Environmental communication
Encyclopedia
Environmental communication refers to the study and practice of how individuals, institutions, societies, and cultures craft, distribute, receive, understand, and use messages about the environment
and human interactions with the environment. This includes a wide range of possible interactions, from interpersonal communication to virtual communities, participatory decision making, and environmental media coverage.
From the perspective of practice, Alexander Flor
, defines it as the application of communication approaches, principles, strategies and techniques to environmental management and protection.
, environmental studies
, environmental science
, risk analysis
and management, sociology
, and political ecology
.
Flor (2003) considers it as a significant element in the environmental sciences, which he believes to be a transdicipline. He begins his textbook on environmental communication with a declarative statement, "Environmentalism as we know it today began with environmental communication. The environmental movement was ignited by a spark from a writer’s pen, or more specifically and accurately, Rachel Carson
’s typewriter."
Flor, Alexander G. (2003). Environmental Communication. Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines: University of the Philippines-Open University
See also Mark Meisner's bibliography of books in environmental communication
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
and human interactions with the environment. This includes a wide range of possible interactions, from interpersonal communication to virtual communities, participatory decision making, and environmental media coverage.
From the perspective of practice, Alexander Flor
Alexander Flor
Alexander G. Flor is a Filipino academic known for his transdisciplinary approach to communication and as a pioneer of the Los Baños school of development communication, contributing to the field's understanding and application of ethnovideography, distance learning, strategic communication,...
, defines it as the application of communication approaches, principles, strategies and techniques to environmental management and protection.
Academic field
As an academic field, environmental communication emerged from interdisciplinary work involving communicationCommunication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
, environmental studies
Environmental studies
Environmental studies is the academic field which systematically studies human interaction with the environment. It is a broad interdisciplinary field of study that includes the natural environment, built environment, and the sets of relationships between them...
, environmental science
Environmental science
Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physical and biological sciences, to the study of the environment, and the solution of environmental problems...
, risk analysis
Risk analysis (engineering)
Risk analysis is the science of risks and their probability and evaluation.Probabilistic risk assessment is one analysis strategy usually employed in science and engineering.-Risk analysis and the risk workshop:...
and management, sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, and political ecology
Political ecology
Political ecology is the study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors with environmental issues and changes. Political ecology differs from apolitical ecological studies by politicizing environmental issues and phenomena....
.
Flor (2003) considers it as a significant element in the environmental sciences, which he believes to be a transdicipline. He begins his textbook on environmental communication with a declarative statement, "Environmentalism as we know it today began with environmental communication. The environmental movement was ignited by a spark from a writer’s pen, or more specifically and accurately, Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson
Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement....
’s typewriter."
Symbolic action
Environmental communication is also a type of symbolic action that serves two functions. Those functions are pragmatic and constitutive. Environmental communication is pragmatic because it helps individuals and organizations to accomplish goals and literally do things through communication. Examples of this include educating, alerting, persuading and collaborating. Environmental communication is constitutive because it helps to shape people's understandings of environmental issues, themselves, and Nature; it shapes the meanings we hold of these things. Examples of this include values, attitudes, and ideologies vis-à-vis Nature and environmental issues and problems.Areas of study and practice
According to Robert Cox, the field of environmental communication is composed of seven major areas of study and practice:- Environmental rhetoricRhetoricRhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
and discourseDiscourseDiscourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:... - MediaNews mediaThe news media are those elements of the mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public.These include print media , broadcast news , and more recently the Internet .-Etymology:A medium is a carrier of something...
and environmental journalismEnvironmental journalismEnvironmental journalism is the collection, verification, production, distribution and exhibition of information regarding current events, trends, issues and people that are associated with the non-human world with which humans necessarily interact... - Public participationPublic participationPublic participation is a political principle or practice, and may also be recognised as a right . The terms public participation may be used interchangeably with the concept or practice of stakeholder engagement and/or popular participation.Generally public participation seeks and facilitates the...
in environmental decision making - Social marketingSocial marketingSocial marketing is the systematic application of marketing, along with other concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good. Social marketing can be applied to promote merit goods, or to make a society avoid demerit goods and thus to promote society's well being as...
and AdvocacyAdvocacyAdvocacy is a political process by an individual or a large group which normally aims to influence public-policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions; it may be motivated from moral, ethical or faith principles or simply to protect an...
campaigns - Environmental collaborationCollaborationCollaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing...
and conflict resolutionConflict resolutionConflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of some social conflict. Often, committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information about their conflicting motives or ideologies to the rest... - Risk communication
- Representations of Nature in popular culturePopular culturePopular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
and green marketingGreen marketingAccording to the American Marketing Association, green marketing is the marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe. Thus green marketing incorporates a broad range of activities, including product modification, changes to the production process, packaging changes, as well as...
See also
- List of environmental issues
- List of environmental studies topics
- Lists of environmental publications
External links
- International Environmental Communication Association (IECA) - a professional association for environmental communication practitioners, teachers, and scholars
- Indications: Environmental Communication blog
- ECOresearch Network - Research Network on Environmental Online Communication
Books
Cox, Robert. (2010). Environmental Communication And The Public Sphere (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage PublicationsFlor, Alexander G. (2003). Environmental Communication. Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines: University of the Philippines-Open University
See also Mark Meisner's bibliography of books in environmental communication