Notes for Chapter 1, Cox
Page 4
7 principal areas of study in EC
3 themes:
- Human communication is a form of symbolic action;
- Our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors relating to nature and environmental problems are mediated or influenced by communication; and
- The public sphere (or spheres) emerges as a discursive space for communication about the environment.
Diverse voices – see list
Page 5
“rhetoric of campaigns” (to save Yosemite Valley) – cf. Wild by Law (PBS video)
Pages 7 – 11
Environmental rhetoric and discourse
Media and environmental journalism
Public participation in environmental decision making
Advocacy campaigns
Environmental collaboration and conflict resolution
Stakeholders / Collaboration
Risk communication
3 areas (page 10)
Representations of nature in popular culture and green marketing
Examples? Medicine Man (1992) // chapter 10 in Cox
Pages 11 – 13
A Definition of Environmental Communication
Kenneth Burke – symbolic action
Shannon-Weaver model of communication
Language and symbols “actively shape our understanding, create meaning, and orient us to a wider world.” (p12)
“Burke went so far as to claim that ‘much that we take as observations about “reality” may be but the spinning out of possibilities implicit in our particular choice of terms.” (12)
Cox’s definition: (p12)
“the pragmatic and constitutive vehicle for our understanding of the environment as well as our relationships to the natural world; it is the symbolic medium that we use in constructing environmental problems and negotiating society’s different responses to them.”
Pragmatic? Constitutive?
Three core principles (p13)
“. . . as we engage others, our communication mediates, or shapes, our own and others’ perceptions, beliefs, and behavior toward the environment.” (13)
Page 15
“Human communication therefore is symbolic action because we draw upon language and other symbols to construct a framework for understanding and valuing and to bring the wider world to others’ attention.”
Page 16
Nature? Environment? – Just ‘ideas’? J
Pages 16-17
Aldo Leopold? Who was he? If you don’t know, FIND OUT.
Page 18
Public Sphere – Habermas
“. . . the realm of influence that is created when individuals engage others in communication – through conversation, argument, debate, or questioning – about subjects of shared concern or topics that affect a wider community.” (p18)
Thomas Goodnight – personal vs. technical spheres // intersection (collision?) of these 3 spheres?
Page 19
· Public sphere not an official ‘space’
o What was the Greek ‘agora’? (p19)
· Public sphere not monolithic nor uniform
· Public sphere a “space for popular or democratic communication meant as a counter”? Discuss
Pages 20 – 28
6 major ‘voices’ or points of view
Citizens and community groups
Environmental groups
Scientists and scientific discourse
Corporations and business lobbyists
Anti-environmentalist groups
Media and environmental journalism