ENVIRONMENTAL
COMMUNICATIONS AND THE
PUBLIC SPHERE
Chapter study guide
Chapter 1. Study and Practice of
Environmental Communication

The field of Environmental Communication
 Along
with growth of environmental studies, educational
and professional opportunities that stress the role of
human communication in environmental affairs also
have emerged.
 College
courses are offered in a variety of environmental
affairs.
 The study of environmental communications helps to prepare
you to enter many professions in which communication is
central to an entity’s involvement in environmental affairs.
Chapter 1

Growth of the field
 In
the US, the field grew out of the work of a diverse
group of communication scholars, many of whom used
the tools of rhetorical criticism to study conflicts over
wilderness, forests, farmlands, and endangered species
as well as the rhetoric of environmental groups.
 In 2011, scholars and practitioners established the
International Environmental Communication Association
to coordinate research and activities worldwide.
Chapter 1

Areas of study
 Environmental
rhetoric and the social symbolic
“construction” of nature.
 Studies
of the rhetoric of environmental organizations and
campaigns emerged as an early focus of the new field.
 Public
 The
participation in environmental decision making.
National Research Council has found, that “when done
well, public participation improves the quality and
legitimacy of a decision and …can lead to better results in
terms of environmental quality” (Dietz & Stern, 2008)
Chapter 1

Environmental collaboration and conflict resolution.
 Dissatisfaction
with some of the adversarial forms of
public participation has led practitioners and scholars
to explore alternative models of resolving
environmental conflicts.

Media and environmental journalism.
 In
many ways, the study of environmental media has
become its own subfield.
Chapter 1

Representation of nature in corporate advertising
and popular culture
 There
are a growing number of studies of how such
popular culture images influence our attitudes or
perceptions of nature and the environment.

Advocacy campaigns and message construction
A
growing area of study is the use of public education
and advocacy campaigns by environmental groups,
corporations, and by climate scientists about global
warming.
Chapter 1

Science and risk communication.
 Illustrates
a growing interest in public health and
science communication-the study of environmental risks
and communication about them to affected audiences.
Chapter 1

Defining Environmental Communication
 A clear definition takes into account the distinctive roles of language, art,
photographs, street protests, and even scientific reports as different
forms of symbolic action.
 Our language and other symbolic acts do something as well as say
something.
 In the book the author uses environmental communication to mean the
pragmatic and constitutive vehicle for our understanding of the
environment as well as our relationship to the natural world.
 Pragmatic: It educates, alerts, persuades, and helps us to solve
environmental problems.
 Constitutive: Our communication about nature also helps us construct
or compose representation of nature and environmental problems as
subjects for our understanding.
Chapter 1

Environmental communication as a pragmatic and
constitutive vehicle serves as the framework for the
chapters in the book.
 Human
communication is a form of symbolic action.
 Our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors relating to nature
and environmental problems are mediated or
influenced by communication.
 The public sphere emerges as a discursive space in
which diverse voices engage the attention of others
about environmental concerns.
Chapter 1

Nature, Communication, and the Public Sphere

Human communication as symbolic action


Because communication provides us with a means of sense making about the
world, it orients us toward events, people, wildlife, and choices that we
encounter.
Mediating “Nature”
 At a very basic level, our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors toward nature are
mediated by human modes of representation-by our language, television,
film, photos, art, and contemplation.

Public Sphere as Discursive Space

Realm of influence that is crated when individuals engage others in
communication-through conversation, argument, debate, or questioning-about
subjects of shared concern or topics that affect a wider community.
Chapter 1

Diverse Voices in a “Green” Public Sphere
 Citizens
and community groups
 Environmental groups
 Scientists and scientific discourse
 Corporations and lobbyists
 Anti-environmentalists and climate change critics
 News media and environmental journalists
 Public officals
Chapter 2 Contested Meanings of
Environment




Two early movements in the United States that
challenged dominant views about the exploitation of
nature- a 19th-century preservationist movement and an
early 20th-century ethic of conservation of nature.
The rise in the 20th-century of a challenge to urban
pollution and a movement to protect human health.
The discourse of environmental justice, which contests a
view of nature as a place apart from the places where
people live and work.
The related movements for sustainability and climate
justice, addressing global climate change.
Chapter 2

In the history of the U.S. Environmental movement, particularly,
four major antagonisms define such recognition of limits, where
new voices challenged the prevailing views of society:




Preservation or conservation of nature versus human exploitation of
nature
Human health versus unregulated business and pollution of the commons (
air, water, and soil)
Environmental justice versus a view of nature as a place apart from the
places where people live and work
Sustainability or climate justice versus unsustainable social and economic
systems
Chapter 2

Challenging the Exploitation of Nature



Romantic and primitivist aesthetics in art and literature- In the 18th and
early 19th centuries, English nature poets and aestheticians such as
William Gilpin “inspired a rhetorical style for articulating and
appreciation of uncivilized nature”
A search for U.S. national identity- Believing that America could not
match Europe's history and soaring cathedrals, advocates of a uniquely
American identity championed the distinctive characteristics of its
landscape.
Transcendentalist ideals- The 19th century philosophy of
transcendentalism also proved an important impetus for revaluing wild
nature. Transcendentalists held that “natural objects assumed importance
because, if rightly seen, they reflected universal spiritual truth.”
Chapter 2

John Muir and the Wilderness Preservation
Movement
 Muir’s
influence and the support of others led to a
national campaign to preserve Yosemite valley.
 By 1890, these efforts had resulted in the U.S.
Congress’s creation of Yosemite National Park.
Chapter 2

Conservation: Wise use of Natural Resources




Utilitarianism: The idea of the greatest good for the greatest
number, some in the early 20th century began to promote a new
conservation ethic.
Pinchot, believed that conservation meant, “the wise and efficient
use of natural resources.”
The tension between the discourses of wilderness preservation
and conservation continues to be a feature in some current
debate.
Today, both regional and national environmental groups in the
United States continue to press for measures of protection for the
nation’s remaining wild areas, while different economic interestslogging and mining companies, real estate developers, and
others- also seek access to many of these same areas.
Chapter 2

Public Health and Pollution of the Commons
By the 1960s, a second antagonism had arisen in the United
States that contested an accepted view of nature as a
space in which an industrialized society could simply dispose
of its air or water pollutants.
 With her prescient writings, Rachel Carson is widely
considered the founder of the modern environmental
movement.
 By the end of the 1970s, concerns about health also arose
at the local level. Communities became increasingly worried
by the chemical contamination of their air, drinking water,
soil, and school grounds.

Chapter 2

Environmental Justice: Challenging Nature as a Place
Apart
By the 1980s new activists from low-income groups and
communities of color had begun to challenge the view of
nature as a place apart from where people lived and
worked, disclosing a third antagonism in prevailing views of
the environment.
 Emerging from these struggles was a robust vision of
environmental justice.


At its core, environmental justice also was a vision of the
democratic inclusion of people and communities in the decisions
that affect their health and well-being.
Chapter 2

Movements for Sustainability and Climate Justice
 These
challenges often are similar to the antagonisms
described earlier-efforts to protect natural systems,
safeguard human health, and secure social justice.
 A fourth antagonism has, therefore, begun to emergethe challenge of building a more sustainable world in
the face of disruptive or unsustainable social and
economic systems.
Chapter 3 Social-Symbolic
Constructions of Environment


This social-symbolic perspective focuses on the
sources that constitute or construct our perceptions
of what we consider to be natural or an
environmental problem.
Terministic Screens and Naming
 Terministic
describes the way our language orients us to
see certain things, some aspects of the world, and not
others.
 Naming means by which we socially represent objects
or people and therefore know the world, including the
natural world.
Chapter 3

Constructing an Environmental Problem


The social-symbolic construction of nature arises from this ability to
characterize certain facts or conditions one way rather than another
and, therefore, to name it as a problem or not a problem.
A Rhetorical Perspective



The study of rhetoric traces its origins to classical Greek philosopherteachers such as Isocrates(436-338 bce) and Aristotle ( 384-322 bce)
Aristotle defined rhetoric as the ability of discovering “in any given case
the available means of persuasion”
Traditionally rhetoric has been viewed as an instrumental or pragmatic
activity- persuading others-its use clearly has a second function: The
purposeful use of language also helps to shape (or constitute) our
perception of the world itself.
Chapter 3

Rhetorical Tropes and Genres
 Rhetorical
tropes refer to the use of words that turn a
meaning from its original sense in a new direction for a
persuasive purpose.
 Rhetorical genres are generally defined as distinct
forms or types of speech that “share characteristics
distinguishing them” from other types of speech.
Chapter 3

Communication Frames
 The
term frame was first popularized by sociologist
Erving Goffman (1974) in his book Frame Analysis.
 He
defines frames as the cognitive maps or patterns of
interpretation that people use to organize their
understanding of reality.
 The
example of a public health frame illustrates the
role of framing in the construction of a problem or
recommendation of a solution.
Chapter 3

Dominant and Critical Discourses

This concept of discourse reminds us that rhetorical resources
are broader than any single metaphor, frame, or utterance.

Discourse is a recurring pattern of speaking or writing that has
developed socially, that is, from multiple sources; it functions to
“circulate a coherent set of meanings about important topic”.
When a discourse gains a broad or taken-for-granted status
in a culture or when its meanings help to legitimize certain
practices, it can be said to be a dominate discourse.
 Alternative ways of speaking, writing, or portraying nature
in art, music, and photographs illustrate critical discourse.

Chapter 3

Visual Rhetorics: Portraying Nature
 Visual
images have been influential in shaping
Americans’ perceptions of the environment at least since
the 18th and the 19th centuries, particularly in paintings
and photographs of the American West.
 Two ways in which visual rhetorics of the environment
function to persuade:
 By
influencing our perceptions or the way we see certain
aspects of the environment
 By constructing what the public believes is an environmental
problem
Chapter 3

Visualizing Environmental Problems
 The
lack of visual evidence of climate change has been
a problem for scientists in educating the public of the
problem.
 Visual images can be sites of contestation, that is,
opponents my challenge or seek to suppress a powerful
image, or they may use a very different image to
visualize the same set of conditions.
Chapter 4 Public Participation in
Environmental Decisions

Public participation is the principle that “those who
are affected by a decision have a right to be
involved in the decision have a right to be involved
in the decision-making process.”
 The
right to know reflects the principle of transparency
 The right to comment reflects the principle of direct
participation in democratic decisions.
 The right of standing assumes the principle of
accountability.
Chapter 4


As a result of public pressure for grater access to
information, the U.S. Congress passed the Freedom
of Information Act in 1966.
In 1996 the Congress amended FOIA by passing
the Electronic Freedom of Information Amendments.
Chapter 4

Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know
Act
 Passed
in 1986
 The law requires industries to report to local and state
emergency planners the use and location of specified
chemicals and their facilities.
Chapter 4

Right to Public Comment
 Public
comment typically takes the form of in-person,
spoken testimony at public hearings exchanges of views
at open meetings, written communication to agencies
and participation on citizen advisory panels.
 The right to comment is listed under the National
Environmental Policy Act of 1970.
 NEPA
requires federal agencies to prepare a detailed
environmental impact statement (EIS) for any proposed
legislation or major actions “significantly affecting the
quality of the human environment.”
Chapter 4

Public hearings and Citizen Comments
 Public
hearings are forums for public comments before
an agency takes action that might significantly affect
the environment.
 The comments themselves at public meetings may be
polite or passionate, restrained or angry, or informed
or highly opinionated and emotional.
Chapter 4

Standing and Citizen Suits
 The
right of citizens to standing developed originally
from common law, wherein individuals who have
suffered and injury in fact to a legally protected right
to seek redress in court.
 In 1946 Administrative Procedure Act broadened the
right of judicial review for persons “suffering a legal
wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected
or aggrieved by agency action.”
 The second expansion of standing came in the form of
citizen suits in major environmental laws.
Chapter 4

Landmark Cases on Environmental Standing
Citizens’ claims to the right of standing are subject not only
to the provisions of specific statutes but also to judicial
interpretations of the cases and controversies clause in
Article III of the U.S. Constitution.
 To determine if a party is a “true adversary,” to U.S.
Supreme Court uses three tests

Persons bringing a case must be able to prove an injury in fact
 This injury must be “fairly traceable” to an action of the
defendant
 The Court must be able to redress the injury through a favorable
ruling

Chapter 4

Growth of Public Participation Internationally
 In
the past decade more and more nations have begun
to guarantee public access to information and
implement various forms of public participation in
governmental decisions about the environment.
Chapter 5 Managing Conflict:
Collaboration and Environmental
Disputes

The dissatisfaction with some form of public
participation, such as public hearings, has pushed
people to find alternatives for managing
environmental conflicts: citizens’ advisory
committees, natural resources partnerships, and
community-based collaborations.
Chapter 5

Collaborating to Resolve Environmental conflicts








Collaboration is less competitive.
Collaboration features mutual learning and fact finding.
Collaboration allows underlying value differences to be explored.
Collaboration resembles principled negotiation, focusing on the interests
rather than positions.
Collaboration allocates the responsibility for implementation across may
parties.
Collaboration’s conclusions are generated by participants throught an
interactive, iterative, and reflective process.
Collaboration is often an ongoing process.
Collaboration has the potential to build individual and community
capacity in such areas as conflict management, leadership, decision
making, and communications.
Chapter 5

Two other forms of conflict resolution
 Arbitration
is usually court ordered and involves the
presentation of opposing views to a neutral third-party
individual or panel that, in turn, renders a judgment
about the conflict.
 Mediation is a facilitated effort entered into voluntarily
or at the suggestion of a court, counselor, or other
institution.
Chapter 5

Requirements for Successful Collaboration
 Relevant
stakeholders are at the table.
 Participants adopt a problem-solving approach.
 All participants have access to necessary resources and
opportunities to participate in discussions.
 Decisions usually are reached by consensus.
 Relevant agencies are guided by the recommendations
of the collaboration.
Chapter 5

Limits of Collaboration and Consensus
 Three-part
model for assessing the different forms of
public participation in environmental decisions, called
the Trinity of Voices (TOV).
 This
model builds on the importance of the stakeholder and
on many of the characteristics we identified earlier for
effective collaboration.
Chapter 5

Common Criticisms of Collaboration
Stakeholders may be unrepresentative of wider publics
 Place-based collaboration my encourage exceptionalism or
a compromise of national standards.
 Power inequities my lead to co-optation.
 Pressure for consensus my lead to the lowest common
denominator.
 Consensus tends to delegitimize conflict and advocacy.
 Collaborative groups my lack authority to implement their
decisions.
 Irreconcilable values may hinder agreement.

Chapter 6 News Media and
Environmental Journalism

Traditional news media
 Newspapers,
news magazines, network television news,
and radio news programs.

Online News sites
 Blogs
and environmental news services
Chapter 6

Growth and Nature of Environmental News
 Event-driven
coverage
 Inevitably,
contemporary news “is largely event focused and
event driven,” and it is this norm that is important in
determining “which environmental issues get news coverage
and which don’t” (Hansen, 2010, P. 95)
 Rise
and Fall of Environmental News
 With
the rise of an ecology movement in the late 1960s,
environmental news grew in coverage and reached an early
peak after Earth Day during the early 1970s.
 Its saw a low in the 1980s and another high point in 1989.
Chapter 6

Differing Views of Nature in Media
 Media
classified by four major themes by Meisner
 Nature
as a victim
 Nature as a sick patient
 Nature as a problem
 Nature as a resource
Chapter 6

News Production and the Environment

Journalistic Norms and Constraints


Media Frames


One of the most important of the practices that affect environmental
news reporting is the value or newsworthiness of a story.
“central organizing themes…that connect different semantic elements
of a news story into a coherent whole to suggest what is at issue” (Pan
and Kosicki 1993)
Norms of Objectivity and Balance



The values of objectivity and balance have been bedrock norms of
journalism for almost a century.
Particularly in environmental journalism, reporters struggle to maintain
genuine objectivity.
Balance usually is taken to mean a responsibility to report all sides of
story, particularly when there is a controversy.
Chapter 6

Other Influences of Environmental Journalists

Political Economy of News Media


Refers to the influence of ownership and the economic interests of the owners
of newspapers and television networks on the news content of these media
sources.
Gatekeeping and Newsroom Routines


The decisions of editors and media managers to cover or not cover certain
environmental stories illustrates what has been called the gatekeeping role.
Many editors and newsrooms find it particularly difficult to deal with the
environmental beat for two reasons:


First, the unobtrusive or “invisible” nature of many environmental problems makes
it hard for reporters to fit these stories into conventional news formats.
Environmental issues can be difficult to report because few reporters have
training in science or knowledge of complex environmental problems such as
ground water pollution.
Chapter 6

Climate Change in the News (or Not)
 Is
Climate Change Newsworthy?
 One
reason is that social scientists and communication
specialists are finding that the nature of climate change is
more difficult to communicate than other environmental
issues.
Chapter 6

Media Effects

Agenda setting


Narrative framing


Cohen (1963) first suggested the idea of agenda setting to
distinguish between individual opinion and the public’s perception of
the salience or importance of an issue.
Refers to the ways in which media organize the bits and facts of
phenomena through stories to aid audiences’ understanding and the
potential for the organization to affect our relationships to the
phenomena being represented.
Cultivation analysis

“a theory of story-telling, which assumes that repeated exposure to a
set of messages is likely to produce agreement in an audience with
opinions expressed in …those messages”(pp. 186-187)
Chapter 7 Social Media and the
Environmental Online

Environmental Journalism Migrates Online
 Environmental
News Services
 The
online environmental news services offered the widest
access to both working journalists and readers looking for
more in-depth environmental news and timely information.
 Journalists’
Blogs and the Green Blogosphere
 The
fastest-growing source for online news and analyses of
environmental topics actually has not been the environmental
news services but the blogosphere.

A blog is an online site that is authored by and individual or
collective authors and that posts information or commentary
about specific topics; blogs also feature video and graphics.
Social Media and the Environment



In the last five to seven years, social media have
dramatically altered the landscape for
environmental communication.
Social media can be defined as the use of webbased technologies and mobile applications for
personal interactions.
Chapter 7

Environmental Information and Buzz
 Social
news sources and RSS feeds are ways that
individuals increasingly can easily access environmental
information or stories in a timely manner.

Green Communities and Social Networking
 Facebook
serves as a bridge for local communities and
citizens who rely upon the EPA for guidance,
information, and technical help; the site also invites
comments on EPA policies and programs.
Chapter 7

Reporting and Documenting
 Citizens,
researchers, and environmental groups are
using mobile apps, digital cameras, smartphones, iPads,
and online registries to document their observations of
the natural world or report environmental problems to
others.

Public Criticism and Accountability
 With
Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, the
reach of public scrutiny and criticism has accelerated
dramatically.
Chapter 7

Mobilizing



Social media also are regularly used to mobilize supporters and
the general public in support of various environmental causes.
Today, environmental, climate, and social justice activists are using
the full suite of social media in their organizing efforts.
Microvolunteering and Self-Organizing


Refers to sites that allow people to do small, bite-sized tasks via
mobile apps, which sponsors believe will have meaningful results
for different environmental groups or charitable causes.
Self-organizing refers to the ability of individuals, through what
are often called bottom-up websites, to initiate actions via social
media that actively engage others.
Chapter 7

Social Media and Environmental Advocacy
 Opposing
 One
Offshore Oil Drilling
of the principal use of social media during the Gulf oil
spill was the airing of public criticism of BP officials who
seemed incompetent or uncaring.
 While social media made possible an outpouring of criticism
of BP and oil drilling, it is, nevertheless, important to note
that this communication likely had a very limited effect on
the company or on energy policy.
Chapter 7

Future Trends: Challenges and Obstacles for
Environmental Social Media
Content Flood
 App-Centric Environment


Mobile applications on smartphones, Twitter, iPads, notebooks,
and so on, will be our main portals for information online.
Environmental Video Networks
 Gamification


A term originating form digital media developers and is defined
as “the use of game design elements in non-game contexts”