Environmental Communication

Merging Duke Energy and Progress Energy: Online Public Discourse, Post-Fukushima Reactions, and the Absence of Environmental Communication

by Ashley R. Kelly

Co-authored with Meagan Kittle Autry

This article examines online discourse in 2011 surrounding the proposed Duke Energy and Progress Energy merger in the... more This article examines online discourse in 2011 surrounding the proposed Duke Energy and Progress Energy merger in the Carolinas. It explores how issues pertaining to the merger, including constructing new nuclear plants, are discussed in media coverage and by citizens using social media. Overall, we find that the merger discourse focuses on economic concerns rather than the environmental concerns we had anticipated. However, post-Fukushima discourse appears to have become more inclusive of environmental concerns. We conclude that environmental discussions and efforts are likely to be globally informed and locally situated, discussing the implications for environmental communication research exploring online discourses, specifically through social media. Future research must address how to locate and delineate constellations of locally situated discourse to provide a clearer picture of environmentally focused social media communication.

Rhetoric, Climate Change, and Corporate Identity Management

by Finn Frandsen

Co-authored with W. Johansen. Published in Management Communication Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 3, 2011.

Subaquatic Frames

by Nicole Starosielski

Published on FlowTV.org, Volume 15, No. 9 (2012).

Aotearoa/New Zealand print news media reportage of the environment

by Geoffrey Craig

Everyday epiphanies: Environmental networks in eco-makeover lifestyle television

by Geoffrey Craig

TreeHugging users: Engagement in an online green community

by Alex Bea

The study of blogs up to this point has primarily, though not exclusively, covered “A-list” and political or campaign... more The study of blogs up to this point has primarily, though not exclusively, covered “A-list” and political or campaign blogs. Large filter blogs have not yet been the focus of communication research and offer an exciting new area of scholarship in online communication. This study examined if and how the environmental blog, TreeHugger, works to engage and maintain the online environmental community by potentially acting an online environmental public sphere and interacting with users who make up the community.

Through a content analysis of two constructed weeks of blog posts (N=336) and their comments (N=1342) from the first half of 2008, this study examined the discussion of issues, use of interactive feature, and presence of the metacommunication frame in both groups. Results showed significant influence of topic and tone in the blog posts on the subsequent user comments. They also showed how commenters’ discussion can operate quite independently as well. In particular, comments were found to have a negative valence significantly more than the posts. Also, the focus of external metacommunication frames in each differed significantly, with posts referencing other mass media more often.

Overall, this thesis concludes that writers for blogs like TreeHugger have limited influence on the discussion in the comments. Greater understanding of that influence could help bloggers engage readers better and promote active dialogue.

Scripting Just Sustainability: Through Green Listing Towards Eco-Blogging

by John Tinnell

Published in Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture (Volume 5, Issue 2, 2011)

Les aventures de Pinocchio au pays du greenwashing. Analyse des stratégies de contradiction dans le site du «Prix Pinocchio»

by Andrea Catellani

La communication environnementale interne d’entreprise aujourd’hui. Dissémination d’un nouveau « grand récit »

by Andrea Catellani

Communication et organisation [En ligne], 36 | 2009, mis en ligne le 11 mars 2011, URL : http://communicationorganisation.revues.org/985

Les thèmes de l’environnement et de sa protection sont aujourd’hui au centre de la communication des entreprises... more Les thèmes de l’environnement et de sa protection sont aujourd’hui au centre de la communication des entreprises envers leurs salariés. Cet article présente les premiers résultats d’une recherche d’orientation narratologique et sémiotique sur les journaux internes de quelques grandes entreprises belges, pour observer la présence de ces thèmes. L’analyse s’est concentrée en particulier sur deux points. Le premier est celui de l’incarnation du "grand récit » de l’environnement et de sa protection dans les micro-récits des bonnes pratiques exemplaires, présents dans les journaux internes examinés. Le deuxième est celui des modalités de construction de la valeur environnementale des pratiques et comportements des entreprises et de leurs salariés.

English:
The themes of environment and of its preservation are nowadays at the very centre of business internal communication. This article presents the first results of a research on internal newspapers of some big Belgian businesses, in order to observe the presence of these themes. The research has a semiotic and narratological orientation, and it has been focused on two points. The first is the incarnation of the “great narrative” of the environment and its protection in the micro-narratives of good exemplary practices, as they are presented in the examined internal newspapers. The second is the way of building the environmental value of practices and behaviors of businesses and their staff.
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The Visual Communication of Ecological Literacy

by Jody Joanna Boehnert

This paper is derived from my PhD research and is a preprint of an article submitted to a call for papers on the theme of ‘Visual Environmental Communication’, for a special issue of Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture, Volume 6, Issue 4 (December, 2012), Taylor & Francis.

This paper describes how graphic design can support ecological literacy. Starting with a brief introduction to... more This paper describes how graphic design can support ecological literacy. Starting with a brief introduction to ecological literacy and a proposal that communication design must join the crisis disciplines in responding to predicaments in the earth science, the paper will argue that within an increasingly visual culture, visual intelligence can support the development of new perceptual capabilities potentially leading to relational ways of knowing. Graphic design can facilitate emergent ecological literacy and ecological perception by displaying context, causality and complexity. Images can foster whole systems understanding due to their unique ability to reveal relationships, dynamics and patterns. Graphic design can thus nurture the development of ecological manners of thought by strategically constructing visual resources to encourage ecological perception.

Epistemological Error: A Whole Systems View of Converging Crisis

by Jody Joanna Boehnert

Paper for 'Learning from the Crisis', Philosophy of Management conference at the University of Oxford, July 2010 and to be published in the journal Philosophy of Management in 2012.

Gregory Bateson said that we are ‘governed by epistemologies that we know to be wrong’ back in 1972. In the same book... more Gregory Bateson said that we are ‘governed by epistemologies that we know to be wrong’ back in 1972. In the same book Bateson wrote: 'the organism that destroys its environment destroys itself.’ Almost forty years later global ecological systems are in steep decline and converging crises make a deep evaluation of the underlying premises of our philosophical traditions an urgent imperative. This paper will suggest that the roots of the economic crisis are epistemological and that to correct this error whole systems thinking and ecological literacy will become increasing important in business management as well as in other disciplines. It will also suggest that the economic crisis opened new political space and has provided an opportunity for intervention. If we are brave enough to examine of the roots of our problems there is possibility for renewal.

Paper for Philosophy of Management conference at the University of Oxford in July 2010. More info here: http://bit.ly/a895P2+

ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION AND PEOPLE’S PARTICIPATION: LESSONS LEARNED IN FIVE NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT PROJECTS

by Alexander Flor

Contributed to the book Sustaining Natural Resources Management in Southeast Asia (2001) edited by Arnold Garcia

Contredire l'entreprise

by Andrea Catellani

Published by Presses Universitaires de Louvain, 2010

Environmentalists NGOs and the construction of the culprit: semiotic analysis

by Andrea Catellani

published in the "Journal of Communication Management", Volume: 15 Issue: 4 2011

Purpose – This article aims to analyse how environmentalist NGOs build the figures of guilty and evil businesses in... more Purpose – This article aims to analyse how environmentalist NGOs build the figures of guilty and evil businesses in texts published on the web sites of two ironic prizes. These texts are good examples of criticism based on reversing and analysing semiotic productions of organisations, like advertising and environmental reports, as a part of on-line environmentalist campaigns.

Design/methodology/approach – The article is based on textual semiotics and a semiotic-based approach to rhetoric; the methodology is qualitative and exploratory. A part of the text published on the web sites of the two ironic prizes (Pinocchio and Angry Mermaid) are analysed in order to identify different models and strategies of criticism.

Findings – The article identifies a series of critical strategies: semantic/paradigmatic, syntagmatic/meta-textual, referential, narrative and inter-textual criticisms. It underlines the fact that on-line criticism is an anti-ideological semiotic action, which can be compared to some forms of ecological thought. Nonetheless, it is based on some forms of rhetoric and ideology, which can be analysed with semiotic tools.

La communication interne à l'épreuve du développement durable: analyse de cas en Belgique

by Andrea Catellani

Hopenhagen: Design Activism as an Oxymoron

by Jody Joanna Boehnert

This paper was delivered at Design History Society's Design Activism and Social Change conference in Barcelona September 2011. A slideshow of the presentation can be found at http://www.eco-labs.org/

Hopenhagen was an initiative by the International Advertising Association (IAA) in support of the United Nations at... more Hopenhagen was an initiative by the International Advertising Association (IAA) in support of the United Nations at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP-15) in Copenhagen December 2009. The international public relations campaign culminated with an installation in the public square in central Copenhagen during the climate summit. Meanwhile, many of thousands of climate activists congregated in Copenhagen found Hopenhagen itself so offensive that they made the campaign and installation itself a target of their protests. Hopenhagen is a classic example of corporate appropriation of people’s movements and the subsequent neutralization of the messages demanding structural change and social justice. As such Hopenhagen embodies the conflict within the concept of design activism itself. This paper will describe how Hopenhagen 2009 damaged genuine people’s movements at Copenhagen. It will also prescribe strategies for public exhibitions and information campaigns for more democratic communication processes. Critically it is wrong to assume that the tactics used in the advertising industry can be used to build a climate movement. The mistake started as soon as the UN asked the IAA for help.

Meat’s Place on the Campaign Menu: How U.S. Environmental Discourse Negotiates Vegetarianism

by Carrie Packwood Freeman

JOURNAL ARTICLE:  Freeman, C. P. (2010). Meat’s Place on the Campaign Menu: How U.S. Environmental Discourse Negotiates Vegetarianism. Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture, 4(3), 255 - 276.

Given the impact of America's food choices, particularly animal-based foods, on life-sustaining systems, to what... more Given the impact of America's food choices, particularly animal-based foods, on life-sustaining systems, to what extent is the environmental movement making meat-based diets an issue? This research analyzes websites of 15 US environmental advocacy organizations to examine how they negotiate the question of animal versus plant-based diets and propose solutions for food producers and consumers. Environmental organizations proposed that industrial agriculture and commercial fishing/aquaculture severely limit destructive practices to more sustainably meet consumer demand for animal products. Environmental organizations offered consumers choices, including: (1) replacement of much industrial food with local, organic, and/or sustainable animal or plant foods, (2) reduction of animal products, and, to a lesser degree, (3) vegetarianism. To consistently promote justice for all animals, the author recommends environmental discourse more explicitly critique animal agriculture/fishing as a primary source of environmental problems, consider food needs not just preferences, and promote fundamental changes toward a plant-based, largely organic diet.

Towards a European Identity? The News Media and the Case of Climate Change

by Ulrika Olausson

Much research on the discursive construction of Europe in national news media has quantitatively focused on the... more Much research on the discursive construction of Europe in national news media has quantitatively focused on the presence of ‘EU topics’. The more frequently EU topics appear, the better the breeding-ground for a sense of European community, it is argued. This article tackles the question of a European identity from a different angle. Guided by theories on collective identity and power, and utilizing qualitative discourse analysis of the reporting on climate change in a tabloid newspaper and public service television news in Sweden, this article discerns a budding European political identity, discursively embedded and ‘hidden’ in the reporting as the natural order of things. When turned into common-sense knowledge, the European realm as a representative of ‘Us’ is accorded spontaneous legitimacy as a relevant political power in the making of meaning on climate change.

“We're the Ones to Blame”: Citizens' Representations of Climate Change and the Role of the Media

by Ulrika Olausson

In the discussion on how to meet the challenges of climate change the important role of news reporting is often... more In the discussion on how to meet the challenges of climate change the important role of news reporting is often emphasized; the media are considered to have significant influence on citizens' understandings of the issue. However, studies that empirically explore the media's role in shaping these understandings are rather scarce compared with analyses of media content alone. While fully acknowledging the fruitfulness of the study of media material, this article argues that there are tendencies in these studies to, in a somewhat “media-centric” fashion, reduce the complexity of the relationship between media content and audience reception. The article, which reports on findings from a focus-group study containing 53 Swedish citizens, starts from the premise that this relationship must be subjected to empirical analysis rather than axiomatically asserted, and aims to contribute empirically based knowledge on the connection between media staging of climate change and citizens' representations of this global risk.

Global warming—global responsibility? Media frames of collective action and scientific certainty

by Ulrika Olausson

The increasing interconnectedness of the world that characterizes the process of
globalization compels us to... more The increasing interconnectedness of the world that characterizes the process of
globalization compels us to interlink local, national, and transnational phenomena,
such as environmental risks, in both journalistic and academic discourse.
Among environmental risks of global scope climate change is probably the one
receiving the most attention at present, not least in the media. Globalization
notwithstanding, national media are still dominated by a national logic in the
presentation of news, and tensions arise between this media logic and the
transnational character of environmental risks that call for a collective responsibility
transcending the borders of the nation-states. This article presents results
from studies of the construction of global climate change in three Swedish newspapers.
It discusses the media’s attribution of responsibility for collective action
along an axis ranging from local to national to transnational, and highlights the
media’s reluctance to display any kind of scientific uncertainty that would undermine
the demand for collective action. The results underline the media’s responsiveness
to the political setting in which they operate and the growing relevance
of the transnational political realm of Europe for the construction of news frames
on global climate change in European national media.