Science and Environment Communication

The 21st century faces unprecedented challenges in the environment and science fields. The meanings of issues such as climate change and energy, and the decisions taken in relation to them, are associated with a variety of communication practices. Research on communication can therefore provide a central contribution to current debates about scientific and environmental problems and issues of democracy, citizenship and power.

The Science and Environment Communication section seeks to foster a strong, reflexive and dynamic research network. Science is understood here in broad terms as research that has its roots in the social sciences, humanities or natural sciences, including technology. Environment is also understood broadly as both the natural and the built milieu.

The section welcomes work that crosses a range of disciplinary (communication/media/cultural studies, science and technology studies, sociology, social psychology) and methodological (quantitative/qualitative/empirical/theoretical) boundaries.

As the issues that are categorized as environmental and/or scientific, are also political, economic and social, the section aims to promote an integrated, inter- and trans-disciplinary analysis of communication practices. This poses new opportunities for research and education, including collaboration with other ECREA sections.

Examples of topic areas include - but are far from restricted to: media representations of science and the environment; science and environment reporting, alternative and citizen’s media; political and commercial discourse on the environment; dialogic, participatory approaches to the communication of research-based knowledge; communication, democracy and research governance; public engagement with science and the environment; Environmental and science activism; visualization and environment communication; the digital turn in science and environment communication; digital capitalism and the environment; sustainability and media; Southern/non-Western and Western approaches to science and environment communication; (de-)politicization of the environment; the environment and the political.