Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere

The best-selling Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere provides a comprehensive introduction to the growing field of environmental communication. This groundbreaking book focuses on the role that human communication plays in influencing the ways we perceive the environment. Authors Phaedra C. Pezzullo and Robert Cox examine how we define what constitutes an environmental problem and how we decide what actions to take concerning the natural world. The Sixth Edition explores recent events and research, including fast fashion, global youth climate strikes, biodiversity loss, disability rights advocacy, single-use plastic ban controversies, and the COVID-19 pandemic.


Table of Contents:
Preface to the Sixth Edition Introduction: Speaking for/About the Environment About the Authors Part I: Communicating for/About the Environment Chapter 1: Defining Environmental Communication Studying Environmental Communication Communication, the Environment, and the Public Sphere Diverse Environmental Voices in the Public Sphere Summary Suggested Resources Key Terms Discussion Questions Chapter 2: Contested Meanings: A Brief History Turtle Island Learning to Love Nature Wilderness Preservation Versus Natural Resource Conservation Public Health and the Ecology Movement Environmental Justice: Linking Social Justice and Public Health Contemporary Movements for Sustainability and Climate Justice Summary Suggested Resources Key Terms Discussion Questions Chapter 3: Symbolic Constructions of the Environment A Rhetorical Perspective Dominant and Critical Discourses Summary Suggested Resources Key Terms Discussion Questions Chapter 4: Environmental Media and Sustainability The Environment and Popular Culture Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Approach Sustainability Discourses Corporate Sustainability Communication: Reflection or Deflection? Greenwashing Summary Suggested Resources Key Terms Discussion Questions Part II: Environmental Campaigns and Movements Chapter 5: Environmental Advocacy Campaigns Environmental Advocacy Environmental Advocacy Campaigns The Campaign to Protect Zuni Salt Lake Summary Suggested Resources Key Terms Discussion Questions Chapter 6: Digital Environmental Organizing Grassroots Activism and Digital Media Environmental NGOs and Digital Campaign Dilemmas Multimodality and Networked Campaigns Summary Suggested Resources Key Terms Discussion Questions Chapter 7: Visual and Market Advocacy Visual Rhetoric and Nature Advocacy Moving Images of Disasters Summary Suggested Resources Key Terms Discussion Questions Chapter 8: Environmental Justice and Climate Justice Movements Environmental Justice: Challenges, Critiques, and Change Honoring Frontline Knowledge and Traveling on Toxic Tours The Global Movement for Climate Justice Summary Suggested Resources Key Terms Discussion Questions Part III: Environmental Discourses and Public Spheres Chapter 9: Environmental Journalism Environmental Journalism in the Public Sphere Breaking News and Environmental Journalism Media Effects and Influences Digital Storytelling and Environmental News Summary Suggested Resources Key Terms Discussion Questions Chapter 10: Science and Climate Communication Scientific Argumentation Early Warners: Environmental Scientists and the Public Resisting (Climate) Science Communicating Climate Science Summary Suggested Resources Key Terms Discussion Questions Chapter 11: Public Health and Environmental Risk Communication Dangerous Environments: Assessment in a Risk Society Communicating Environmental Risks in the Public Sphere The Precautionary Principle Citizens Becoming Scientists Voices of Environmental Risk Summary Suggested Resources Key Terms Discussion Questions Part IV: Green Governance and Legal Spheres Chapter 12: Public Participation and Democratic Rights Rights of Public Participation Right to Know: Transparency and Access to Information Right to Comment: Involvement SLAPP: Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation Growth of Public Participation Internationally Summary Suggested Resources Key Terms Discussion Questions Chapter 13: Voice and Public Dissent Right of Expression and Right of Assembly Right of Standing: Who Legally Can Speak? Landmark Cases on Environmental Standing Reversing, Slowing, or Reducing Global Warming as Injury Who Should Have a Right of Standing? Summary Suggested Resources Key Terms Discussion Questions Epilogue: Imagining Stories of/for Our Future Glossary References Index

About the Author :
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. 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.