Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

An examination of how media, culture and communication shape public opinion and behaviour about environmental issues such as global warming, (un)sustainable resource use and pollution, with special attention to the impact of practices such as advertising, public relations, science and risk communication, journalism and advocacy communication upon public discourse about the environment, and the role of dialogue and deliberation in mediating and resolving conflict over environmental issues. Students with credit for CMNS 388 (in Summer 2010, Spring 2011, or Summer 2012) may not take this course for further credit.

COURSE DETAILS:

Overview:

What role do different forms of media and culture play in raising (or suppressing) public awareness about key environmental issues such as climate change, (un)sustainable resource use, or the pollution of social and natural spaces?  How do different social, economic and political actors (e.g., corporations, governments, environmental groups) talk about the environment in different ways, depending upon their economic, political and/or cultural objectives?  Is ‘green consumerism’ an oxymoron?  What opinions do the public hold about environmental issues, and how are they influenced and represented?  What communicative practices and principles are necessary in order to encourage and facilitate public debate, dialogue and deliberation on environmental politics and policies?  What role does communication play in environmental advocacy and activism?  In this course, we will explore these questions by investigating some of the many ways in which we use different media to represent and communicate about the natural environment.

Our core textbook will be Robert Cox’s Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere (5th edition).  The principal topics and themes to be covered include: conceptualizing environmental communication; green consumerism and corporate public relations campaigns; motivating sustainable behavioural change; science and risk communication; news coverage of environmental issues; public opinion and knowledge of environmental issues; environmental advocacy; communication and environmental justice; and dialogue, deliberation and political mobilization.  

George Marshall’s Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change will be used as a supplementary text throughout the course.  Written in an accessible and interdisciplinary fashion, Marshall draws upon a wide variety of research to describe the social, cultural and psychological barriers to thinking about climate change, as well as suggest a diverse range of communications ideas and strategies that can stimulate public engagement.

Course Format:

The course is organized around a series of weekly themes, which will be explored in lectures, readings and tutorial discussions.  While there will be some overlap between the lectures, readings and tutorials, there will also be important material that is only covered in one of these formats.  In other words, students are expected to do the readings, attend the lectures and tutorials to cover all of the material to be drawn upon in research essays or projects, as well as the final exam.

Lectures will be divided into two parts.  The first part will cover the weekly theme, and will usually occupy two hours.  The second part will consist of either a guest lecture or a class discussion of a selection from Don’t Even Think About It, and its relevance to the study and practice of environmental communication.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: