15 pages., via online journal., Communicating about the use and management of open spaces occurs within a complex social environment replete with diverse stakeholder opinions and meta-narratives. For western US rangelands, productionbased enterprises have been the traditional use but increasingly they are valued for ecosystem services such as water, recreation, biodiversity, and aesthetics which have led to additional conflict. We surveyed Wyoming-based members of six agricultural (Ag) and four environmental/conservation (Env/Con) groups to determine grazingcentric mutual exclusivity of special interests, common values, and emergent themes. We assessed 197 survey participants; 150 from Ag groups and 47 from Env/Con groups. Of 10 values assessed, “watershed” and “plant diversity” were similarly valued by both group types. These naturally dichotomous groups also agreed that communication and reliance on science are needed. Communication and conflict resolution about the use of open spaces can benefit from addressing social presuppositions and meta-narratives of broader audiences to facilitate effective dialogue and solutions.
7 pages., via online journal., This essay comments and expands upon an emerging area of research,
energy communication, that shares with environmental communication
the fraught commitment to simultaneously study communication as
an ordinary yet potentially transformative practice, and a strategic
endeavour to catalyse change. We begin by defining and situating energy
communication within ongoing work on the discursive dimensions of
energy extraction, production, distribution, and consumption. We then
offer three generative directions for future research related to energy
transitions as communicative processes: analysing campaigns’ strategic
efforts, critically theorizing energy’s transnational power dynamics, and
theorizing the energy democracy movement.
19 pages., via online journal., The following study looks at how traditional, organic, cooperative farmers
starting a new farming cooperative in the US Southwest communicate
about their farming as a set of (sustainable) cultural practices. The study
draws on environmental communication theory, the theory of the
coordinated management of meaning, and Vandana Shiva’s three-tiered
economic model to construct a communication-based framework
through which to view farmers’ stories about sustainability. This
framework is productive, showing how some Nuevo Mexicano farmers
(and others) orient toward farming, sustenance, and human-nature
relationships through community, family, heritage, and education.
Moreover, in addition to a conceptualization of sustainability as specific
practices for nurturing and enduring in environments, communities, and
organizations/institutions, sustainability can be understood as
embedded ecocultural and historical experience with cross-cultural
parallels in land-based communities. This study advances the ethical
duty of environmental communication to better understand the ways in
which environmental discourse and ecocultural and material realities are
imbricated, as well as the call for such discursive study to be grounded
in phenomenological experience of the natural world.
22 pages., via online journal., Water is essential for human life, yet safe drinking water is a limited resource. Critical to fighting the global water crisis are public awareness campaigns, including Public Service Announcements (PSAs). While YouTube has become a popular medium for disseminating prosocial content such as PSAs, environmental communication efforts on this platform remain largely uninvestigated. This study examines the content and characteristics of global water crisis PSAs on YouTube by applying two communication models: the Extended Parallel Process Model, and the Elaboration Likelihood Model. These models are used to evaluate the potential effectiveness of the PSAs. Content analysis reveals that threat messages often outweigh efficacy messages in the videos, central route processing cues are more prevalent than peripheral route cues, and a focus on quality or quantity issues differed by sponsoring organization (non-profit, for-profit, government). Implications and avenues for potential future research are discussed.
8 pages., Online via UIUC Library electronic subscription., The author of this commentary argued that environmental journalism offers a conceptual model and guide to action for all journalists in the "post-truth" and "post-fact" era. "Since the specialism was formed in the 1960s, environmental journalists have reported on politically partisan issues where facts are contested, expertise is challenged, and uncertainty is heightened. To deal with these and other challenges, environmental journalism ... has reassessed and reconfigured the foundational journalistic concept of objectivity. The specialism has come to view objectivity as the implementation of a transparent method, as the pluralistic search for consensus, and, most importantly, as trained judgment."
