Earthtalk: Communication Empowerment for Environmental Action

by Star Muir

Overview

This collection of essays examines the variety of ways in which communication scholarship and research contribute to the political mobilization and empowerment of citizens to act on environmental issues—environmental discourse and action in the largest sense. As seen here, the task of environmental empowerment involves a curious mixture of national and local politics, abstract principles and concrete actions, ethical frameworks and political expediency. The contributors to this volume provide a fascinating array of perspectives on how to go about this task and how earthtalk continues to shape and frame human perceptions and actions on environmental issues. This unique work will be of interest to scholars, policymakers, and students of political communication, public policy, and the environment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275953706
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/19/1996
Series:	Praeger Series in Political Communication
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

STAR A. MUIR is an Associate Professor of Communication at George Mason University in Virginia and is coauthor (with J. Muir) of Foundations in Public Communication (1992).

THOMAS L. VEENENDALL is an Associate Professor of Speech Communication at Montclair State College in New Jersey and is coauthor (with M. Feinstein) of Let's Talk About Relationships (1994).

Table of Contents

Introduction
Strategies and Tactics of Earthtalk
Ways We Talk About the Earth: An Exploration of Persuasive Tactics and Appeals in Environmental Discourse by Michael Spangle and David Knapp
Environmental Risk Communication and Community Collaboration by Laura A. Belsten
The Power of Media
Activism in a Moderate World: Media Portrayals and Audience Interpretations of Environmental Activism by David Easter
Constituting Nature Anew through Judgment: The Possibilities of Media by Kevin DeLuca
Talking to Each Other About the Environment: Using Video Production to Instruct Adolescents About Recycling by Rod Carveth and Roger Desmond
Resources of Language
Forever Wild or Forever in Battle: Metaphors of Empowerment in the Continuing Controversy Over the Adirondacks by Susan Senecah
The Rhetorical Function of "The Earth in the Balance" by Warren Sandmann
Challenging to Dominion Covenant: The Preservationist Construction of an Environmental Past by Thomas R. Flynn
Alternative Rhetorics
In Search of Ecotopia: "Radical Environmentalism" and the Possibilities of Utopian Rhetorics by John W. Delicath
Two Rivers, Two Vessels: Environmental Problem Solving in an Intercultural Context by Susan Mallon Ross
Constructing a Goddess Self in a Technological World by Trudy Milburban
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

A collection of essays examining the ways in which communication scholarship and research contribute to the political mobilization and empowerment of citizens to act on environmental issues. Subjects include persuasive tactics and appeals in environmental discourse; media portrayals of environmental activism; and radical environmentalism and the possibilities of utopian rhetorics. Of interest to scholars, policymakers, and students of political communication, public policy, and the environment. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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