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Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere
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Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere

Fourth Edition

Discover the significance and practice of Environmental Communication!



April 2015 | 440 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
The Fourth Edition of Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere remains the only comprehensive introduction to the growing field of environmental communication, ranging from an historical overview of key terms to important legal and technological developments. This innovative book focuses on how human communication influences the way we perceive and act in the environment. It also examines how we interpret environmental “problems” and decide what actions to take with regard to the natural world.  

Three-time president of the Sierra Club, the largest environmental group in the United States, lead author Robert Cox leverages his vast experience to offer insights into the news media, Congress, environmental conflict, advocacy campaigns, and other real-world applications of environmental communication. New coauthor Phaedra Pezzullo brings two decades of applied experience working with grassroots environmental justice and health organizations, citizen advisory boards, and student-led campaigns, as well as her internationally recognized research on toxic pollution, social injustices, public advocacy, and more.

The authors introduce the reader to the major areas, terms, and debates of this evolving field. The Fourth Edition incorporates major revisions that include four new chapters on visual and popular culture, digital media and activism, the sustainability of college and corporation campuses, and the legal “standing” of citizens and nature. Updates throughout the text draw on timely topics including visual communication used in climate science campaigns, fracking and challenges to the right to know, plastic bag bans, consumer apps, digital activism for environmental justice, green marketing, and arguments on giving legal rights to nonhuman entities from dolphins to rivers.
 
Introduction: Speaking for/About the Environment
 
PART I: COMMUNICATING FOR/ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT
 
Chapter 1. Studying/Practicing Environmental Communication
The Study of Environmental Communication

 
Nature, Communication, and the Public Sphere

 
Diverse Voices in a “Green” Public Sphere

 
Global Study of Environmental Communication

 
 
Chapter 2. Contested Meanings of Environment
Learning to Love Nature

 
Wilderness Preservation Versus Natural Resource Conservation

 
Public Health and the Ecology Movement

 
Environmental Justice: Linking Social Justice and Environmental Quality

 
Movements for Sustainability and Climate Justice

 
 
PART II: CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE ENVIRONMENT
 
Chapter 3. Symbolic Constructions of Environment
A Rhetorical Perspective

 
Communication Frames

 
Dominant and Critical Discourses

 
 
Chapter 4. The Environment in/of Visual and Popular Culture
The Environment and Popular Culture

 
Looking at the Environment

 
Moving Images of Disasters

 
Green Art, Marketing, and Graphic Design

 
 
Chapter 5. News Media and Environmental Journalism (Old and New)
Growth and Changes in Environmental News

 
News Production and the Environment

 
Media Effects

 
Digital Technologies and the Transformation of Environmental News

 
 
PART III: COMMUNICATING IN AN AGE OF ECOLOGICAL CRISES
 
Chapter 6. Scientists, Technology, and Environmental Controversies
Science, Technology, and Symbolic Legitimacy

 
The Precautionary Principle

 
Early Warners: Environmental Scientists and the Public

 
Science and the Trope of Uncertainty

 
Communicating Climate Science

 
 
Chapter 7. Environmental Risk Communication and the Public
Dangerous Environments: Assessing Risk

 
Communicating Environmental Risks in the Public Sphere

 
Citizens Becoming Scientists

 
Mainstream News Media and Environmental Risk

 
 
PART IV: ENVIRONMENTAL CAMPAIGNS AND MOVEMENTS
 
Chapter 8. Advocacy Campaigns and Message Construction
Environmental Advocacy

 
Environmental Advocacy Campaigns

 
The Campaign to Protect Zuni Salt Lake

 
Message Construction

 
 
Chapter 9. Digital Media and Environmental Activism
Grassroots Activism and Digital Media

 
Environmental NGOs and Digital Campaigns

 
Multimodality and Networked Campaigns

 
Scaling Up: The “Peoples Climate March”

 
 
Chapter 10. Environmental Justice and Climate Justice Movements
Environmental Justice: Challenging a Place Apart

 
Challenging Indecorous Voices and Sacrifice Zones

 
The Global Movement for Climate Justice

 
 
Chapter 11. Sustainability and the “Greening” of Corporations and Campuses
Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Approach

 
Free Market Discourse and the Environment

 
Corporate Sustainability Communication: Reflection or Deflection?

 
Greenwashing and the Discourse of Green Consumerism

 
Communicating Sustainability on and Through Campuses

 
 
PART V: CITIZEN VOICES AND ENVIRONMENTAL FORUMS
 
Chapter 12. Public Participation in Environmental Decisions
Right to Know: Access to Information

 
Right to Comment

 
SLAPP: Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation

 
Growth of Public Participation Internationally

 
 
Chapter 13. Managing Conflict: Collaboration and Environmental Disputes
New Approaches to Environmental Disputes

 
Collaborating to Resolve Environmental Conflicts

 
Limits of Collaboration and Consensus

 
Common Criticisms of Collaboration

 
 
Chapter 14. Citizens’ (and Nature’s) Standing: Environmental Protection and the Law
Right of Standing and Citizen Suits

 
Landmark Cases on Environmental Standing

 
Global Warming and the Right of Standing

 
Do Future Generations and Non-Human Nature Have a Right of Standing?

 

A really useful dimension to the issues of environmental pollution, so will include a couple of lectures on environmental communicaiton utilising ideas from this book.

Professor Iseult Lynch
Schl of Geog, Earth & Env'l Sciences, Birmingham University
June 30, 2016

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter 8

Chapter 11


J. "James" Robert Cox

Robert Cox is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His principal research areas are environmental and climate change communication and strategic studies of social movements. A internationally-recognized leading scholar who helped found the field of environmental communication, Cox is coeditor of The Routledge Handbook of Environment and Communication (2015; second edition forthcoming), editor of the four-volume reference series Environmental Communication (Sage, 2016), and the author of numerous studies of environmental and climate change campaigns. He has served three times (1994-1996; 2000-2001; 2007... More About Author

Phaedra Carmen Pezzullo

Phaedra C. Pezzullo is Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, and a dual citizen with the US and Italia. Her interdisciplinary background informs her research on environmental justice, climate justice, just transition, public advocacy, and tourist studies. Her book, Toxic Tourism (University of Alabama Press, 2007), won four awards, including the Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award and the National Communication Association’s Environmental Communication Division Book Award. Among other publications, she coedited Green Communication and China (Michigan State University Press, 2020) and Environmental Justice and... More About Author

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ISBN: 9781483344331
$87.00