Empirical Studies of Participatory Environmental Communication

Empirical Studies of Participatory Environmental Communication
Author: Mekonnen Hailemariam
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2022-07-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 6208000130

International and local stakeholders are being engaged to alleviate the global environmental and livelihood challenges affecting the rural community. NGOs are helping to share these burdens by implementing community projects that address environmental and livelihood issues in rural communities. However, implementing such community projects is challenging for several reasons. One of the main challenges is considering viable implementation strategies applied as pragmatic instruments to community projects. The pragmatic instruments of participatory environmental communication that consider environmental communication, non-formal environmental education, stakeholders' participation and environmental conflicts are the major tenets used to implement community projects in the rural society in Ethiopia. These implementation strategies are best sought by a local NGO working on an Environment and Forest Development Program aimed at improving Ethiopia's environment and rural society's livelihood. Although it has ups and downs, the NGO has vast experience of implementing community projects. The experiences provide solid solutions for the viability of community projects.

Participatory Media in Environmental Communication

Participatory Media in Environmental Communication
Author: Usha Sundar Harris
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 124
Release: 2018-09-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317223411

Participatory Media in Environmental Communication brings together stories of communities in the Pacific islands – a region that is severely affected by the impacts of climate change. Despite living on the margins of the digital revolution, these island communities have used media and communication to create awareness of and find solutions to environmental challenges. By telling their stories in their own way, ordinary people are able to communicate compelling accounts of how different, but interrelated, environmental, political, and economic issues converge and impact at a local level. This book fills a significant gap in our understanding of how participatory media is used as a dialogic tool to raise awareness and facilitate discussion of environmental issues that are now critical. It includes a section on pedagogy and practice – the undergirding principles, the tools, the methods. The book offers a framework for Participatory Environmental Communication that weaves three widely used concepts, diversity, network and agency, into a cohesive underlying system to bring scholars, practitioners and diverse communities together in a dialogue about pressing environmental issues. This book is a valuable resource for researchers and students in communication and media studies, environmental communication, cultural studies, and environmental sciences, as well as practitioners, policy makers and environmental activists.

Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making

Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2008-11-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0309134412

Federal agencies have taken steps to include the public in a wide range of environmental decisions. Although some form of public participation is often required by law, agencies usually have broad discretion about the extent of that involvement. Approaches vary widely, from holding public information-gathering meetings to forming advisory groups to actively including citizens in making and implementing decisions. Proponents of public participation argue that those who must live with the outcome of an environmental decision should have some influence on it. Critics maintain that public participation slows decision making and can lower its quality by including people unfamiliar with the science involved. This book concludes that, when done correctly, public participation improves the quality of federal agencies' decisions about the environment. Well-managed public involvement also increases the legitimacy of decisions in the eyes of those affected by them, which makes it more likely that the decisions will be implemented effectively. This book recommends that agencies recognize public participation as valuable to their objectives, not just as a formality required by the law. It details principles and approaches agencies can use to successfully involve the public.

Environmental Communication. Second Edition

Environmental Communication. Second Edition
Author: Richard R. Jurin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2010-07-20
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9048139872

Environmental professionals can no longer simply publish research in technical journals. Informing the public is now a critical part of the job. Environmental Communication demonstrates, step by step, how it’s done, and is an essential guide for communicating complex information to groups not familiar with scientific material. It addresses the entire communications process, from message planning, audience analysis and media relations to public speaking - skills a good communicator must master for effective public dialogue. Environmental Communication provides all the knowledge and tools you need to reach your target audience in a persuasive and highly professional manner. "This book will certainly help produce the skills for environmental communications sorely needed for industry, government and non-profit groups as well as an informed public". Sol P. Baltimore, Director, Environmental Communications and Adjunct faculty, Hazardous Waste management program, Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. "All environmental education professionals agree that the practice of good communications is essential for the success of any program. This book provides practical skills for this concern". Ju Chou, Associate Professor, Graduate Institute of Environmental Education National Taiwan Normal University Taipei, Taiwan

Knowledge and Power in Collaborative Research

Knowledge and Power in Collaborative Research
Author: Louise Phillips
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2013-05-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1136186719

Collaborative research embraces a multiplicity of practices in which social actors are invited to participate in the research process as co-producers of knowledge. But what is actually meant by “co-production” in collaborative research? Knowledge and Power in Collaborative Research presents a range of critical, reflexive strategies for understanding and tackling the challenges emanating from the tensions that arise in the meeting between different participants, knowledge forms and knowledge interests. The chapters anchor discussion of ethical, epistemological and methodological questions in sustained empirical analyses of cases of collaborative knowledge production. The book covers diverse theoretical approaches such as dialogic communication theory, actor network theory, poststructuralist writing as inquiry, institutional ethnography, dialogic action research, and pragmatic action research. The empirical cases span a broad spectrum of empirical fields of social practice: health services, organisational change, research, science communication, environmental communication in intermediary NGOs, participatory governance in relation to urban planning, and digital communication and virtual worlds.

The Environmental Communication Yearbook

The Environmental Communication Yearbook
Author: Stephen P. Depoe
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1135249911

First Published in 2006. For scholars and students in environmental communications, journalism, rhetoric, PR, mass communication and other related areas.

Proceedings of the 23rd European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies

Proceedings of the 23rd European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies
Author: Dr Ana Isabel Azevedo
Publisher: Academic Conferences and publishing limited
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2024-07-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1917204051

These proceedings represent the work of contributors to the 23rd European Conference on Research Methodology (ECRM 2024), hosted by ISCAP in Porto, Portugal on 4-5 July 2024. The Conference Co-Chairs are Dr Ana Isabel Azevedo and Dr José Manuel Azevedo, both from ISCAP Portugal. ECRM is a well-established event on the academic research calendar and now in its 23rd year and remains an opportunity for participants to share ideas and meet. The aims and scope of this conference is to bring together researchers from a range of disciplines and sectors to share expertise and novel approaches in business and management research methods. ECRM is interested in contributions on the subject of research methods used in business and management research. The papers tend to either focus directly on creating and implementing innovative methodologies or research papers which highlight an interesting use of methodologies in their study. The opening keynote presentation is given by Marta Agostinho, Executive Director of EU-LIFE with the title Excellent Scientific Research: What Does it Mean and Why Should we Care About it? On the second day, Professor Susanne Tietze from The University of Sheffield Hallam, UK will give a talk on the subject Cross-Language Research Methods: Translation and Linguistic Reflexivity. With an initial submission of 90 abstracts, after the double blind, peer review process there are 30 Academic research papers, 1 PhD research paper, 1 Masters Research paper and 1 work-in-progress paper published in these Conference Proceedings. These papers represent research from India, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Morocco, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden, UK and the USA.

Exploring the Role of Visualization in Climate Change Communication – an Audience Perspective

Exploring the Role of Visualization in Climate Change Communication – an Audience Perspective
Author: Anne Gammelgaard Ballantyne
Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
Total Pages: 131
Release: 2018-05-08
Genre:
ISBN: 9176852792

Climate change communication is a topical and relevant issue, and it is widely acknowledged that public communication about causes, impacts and action alternatives is integral to addressing the challenges of the changing climate. Climate visualization concerns the communication of climate information and data through the use of different information technologies and different modes of visual representation. In the context of climate change communication, climate visualization is highlighted as a potential way of increasing public engagement with climate change. In particular, developments within information technology have provided significant advancements that are claimed to be transformative in engaging lay audiences with issues relating to the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. Nevertheless, there is a lack of research exploring climate visualization from an audience perspective. This thesis addresses this gap. The overarching aim is thus to explore the role of climate visualization in climate change communication from an audience perspective, focusing specifically on how lay audiences make meaning of climate change as represented in two examples of climate visualization. In addition, the thesis discusses the potential contributions and/or limitations of climate visualization from a communication perspective. Based on a social semiotic theoretical framework, this thesis employs focus group interviews to study participants’ meaning-making related to two cases of climate visualization: a dome theatre movie developed for Swedish high school students with the aim of encouraging reflection on climate change causes, impacts and mitigation alternatives, and a web-based tool for climate change adaptation developed to assist Nordic homeowners in adapting to the local impacts of climate change. The results of this thesis show that climate visualization can help audiences concretize otherwise abstract aspects of climate change, and that the localized focus can make climate change appear more personally relevant and interesting for targeted audiences. Nevertheless, despite these communicative qualities, the analyses also show that participants’ interpretations are shaped by their preconceptions of climate change as a global and distant issue to be solved by other actors, such as national governments, or through international policy negotiations. Although climate visualization can enhance a sense of proximity with climate change, the localization of climate risk can also lead to participants downplaying the significance of climate impacts. In addition, despite the intentions of inducing a sense of agency in both cases of climate visualization, participants critically negotiated messages concerning their roles as individuals in mitigating or adapting to climate change, and assigned this responsibility onto other actors. These findings show that although climate visualization presents certain communicative qualities, it is not a panacea for engaging lay audiences with climate change. This also underlines the importance of considering cultural and social aspects of the communicative event when studying and developing climate visualization tools as a means of communication. Kommunikation kring klimatförändringar är ett aktuellt och relevant ämne, och många bedömare anser att kommunikation kring orsaker, effekter och åtgärdsalternativ är en viktig del i arbetet med att möta klimatutmaningarna. Klimatvisualisering är en process för att åskådliggöra klimatinformation och klimatdata med hjälp av olika tekniker och metoder för visuell framställning. I forskningslitteraturen om klimatkommunikation lyfts visualisering fram som ett möjligt sätt att öka allmänhetens engagemang i klimatfrågan. I synnerhet har utvecklingen inom informationsteknik lett till betydande framsteg som kan ses som omvälvande när det gäller att engagera lekmän i frågor som rör utsläppsminskningar och klimatanpassning. Det råder dock brist på forskning om klimatvisualisering ur ett mottagarperspektiv. Denna avhandling adresserar denna kunskapslucka. Det övergripande syftet är således att utforska visualiseringens roller i klimatkommunikation ur ett mottagarperspektiv, med särskilt fokus på hur lekmän tolkar innebörden av klimatförändringar så som de representeras i två exempel på klimatvisualisering. Avhandlingen behandlar även klimatvisualiseringens möjliga bidrag och/eller begränsningar ur ett kommunikationsperspektiv. Med utgångspunkt i ett teoretiskt ramverk som inspirerats av socialsemiotiska teorier genomfördes fokusgruppsstudier för att studera deltagarnas meningsskapande i relation till två exempel på klimatvisualisering: en film som visas i en domteater, framtagen för svenska gymnasieelever med målsättningen att uppmuntra till reflektion kring klimatförändringarnas orsaker, effekter och alternativ för utsläppsminskning, samt ett webbaserat verktyg för klimatanpassning, som utvecklats för att stödja husägare i Norden att anpassa sig till klimatförändringarnas lokala effekter. Resultaten av denna avhandling visar att klimatvisualisering kan stödja mottagarna att konkretisera annars abstrakta aspekter av klimatförändringar och att ett lokalt fokus kan få klimatförändringarna att framstå som mer personligt relevanta och intressanta för målgruppen. Dock visar analyserna även, trots dessa kommunikativa kvaliteter, att deltagarnas tolkningar formas av deras förförståelse om klimatförändringar som ett globalt och avlägset problem som ska lösas av andra aktörer, såsom nationella regeringar, eller genom internationella politiska förhandlingar. Även om klimatvisualisering kan förstärka känslan av närhet till klimatförändringar, kan lokaliseringen av klimatriskerna även leda till att deltagare tonar ned de lokala klimatriskernas betydelse. Dessutom, trots att båda fallen av klimatvisualisering avsåg att skapa en känsla av att kunna påverka, blev ansvaret för klimatåtgärder föremål för kritisk förhandling från deltagarnas sida – de förlade ansvaret för att hantera klimatutmaningarna till andra aktörer. Dessa resultat visar att klimatvisualisering visserligen har vissa kommunikativa kvaliteter, men inte är någon patentlösning för klimatkommunikation. Detta understryker även vikten av att ta hänsyn till kulturella och sociala aspekter av den kommunikativa händelsen när man studerar och utvecklar verktyg för klimatvisualisering.