Environmental Communication

Abstract

The study of environmental communication, as a subfield of the study of communication, is a relatively recent endeavor. Roughly speaking, the field of environmental communication involves the study of existing communication about environmental issues and the identification of methods for improved communication about environmental issues. The field has its roots in a variety of disciplines, and it now includes subdisciplines such as environmental rhetoric, environmental journalism, and environmental media effects, among others. The earliest articles in the core literature emerged in the late 1960s and the 1970s, partly as a response to the obvious increases in environmental awareness that had taken place since the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. In the 1980s, more universities began offering courses in environmental communication, and some departments even offered graduate specializations. The field was often, though not always, linked with science and health communication, and some scholars profess specialization in “environmental, science, and health communication” as a single unified subdiscipline. The major communication associations have developed divisions for environmental communication (first, the National Communication Association, and, then, the International Communication Association) though both followed the lead initially of the Conference on Communication and Environment (COCE). Now the International Environmental Communication Association is the latest group unifying environmental communication scholars. The association publishes the journal Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture. A variety of activities take place today under the banner of environmental communication. Approximately equal contributions are made by scholars using humanistic or social science methods. Some researchers focus on the study of environmental communication from a critical or analytic standpoint, whereas others develop teaching tools and instructional methods to improve environmental practice. Thus, the typical divisions within communication are present (rhetoric versus mass communication approaches, for instance), but scholars from diverse fields are also engaged in examining ways to improve communication within their own environmental subdomains (wildlife management practitioners, for instance, have been especially interested in communication). Another way to segment environmental communication research is by topic domain. Recently, major studies have focused primarily on climate, but earlier research concentrated on topics such as nuclear power, pollution, endangered species, acid rain, etc.