Political Macroenvironments & Cultural Information Protection: The Challenge of Communication in Native American Environmental and Natural Resource Management

Abstract

Indigenous environmental and natural resource management agencies face the complex task of communicating science, policy, and practice to a wide array of publics and stakeholders, yet the communication strategies and challenges of this set of professionals have been overlooked in the literature. One theoretical model suggests that public sector employees make communication decisions based on different factors than their private organization counterparts. The current study presents results from a survey of natural resource managers and other environmental professionals working for Native American Nations in the United States. Results show that the political relationships among Native Nations, states, and federal agencies may create a complex political macroenvironment within which communicators must carefully operate. Concerns about protecting cultural information carry significant weight in the communication decision-making process of these organizations and present a key factor influencing communication decision-making. Implications for models of government communication are discussed.