Environmental Communication

Information and Communication Technologies are usually presented as neutral in environmental terms, highlighting their benefits in comparison with other energy sources very frequently. However, its material impact increases due to the exponential growth observed both in the populations incorporated to its daily consumption and in the intensity with which they are used. This article departs from this fact aiming to identify and analyze various experiences that, from the fields of Education and Communication, try to counteract the negative and invisible effects of its wide generalization. To achieve this, more than twenty projects, with different depth and territorial scope, were identified to present good practices and solutions to face our current crossroads. With this purpose, a case study focused on the GreenTIC project is also completed. Findings show the excessive dispersion and the scarce coordination between initiatives that are developed autonomously to deal with a common problem. // Las Tecnologías de la Información y de la Comunicación se presentan habitualmente como neutras en términos medioambientales, resaltándose con frecuencia su ganancia en comparación con otras fuentes de energía. Sin embargo, su impacto material aumenta debido al crecimiento exponencial que se observa tanto en las poblaciones que se incorporan a su consumo como en la intensidad con las que se emplean. Este artículo parte de esta constatación para, a continuación, identificar y analizar diversas experiencias que, desde los campos de la Educación y de la Comunicación, intentan contrarrestar los efectos negativos e invisibilizados de su generalización. Para ello, se han localizado una veintena de proyectos, de diferente calado y alcance territorial, para exponer buenas prácticas y soluciones a la encrucijada que enfrentamos como sociedad. Con este propósito, se ofrece adicionalmente un estudio de caso centrado en el proyecto GreenTIC. Los resultados evidencian la excesiva dispersión y la escasa coordinación existente entre iniciativas que se desarrollan de forma autónoma para afrontar un problema común. Palabras clave

Rhetorical scholarship and cultural commentary have demonstrated that environmentalist voices are consistently associated with apocalyptic rhetoric.  However, this association deflects attention from the apocalyptic rhetoric that comes from industry and countermovements to environmentalism. This essay seeks to remedy that oversight by proposing the concept of “industrial apocalyptic” as a signifıcant rhetorical form in environmental controversy. Based on analysis of the rhetoric of the U.S. coal industry, we fınd that these industrial apocalyptic narratives rely on a burlesque frame to disrupt the categories of establishment and outsider and thus thwart environmental regulation. Ultimately, we argue that industrial apocalyptic co-opts environmentalist appeals for radical change in the service of blocking such change and
naturalizes neoliberal ideology as the commonsense discourse of the center.

This article documents the use of tipping points in climate change discourse to discuss their significance. We review the relevant literature, and discuss the popular emergence of tipping points before their adoption in climate change discourse. We describe the tipping point trend in mainstream US and UK print news media and in the primary scientific literature on climate change by replicating the methodologies of Oreskes [Oreskes, N., 2004. The scientific consensus on climate change. Nature 306, 1686] and Boykoff and Boykoff [Boykoff, M.T., Boykoff, J.M., 2004. Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press. Global Environmental Change 14, 125–136]. We then discuss the significance of climate change tipping points and their popular use in terms of generative metaphor.

https://www.routledge.com/Environmental-Communication-Pedagogy-and-Practice/Milstein-Pileggi-Morgan/p/book/9781138393509
Intro paragraph: 'As teachers in the relatively new, but increasingly in-demand field of environmental communication, we often find ourselves introducing first-time courses to our departments, programs, and organizations. This chapter argues that, as we design courses, we also have the related opportunity and connected imperative to turn conventional learning inside-out. Indeed, this book as a whole provides a crucial moment to reflect on ways many environmental communication teachers are doing just that and a moment to further refine these practices. In this chapter, we elucidate an inside-out
classroom model (Milstein 2015) for teaching environmental communication, as well as environmental studies and the many related fields of learning. The model takes up Cox’s (2007) ethical duty of environmental communication within the realm of pedagogy, teaching learners about our current global anthropogenic ecological systemic crisis from a communication standpoint while empowering them to be ecocultural change agents. The goal with such an approach is to create transformative learning spaces in which learners’ inner concerns and passions find vital connection with their understandings of, and practices within, the wider biosphere.'

This study explores the motivation for usage, benefits, and strategies to overcoming the challenges visually impaired people face in their Facebook interactions. Using in-depth interviews and a narrative analysis of five visually impaired students at the University of Cape Coast, we found that Facebook usage among visually impaired students, although unique in experiences and gratifications, has promoted the formation and strengthening of their social bonds in the community of visually impaired people and their significant other. However, the visually impaired students face significant challenges with interpreting the pictures and videos they encounter on Facebook because screen reader software currently in use cannot interpret graphical content forcing them to rely on their sighted friends which have created independence and privacy issues. Despite these challenges, Facebook remains a powerful communication tool for visually impaired students in interacting with both their disabled...