsolver through Dr. Byron’s unflinching explanations of the extent climate change has ruined ecosystems.

Online media has become a pillar of our global community, and Kingsolver explores both its positive and negative impacts in relation to a fact-based discipline like science. Hence, she uses Flight Behavior to urge readers to be mindful of the reliability of the media they consume. 

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Kingsolver, Barbara. Flight Behavior. HarperCollins, 2012.