Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere

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.

Table of Contents:
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?

About the Author :
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; 2007-2008) as president of the Sierra Club, the largest grassroots U.S. environmental organization, and was also on the board of directors for Earth Echo International, whose mission is “to empower youth to take action that restores and protects our water planet.” Cox also continues to advise environmental groups on their communication programs. He regularly participates in environmental and climate change initiatives and has campaigned with former vice president Al Gore, singer Melissa Etheridge, and other public figures. He also enjoys hiking and trekking in the Himalayas, Europe, and the southern Appalachian Mountains in the United States. 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 Environmentalism (MIT Press, 2007). She was a founding editor of the journal Environmental Communication and serves on its editorial board. She has volunteered on the Sierra Club’s national Environmental Justice Committee and Affinity Group Working Group, consulted with cities and counties on a just transition, and was a delegate at COP21 in Paris. Pezzullo is a founding co-director of the Center for Creative Climate Communication and Behavior Change (C3BC) on her campus. She also enjoys outdoor recreation and cooking a plant-based diet.