Communication, media and environment: Towards reconnecting research on the production, content and social implications of environmental communication

Abstract

Surveying environmental communication research of the past four decades, the article delineates some of the key trends and approaches in research which has sought to address the role played by media and communication processes in the public and political definition, elaboration and contestation of environmental issues and problems. It is argued: (1) that there is a need to reconnect the traditional, but traditionally also relative distinct, three major foci of communication research on media and environmental issues: the production/construction of media messages and public communications; the content/messages of media communication; and the impact of media and public communication on public/political understanding and action with regard to the environment; and (2) that there is a need for media and communications research on environmental issues/controversy to reconnect with traditional sociological concerns about power and inequality in the public sphere, particularly in terms of showing how economic, political and cultural power significantly affects the ability to participate in and influence the nature of public ‘mediated’ communication about the environment.