The Communication of Environmental
Science
and the Science of Environmental
Communication:
UC Santa Barbara’s Environmental Media
Initiative
Ronald E. Rice
April 27, 12:30-1:30, Bren Hall 1414
What is the EMI? Presentation Topics
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Partners
Environmental Media Initiative
Blue Horizons and Green Screen
Environmental Media Research Focus Group
Conferences and Events
Graduate Seminar on Campaigns with
Environmental Projects
Publications
DigitalOcean: Planning, Development,
Background Research
DigitalOcean: Sampling the Sea
Recent Proposal Submissions
Book Resources
Environmental Communication and Science
Interdisciplinarity
Interdisciplinary Environmental Media
Initiative Partners
• Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media
• Bren School of Environmental Science & Management
• Marine Science Institute
• Department of Communication
• Department of Film and Media Studies
• Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology Department
• Environmental Studies Program
• UCSB Development Offices
• The Ocean Channel
• New Media Research Institute
• Outhink Media
• Affiliate Faculty
The Carsey-Wolf Center for Film,
Television, and New Media
• sponsors research, teaching, and public
programming addressing the complex and everchanging interactions of media, culture, and
society
• Media Industries Project
• Internship Program
• Environmental Media Initiative
• www.cftnm.ucsb.edu
Environmental Media Initiative
• brings together environmental scientists with
film, media, and communication scholars—drawn
from the humanities, arts, and social sciences—to
collaborate on teaching, research, and public
programming
• explores the ways media and the environment
influence, structure, and inhabit each other: the
environment in media, media in the environment
• an initiative -- just the beginning – next steps?
Blue Horizons (2007 -- )
9 – week summer program with 5 courses:
• Writing Documentaries
• Films of the Natural and Human Environment
• Introduction to Environmental Media Production
• Issues in marine Conservation
• Advanced Environmental Media Production
• Teams of environmental science and film/media
students create short ocean environmental digital
documentaries
• Funding: Summer Session; SONY; Carsey-Wolf
Center
GreenScreen Environmental Media
Program (2007 --)
• brings together students in the arts, humanities, social
sciences, and sciences to engage environmental issues in
Santa Barbara through artistic production
• each year, development, production, and screening of 4
short environmental films
• 2010: Cultivating Kids; EcoWatch, Navigating
Copenhagen, Plastocalypse
• www.cftnm.ucsb.edu/Programs/EMI/
Teaching/GS_splash.html
• Funding: UCSB Coastal Fund; UC Institute for Research
in the Arts; NASA; Undergraduate Research and Creative
Activities; Carsey-Wolf Center
Media and the Environment
Conference
April 2007
• How can traditional and digital media effectively
communicate important environmental issues?
• How do media technologies and creative processes
influence the presentation and portrayal of environmental
issues?
• How are environmental issues covered – or not -- by
different media forms and outlets?
• How can media coverage influence public perceptions,
understandings and actions concerning the environment?
Portraying the Environment
• Jensen, Varchol: UNEP Sudan Report
• Bernstein: Depiction of environment in print ads
• Reichman: New techniques for portraying environmental
science in various media
Reporting the Environment
• Weiss, vandeWege: LA Times’ Pulitzer-Prize Winning Altered
Oceans
• O’Donnell, Rice: US/UK newspaper coverage of
environmental issues
• Revkin: NY Times environmental reporter on interface
between media and the environment
• Gaines, Kolstad: Science behind media coverage of global
warming
Distributing the Environment
• Penley: Blue Horizon Summer Environmental Media Program
• Hanrahan: Providing environmental content through new
media
• Jay: RealTV coverage of global warming
Recent Environmental Media
Speakers/Films
(online videos of some)
• Earth Days – Nov 2009
• No Impact Man – Nov 2009
• Digital Ocean: Connecting for Ocean
Sustainability – Nov 2009, San Francisco
• Flow-For the Love of Water – Oct 2009
• Crude – Oct 2009
• Sylvia Earle: Sustainable Seas - The Vision and
the Reality -- Oct 2009
• Telluride Mountainfilm – Oct 2009
• Call of the Killer Whale – July 2009
• Laura Dunn: A Workshop on the Challenges of
Environmental Filmmaking – Jun 2009
• The Unforeseen – June 2009
• Beyond Environmentalism: Culture, Justice, and
Global Ecologies – May 2009
• Sharkwater: With Filmmaker Rob Stewart – July
2008
• Media and the Environment: Communicating
about Santa Barbara's Ocean, Air and Land – June
2008 (downtown SB)
• Communicating About Clean Air: Managing
Relationships among California Government, the
Public, and the Business Community – Feb 2008
• Location, Location, Location: The Greening of
Hollywood (SBIFF) – Jan 2008
Bren Compass Workshop:
Fostering Effective Communication among
Scientists, Media, and the General Public
April 18, 2009
Communication Campaign Evaluation and
Effectiveness
• Programmatic (Process and Outcomes):
Formative, Process, Effect, Impact
• Framing (Macro and Interpretation):
Definitional, Ideological, Political, Contextual, Cost
Example Effect Evaluation Measures
• Awareness
• Knowledge
• Salience (to audiences)
• Attitudes (about the specific behavior)
• Norms (peer, social norm marketing)
• Self-efficacy
• Behavioral Intention
• Behavior, Skills
• Environmental/System Constraints
• Media Frames (values positioning, presumed cause)
• Policy Change (laws, regulation, education, tax)
Graduate Seminar on Communication
Campaigns, with Santa Barbara
Environmental Campaign Projects
• Integrated with Allen Planning Project
• 8 graduate students (2 Bren), 8 undergraduate RAs
• Some projects continued into 2nd term
• For the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control
District: Air Pollution Messages on YouTube; Air Quality
Warnings to Students and the Elderly during Fire Season;
and Reducing Use of Cars by USCB Students
• For the Santa Barbara Environmental Services Division
Recycling: Recycling in Businesses; and Recycling in
Schools
Publications
Prestin, A., & Pearce, K. (2010, in press). We
care a lot: Formative research for a social
marketing campaign to promote school-based
recycling. Resources, Conservation and
Recycling.
Rice, R. E. & Robinson, J. A. (2011, in
preparation). Ocean environmental campaigns.
In R. E. Rice & C. K. Atkin (Eds.), Public
communication campaigns, 4th ed. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
O’Donnell, C. & Rice, R. E. (2008). Coverage of
environmental events in U.S. and U.K. newspapers:
Frequency, hazard, specificity, and placement.
International Journal of Environmental Studies, 65(5),
637-654.
Bates, C. (2010, in press). The use of social
marketing concepts to develop ocean sustainability
campaigns. Journal of Social Marketing.
• a virtual commons that connects people and
provides them with resources to advance ocean
sustainability and protect Earth’s ocean ecosystems
• extensive DO ocean scientist networking platform
already developed
• Dave Toole and Outhink Media have contributed
over $75,000 in programming resources
• $32,000 from Gaines, Melack, Penley, Rice
• Carsey-Wolf Center provides considerable staff and
graduate student time, and some equipment
DO Turns Existing Groups into Communities
Scientists
Photo
enthusiasts
Video
enthusiasts
G. Earth
users
Classroom
The estimated 20,000 early career scientists at US
universities and laboratories, with thousands more
worldwide:
DO Five Year Target: 20,000 aware, 35% are active
members
The estimated 100,000 enthusiasts who have already
contributed several hundred thousand underwater
photographs to Flickr:
DO Five Year Target: 15,000 active members
The estimated 12,000 enthusiasts, divers with underwater
cameras, including top-end producers such as Vulcan:
DO Five Year Target: 5,000 active members
The estimated 350,000,000 who have already downloaded
the Google Earth software:
DO Five Year Target: 50,000 DO browsers a month
Starting with 1.5 million students, DO partner NASA GLOBE
plans to reach classrooms worldwide:
DO Five Year Target: 50,000 students
DO Creates a New Tide of Opportunities
for Scientists to
Communicate, Coordinate, and Collaborate
social interactions
citations
media
jobs
attribution
reputation
group collaborations
live science feeds
digital publications
Digital Ocean Project Planning
• Year-long series of workshops, planning,
background research, developing long-term plan for
DigitalOcean
• Proposing four initial components:
• Digital Ocean Networking Platform
• Sampling the Sea
• Informal Science Education Network
• MPAs and Reserves
• Funded by The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation,
2008, $100,000
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Extensive DO Background Research and
Resources (by Interdisciplinary Group of
Graduate Students)
environmental campaigns research literature
ocean-related academic journals
ocean-related Flickr groups
environmental, ocean, ecology academic programs
abstracts of articles on MPAs and Reserves
ocean websites
ocean-themed videogames
online and offline ocean films/videos, photographs
underlying software platforms and applications
People-Ecosystem Action Resource Link Tool Kit
• strength-weaknesses-opportunities-threats analysis
• online ocean education and social
networking project
• uses ePals platform, Google Earth,
SeaWatch, UCSB programming
• extensive social media use
• open discussion of fisheries problems
among global population of young fish
consumers
• better information about links
between fish consumption and
production
• better consumption choices by
students
Co-PIs:
Gaines, Melack,
Penley, Rice
GSR:
Robinson (Bren)
• goal: 180 teachers, 4,000 students
around the globe
• funded by MacArthur Foundation’s
Digital Media and Learning Program,
Pre-Registered US Teachers
Curriculum Units and Associated Activities
• Unit 1 - What’s in the Water?
A: Ocean Life Newsletter: Group Project
B: Salmon Migration
C: Joy to the Fishes in the Deep Blue Sea
• Unit 2 - Ocean Ecology
A: Food Chain Gangs
B: What Does a Healthy Ecosystem Look Like?
C: A Close Look at Marine Protected Areas
D: Pyramid of Life
E: Shark Hunt
• Unit 3 - Who’s Fishing?
A: Fish Methods – Fishing Frenzy
B: Who, What, How?
C: Worldwide Travels of Fish
Curriculum Units and Associated Activities
• Unit 4 - Fisheries Management
A: All Fished Out
B: What’s Left to Catch? Have We Exhausted the
Inexhaustible?
C: Special Management Areas – The ABC’s of Marine
Stewardship
D: Who’s Counting? Do We Manage the People or the
Fish?
E: Success Stories
• Unit 5 - Sustainable Seas
A: Sampling the Sea – What’s the Catch?
B: Promotional Bumper Stickers
C: Kitchen Aid: Seafood Posters for Workers
Extensive Evaluation
• Process and Summative
• Levels of analysis: individual teachers and
students, class, overall
• System usage data: pages, social media,
uploads/downloads, collaboration
• Baseline and End surveys: teachers and
students
• Influence of social media use on ocean literacy
(knowledge, affect, skills, efficacy, intention)
• Content analysis of teacher discussion forums
• Bren Ph.D. Thesis (Robinson)
Recent Proposal Submissions
• Toole, Caron, Gaines, Rice & Penley. Extending the
DigitalOcean Platform. Google, $500,000. 2010.
• Blanchette & Rice. Exploring Ocean Wilderness:
Increasing Public Understanding and Awareness of Marine
Protected Areas. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration Office of Education. 2011 - 2012, $499,000
(UCSB component).
• Gaines & Rice. Collaborative Research: DigitalOcean:
Informal Science Media Network. DRL-Informal Science
Education NSF09-553. 2010 - 2015, $849,233 (UCSB
component).
• UCSB EMI (Center and Bren). Environmental Research,
Programs, and Internships. SONY. $25,000 annually,
renewable.
• Rice. Sampling the Sea: Evaluation of Pilot and Full
Implementation. Academic Senate Council on Research
and Instructional Resources. 2010 - 2011, $42,600.
• Rice. Evaluating Sampling the Sea, an Online Seafood
Sustainability Social Media Learning Environment. ISBER
Social Science Research Grants Program. 2010 - 2011,
$6710.
• Lemenager, Parks, Penley & Rice. Popularizing the
Environment: Media, Science, and Culture –Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation for a John E. Sawyer Seminar on the
Comparative Study of Cultures. 2010 - 2011, $150,000.
[not funded]
• Gaines, Melack, Penley & Rice. DigitalOcean. Submitted
to The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. 2009 - 2010,
$1,000,000. [not funded]
Some Book Resources
• Cantrill, J. & Oravec, C. (1996). The symbolic earth:
Discourse and our creation of the environment. Lexington,
KY: University of Kentucky Press.
• Corbett, J. (2006). Communicating nature: How we
create and understand environmental messages.
Washington, DC: Island Press.
• Cox, R. (2006). Environmental communication and the
public sphere. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Hayes, R. & Grossman, D. (2006). A scientist's guide to
talking with the media: Practical advice from the Union of
Concerned Scientists. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned
Scientists.
• Jacobson, S.K. (1999). Communication skills for
conservation professionals. Washington, DC: Island Press.
• Moser, S. & Dilling, L. (Eds.) (2007). Creating a climate
for change: Communicating climate change and
facilitating social change. NY: Cambridge University Press.
• National Research Council (2002). New tools for
environmental protection: Education, information, and
voluntary measures. (T. Dietz & P.C. Stern, eds.)
Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press
• Parker, L.J. (2008). Environmental communication:
Messages, media & methods, 2nd ed. Kendall/Hunt
Publishing Company.
• Environmental campaigns:
http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/faculty/rrice/ricelink.htm#
CAMPAIGN
Environmental Communication and Science:
Need for Interdisciplinarity
“Environmental problems are generally complex and
blind to disciplinary boundaries.
Efforts to devise long-term solutions require
collaborative research that integrates knowledge
across historically disparate fields, yet the
traditional model for training new scientists
emphasizes personal independence and disciplinary
focus.”
Moslemi, J. M., et al. (2009). Training tomorrow’s
environmental problem solvers: An integrative
approach to graduate education. BioScience, 59(6),
514-521.
Thanks!
Comments or Questions?