Thanks to Steve Depoe for encouraging us to think about the long-term, and thanks to all the COCE Next Ten panelists and audience members for an interesting discussion. We have lots more to think about and a good deal of work ahead of us if we pursue a formal organization, so it's good that we are taking some time to deliberate about the right path. But I'd like to set aside most of the organization question and offer up an idea about the conference itself.
What if we shifted to a steering committee + local host model for running the conference?
I've talked to a few colleagues back home and looked at a few other scholarly organizations, and this model seems common. The details and responsibilities would need to be adapted to our situation, but essentially the steering cmte would run the scholarly side of the conference. They would publicize/send out the CFP, run the review process, do most of the scheduling, and publish the proceedings. The local host would get to set the theme, take care of logistics, and organize special events.
The steering cmte would also vet proposals for subsequent COCEs. People who want to host would assemble a short proposal that identifies a theme, venue, innovative additions (like some of the ideas that came up during Next Ten panel), recreation/special events, and details about how to divvy up responsibilities. That way, the local host still gets to put their distinctive stamp on the conference, but is able to offload part of the work...perhaps freeing them up to do more of the things that would help enrich and/or expand the conference.
I don't know if this model was ever entertained in the past, or if past planners think it's a good idea or not. I'd be interested to hear what people think about it.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Time to Organize: NEXT STEPS
After our "COCE NEXT TEN" panel on Sunday, a group of interested folks who attended the panel met to discuss next steps in the process. This group developed the following next steps in the conversation about forming a new organization or association in support of COCE:
July 2009: Consult with Mark Meisner; Develop initial draft of proposal
August 2009: Post draft of proposal on "NEXT TEN" blog for initial comments
September-October 2009: Create WIKI version of proposal and post on-line for open revision and comment via "NEXT TEN" blog
November 2009: Hold "open space" session at National Communication Association (NCA) Convention in Chicago to discuss and revise proposal, and to create action timeline through COCE 2011 (faciltated by Gregg Walker and Barb Willard)
Form initial working groups to assist with COCE 2011 (as directed by conference organizer) and work on other projects as identified
2010: Continue process as stipulated in action timeline
Summer 2011: COCE in El Paso TX
Other tasks we would need to accomplish to "stand up" a new organization or association:
1. Finalize mission statement, constitution, by-laws (including sunset provision that would terminate the organization under certain conditions).
2. Ratify the above through democratic process (e.g. vote among COCE 2011 participants, on-line survey).
3. File for incorporation in a state (New York, etc.).
4. File with the IRS for provisional 501-c-3 status.
If any of you would like to become a contributor to the blog, please contact me at depoesp@email.uc.edu. You can become a follower of the blog by logging in at the top of this blog page. Join the conversation!!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
COCE's Next Ten: Comments from overseas
Eleven of us from the Unit of Environmental Communication in Sweden are setting off this morning to be at COCE 2009, apparently a milestone for us in Sweden as an EC group and COCE itself – receiving that many overseas participants from one institution. We have come age, can we say?
Other than that, COCE is new to us; three or four of us have attended one conference in the past. I joined the 2007 conference in Chicago for the first time after taking the chair in Sweden earlier that year. Therefore, we are not qualified to make any comments on where and what COCE has been in the past 20 years, but we can say something about where the next ten could be.
This is also a milestone year for us because it is ten years since the academic unit dealing with Agricultural Extension at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences was transformed into the Unit of Environmental Communication. As we pursue our own process of consolidating the teaching and research efforts in this subject area following a period of steady growth, we are at present also engaged in positioning ourselves, our sphere of work and its different contexts in relation to the academy, our partners in the wider community, and our national and international networks. COCE has been an important and inspiring node in our network.
As far as we know, we are the only unit of Environmental Communication with such a title in all of Europe. Being in an agricultural university setting and with a mandate to work with NRM issues distinguishes us from other comparable groups, nationally and internationally. Our mix of disciplinary backgrounds and competences and the resulting capacity to consider research questions bridging EC and agricultural extension issues, make us also unique in the region, such activities existing separately even in large institutions in the US. Our niche within EC is that, unlike many other groups engaged in this arena, our research contexts within NRM are diverse. We are studying the interactive, participatory and communicative aspects of questions that are within primary production in agriculture and forestry, water management, nature conservation, outdoor recreation, game management, fishery, rural development and urban planning. In carrying out this research, we maintain close links with practice in the public sphere and with institutions and stakeholders through the whole process. Our drive towards interdisciplinary, multi-cultural research and our emphasis on linking this to education means we are also able to attract students from other parts of the world into our Unit.
We have been offering a one-year Masters degree program on Environmental Communication for two years now. The Swedish contingent will present a series of papers at this conference covering some of our research but also based on our recent experience in offering education in EC. You will all get to meet members of the group, hear what we bring to this group of scholars as issues coming from Europe and beyond, and we will in formal and informal ways be able to offer you thoughts, if not well formed ideas on where the next ten COCE should go. One thing, we are sure about is that in your efforts to internationalise Environmental Communication as a field, we are keen to be an important overseas node. If there are considerations about an international conference in the future, even one the next COCE events overseas, we will consider hosting such an event.
We believe are important ways in which COCE could contribute to the international development of scholarship and action in this arena of human-society interaction. We have just recently created the very beginnings for building a European network of EC scholars. We are conscious about the different vantage points within this field, and we recognise that there are scholars engaged in work of relevance to us but not labelling such work as EC. We want to explore where this subject fits in the academy and how it is different form other related fields. At our first meeting, we asked the question about what the normativity of EC was, and wondered if EC was not just a crisis discipline but a hopeful discipline.
These are our thoughts from overseas when exploring COCE’s next ten!
Other than that, COCE is new to us; three or four of us have attended one conference in the past. I joined the 2007 conference in Chicago for the first time after taking the chair in Sweden earlier that year. Therefore, we are not qualified to make any comments on where and what COCE has been in the past 20 years, but we can say something about where the next ten could be.
This is also a milestone year for us because it is ten years since the academic unit dealing with Agricultural Extension at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences was transformed into the Unit of Environmental Communication. As we pursue our own process of consolidating the teaching and research efforts in this subject area following a period of steady growth, we are at present also engaged in positioning ourselves, our sphere of work and its different contexts in relation to the academy, our partners in the wider community, and our national and international networks. COCE has been an important and inspiring node in our network.
As far as we know, we are the only unit of Environmental Communication with such a title in all of Europe. Being in an agricultural university setting and with a mandate to work with NRM issues distinguishes us from other comparable groups, nationally and internationally. Our mix of disciplinary backgrounds and competences and the resulting capacity to consider research questions bridging EC and agricultural extension issues, make us also unique in the region, such activities existing separately even in large institutions in the US. Our niche within EC is that, unlike many other groups engaged in this arena, our research contexts within NRM are diverse. We are studying the interactive, participatory and communicative aspects of questions that are within primary production in agriculture and forestry, water management, nature conservation, outdoor recreation, game management, fishery, rural development and urban planning. In carrying out this research, we maintain close links with practice in the public sphere and with institutions and stakeholders through the whole process. Our drive towards interdisciplinary, multi-cultural research and our emphasis on linking this to education means we are also able to attract students from other parts of the world into our Unit.
We have been offering a one-year Masters degree program on Environmental Communication for two years now. The Swedish contingent will present a series of papers at this conference covering some of our research but also based on our recent experience in offering education in EC. You will all get to meet members of the group, hear what we bring to this group of scholars as issues coming from Europe and beyond, and we will in formal and informal ways be able to offer you thoughts, if not well formed ideas on where the next ten COCE should go. One thing, we are sure about is that in your efforts to internationalise Environmental Communication as a field, we are keen to be an important overseas node. If there are considerations about an international conference in the future, even one the next COCE events overseas, we will consider hosting such an event.
We believe are important ways in which COCE could contribute to the international development of scholarship and action in this arena of human-society interaction. We have just recently created the very beginnings for building a European network of EC scholars. We are conscious about the different vantage points within this field, and we recognise that there are scholars engaged in work of relevance to us but not labelling such work as EC. We want to explore where this subject fits in the academy and how it is different form other related fields. At our first meeting, we asked the question about what the normativity of EC was, and wondered if EC was not just a crisis discipline but a hopeful discipline.
These are our thoughts from overseas when exploring COCE’s next ten!
Monday, June 22, 2009
COCE: Time to organize!!
This weekend, we are participating in the tenth biennial Conference on Communication and Environment, known with fondness as COCE. I have attended five of the previous nine conferences, and hosted the 2001 COCE in Cincinnati.
COCE has produced some very important scholarship over the past two decades, including a series of edited conference proceedings, two edited books and several published articles. COCE served as the inspiration for the field’s first peer-reviewed publication, The environmental communication yearbook, and its successor, the journal Environmental communication: A journal of nature and culture. The 2005 COCE keynote presentation by Robert Cox, in which he called for the framing of environmental communication as a “crisis discipline,” is arguably the most important agenda-setting statement in the twenty-five year history of the field. The 2007 COCE yielded a set of essays that was published in a special issue of the new journal under the broad theme of exploring intersections between communication, nature, and culture. In sum, the work presented at COCE since 1991 has been foundational to the emergence of environmental communication research and practice, particularly within the broader tradition of rhetorical studies.
For me personally, COCE has meant a number of things: great people, great places to visit and meet together, stimulating paper presentations and panel discussions, wonderful speakers and artists, amazing times of fellowship. The COCE “spirit” of scholarship, collegiality, and friendship-building has remained strong over the years, operating within an informal arrangement in which conference hosting duties have been passed from one volunteer organizer to another in an ongoing two-year cycle. Each conference has been somewhat unique in texture, theme, and format. The urban setting and field trips of Cincinnati were quite different from the wooded setting of Cazenovia, New York. Yet, each conference has been well-planned and executed, leaving participants with positive feelings about the experience. I have no doubt the COCE 2009 will produce a similar response.
Yet, it must be recognized that COCE has not grown in size or visibility over the years. Few people outside regular COCE attendees and members of the NCA Environmental Communication Division know much about the conference. Because of our informal approach, each conference organizer has taken on the full burden of planning, promoting, and funding the conference, along with publishing a hard-copy or on-line version of the conference proceedings. Speaking from personal experience, these myriad duties have produced in conference organizers a great deal of anxiety beforehand and relief afterwards, but little in the way of forward momentum for COCE as a structural entity.
Conference attendance has waxed and waned over the past decade, depending on factors such as location, cost, and availability of travel funding. COCE organizers have tried with some success to provide discounts for graduate students; however, to be frank, the number of graduate students interested in attending COCE has not grown as quickly as it might. So COCE has settled into an identity as an informal, somewhat isolated, conference—a great experience for those who attend, yielding some valuable scholarship and warm memories, but not serving as an incubator of growth for the discipline itself.
How can we move COCE forward into the future? We need to do more than merely strive to maintain a “spirit” of good feelings among conference participants. COCE needs to “go global,” reaching out more expansively to like-minded scholars in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. COCE also needs to "go virtual,” taking advantage of rapidly evolving communication technologies to provide opportunities for conference participation and exposure through a variety of on-line formats. Virtual conference options would significantly reduce COCE's ecological footprint while expanding its reach and impact.
In addition, COCE needs to be more intentional and strategic in developing as a driving force in the growth of environmental communication as a field, both within the larger communication discipline and across other disciplines, both within North America and beyond. I believe that existing national and international communication organizations such as NCA (with its Environmental Communication Division) and ICA can play a role, but have inadequate flexibility to respond to rapidly changing conditions and challenges facing those of us who want environmental communication to grow both within academia and beyond.
So, folks, it’s time to organize.
I propose that we create a new formal organization (call it COCE if you like) that has an explicit mission to promote environmental communication scholarship, teaching, and practice in North America and around the world while maintaining a spirit of collegiality and mutual respect for diverse perspectives.
The organization would operate on an ongoing basis in support of the mission, based on a constitution and set of by-laws. The organization would elect officers who would serve on a voluntary basis in support of the mission. The organization’s principal activity would be the hosting of the biennial Conference on Communication and Environment, including tasks of site selection, organization, promotion, hosting (with the local host taking the lead), and publishing proceedings.
Further, the organization should seek to form partnerships with two existing environmental communication entities—the Environmental Communication Network (www.esf.edu/ecn) and the journal Environmental communication: A journal of nature and culture (www.informaworld.com/renc)—for the mutual benefit of all concerned, with details of those partnerships to be developed. Other activities that support the growth of environmental communication research, teaching, and practice should also be undertaken by the organization over time.
The new organization should apply for status as a non-profit financial entity (via 401-c-3 status), thus gaining the ability to collect funds (such as membership dues, conference fees, etc.) and to seek extramural funding (through foundation support, grants, etc.) for projects that support the organization’s goals (include funding for future COCE conferences).
Supported by an organizational platform and network, the COCE conference will grow significantly in attendance, status, and visibility in the years ahead, in terms of both actual and virtual attendees. The COCE “spirit” will infuse the field of environmental communication more inclusively as it becomes more widely known among scholars and practitioners worldwide. A formal organization will provide crucial infrastructure for the challenging tasks we face in growing the number of undergraduate and graduate programs in the United States and abroad that offer environmental communication to their students. Finally, COCE as a formal organization will be able to play a more meaningful role in conversations about environmental communication policy and practice that are taking place outside the ivory tower of academia, and outside the United States.
I ask you to act now to form a new path for COCE so that its “next ten” conferences will be even better that its first ten.
COCE has produced some very important scholarship over the past two decades, including a series of edited conference proceedings, two edited books and several published articles. COCE served as the inspiration for the field’s first peer-reviewed publication, The environmental communication yearbook, and its successor, the journal Environmental communication: A journal of nature and culture. The 2005 COCE keynote presentation by Robert Cox, in which he called for the framing of environmental communication as a “crisis discipline,” is arguably the most important agenda-setting statement in the twenty-five year history of the field. The 2007 COCE yielded a set of essays that was published in a special issue of the new journal under the broad theme of exploring intersections between communication, nature, and culture. In sum, the work presented at COCE since 1991 has been foundational to the emergence of environmental communication research and practice, particularly within the broader tradition of rhetorical studies.
For me personally, COCE has meant a number of things: great people, great places to visit and meet together, stimulating paper presentations and panel discussions, wonderful speakers and artists, amazing times of fellowship. The COCE “spirit” of scholarship, collegiality, and friendship-building has remained strong over the years, operating within an informal arrangement in which conference hosting duties have been passed from one volunteer organizer to another in an ongoing two-year cycle. Each conference has been somewhat unique in texture, theme, and format. The urban setting and field trips of Cincinnati were quite different from the wooded setting of Cazenovia, New York. Yet, each conference has been well-planned and executed, leaving participants with positive feelings about the experience. I have no doubt the COCE 2009 will produce a similar response.
Yet, it must be recognized that COCE has not grown in size or visibility over the years. Few people outside regular COCE attendees and members of the NCA Environmental Communication Division know much about the conference. Because of our informal approach, each conference organizer has taken on the full burden of planning, promoting, and funding the conference, along with publishing a hard-copy or on-line version of the conference proceedings. Speaking from personal experience, these myriad duties have produced in conference organizers a great deal of anxiety beforehand and relief afterwards, but little in the way of forward momentum for COCE as a structural entity.
Conference attendance has waxed and waned over the past decade, depending on factors such as location, cost, and availability of travel funding. COCE organizers have tried with some success to provide discounts for graduate students; however, to be frank, the number of graduate students interested in attending COCE has not grown as quickly as it might. So COCE has settled into an identity as an informal, somewhat isolated, conference—a great experience for those who attend, yielding some valuable scholarship and warm memories, but not serving as an incubator of growth for the discipline itself.
How can we move COCE forward into the future? We need to do more than merely strive to maintain a “spirit” of good feelings among conference participants. COCE needs to “go global,” reaching out more expansively to like-minded scholars in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. COCE also needs to "go virtual,” taking advantage of rapidly evolving communication technologies to provide opportunities for conference participation and exposure through a variety of on-line formats. Virtual conference options would significantly reduce COCE's ecological footprint while expanding its reach and impact.
In addition, COCE needs to be more intentional and strategic in developing as a driving force in the growth of environmental communication as a field, both within the larger communication discipline and across other disciplines, both within North America and beyond. I believe that existing national and international communication organizations such as NCA (with its Environmental Communication Division) and ICA can play a role, but have inadequate flexibility to respond to rapidly changing conditions and challenges facing those of us who want environmental communication to grow both within academia and beyond.
So, folks, it’s time to organize.
I propose that we create a new formal organization (call it COCE if you like) that has an explicit mission to promote environmental communication scholarship, teaching, and practice in North America and around the world while maintaining a spirit of collegiality and mutual respect for diverse perspectives.
The organization would operate on an ongoing basis in support of the mission, based on a constitution and set of by-laws. The organization would elect officers who would serve on a voluntary basis in support of the mission. The organization’s principal activity would be the hosting of the biennial Conference on Communication and Environment, including tasks of site selection, organization, promotion, hosting (with the local host taking the lead), and publishing proceedings.
Further, the organization should seek to form partnerships with two existing environmental communication entities—the Environmental Communication Network (www.esf.edu/ecn) and the journal Environmental communication: A journal of nature and culture (www.informaworld.com/renc)—for the mutual benefit of all concerned, with details of those partnerships to be developed. Other activities that support the growth of environmental communication research, teaching, and practice should also be undertaken by the organization over time.
The new organization should apply for status as a non-profit financial entity (via 401-c-3 status), thus gaining the ability to collect funds (such as membership dues, conference fees, etc.) and to seek extramural funding (through foundation support, grants, etc.) for projects that support the organization’s goals (include funding for future COCE conferences).
Supported by an organizational platform and network, the COCE conference will grow significantly in attendance, status, and visibility in the years ahead, in terms of both actual and virtual attendees. The COCE “spirit” will infuse the field of environmental communication more inclusively as it becomes more widely known among scholars and practitioners worldwide. A formal organization will provide crucial infrastructure for the challenging tasks we face in growing the number of undergraduate and graduate programs in the United States and abroad that offer environmental communication to their students. Finally, COCE as a formal organization will be able to play a more meaningful role in conversations about environmental communication policy and practice that are taking place outside the ivory tower of academia, and outside the United States.
I ask you to act now to form a new path for COCE so that its “next ten” conferences will be even better that its first ten.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Vision 2029: Call for a Practical Turn in COCE
I hosted the 2007 COCE in Chicago,IL and edited the special issue of Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture that published the top papers from that conference. It was a terrific experience, highly successful in its production of solid scholarly work. Reflecting upon my organizing experience, I found that there were features of the conference that worked well and additions or revisions that could be made to improve the overall COCE event. What worked well? As stated above, the scholarly output was highly useful for those in the field of environmental communication, and in particular rhetoricians and social scientists in the sub-discipline of communication studies. However, I do not believe that we are broadening the scope of COCE to include other disciplines and those who work in practical and engaged environmental fields (land managers, conservationists, ecologists, nature center employees, not-for-profit environmental organizations, government organizations). Like Pete Bsumek, I believe that our COCE panels and papers would be seen as “too esoteric and irrelevant” for these practitioners. I suggest that we change that possible perception.
If we want COCE to become relevant beyond our relatively small circle of scholars then we must foster collaboration among the disciplines and among researchers, conservation practitioners, and the general public on behalf of environmental communication. We need to take conservation biologist, Michael Soule’s charge to all those in environmental studies to “educate ecologically literate, responsible citizens who are problem solvers and agents of constructive change” quite seriously (1998, p. 397.). The field of environmental communication has so much to offer in the process of creating constructive environmental change; yet our theories, arcane to the uninitiated, obstruct access to our scholarly work. It pains me to see the amount of applied scholarship on environmental communication that comes out of either not-for-profit organizations or from fields outside of our discipline (e.g. psychology, science). Clearly, we are missing an opportunity to participate in solution-creation in what Robert Cox calls a crisis discipline.” If we agree that environmental communication is indeed a crisis discipline, then it calls for engagement with the general public, and that typically means highly applied research that suggests communication campaigns, techniques, and strategies that promote positive environmental change.
One of the most useful environmental communication resources for land managers and activists in the midwest region is the Biodiversity Project (http://www.biodiversityproject.org) where they can find a number of issue-specific “message kits” that provide best practices for communicating about biodiversity. Some of their best publications include, Healthy Lakes, Healthy Lives, a kit created to help “organizations, agencies and/or businesses play a strategic role in the campaign to restore our Great Lakes, and to encourage and support [them] in their use of unified messages.” Another kit entitled Great Communities for People and Nature offers way to raise “public awareness of biodiversity issues, as well as offer the necessary tools to ensure a successful community-based environmental campaign.” I believe that COCE would benefit greatly from including panels that address similarly inclined research that emphasizes practicality and applicability outside of the academy. While there are many environmental communication academics that work with, observe, and study environmental practitioners, the way in which we write our articles, convention papers, and other published work is not particularly accessible or practical for those who would benefit most from this research. By relying on complex communication and rhetorical theory, we keep the conversation among ourselves. When we make the research accessible (e.g. suggesting communication tips or best practices in environmental communication campaigns) we might be seen as “dumbing down” our work or coming across as too simplistic. However, in my experience working with environmental practitioners (primarily land managers for forest preserves, parks, and other open spaces) this is exactly the type of research that they desire, that which offers them suggestions for best practices in environmental communication. For example, I have written articles on public attitudes about native landscaping that provide communication tips for promoting native landscaping. I have also developed a burn communication campaign with communication products that can be used by land managers. While this academic output is very useful for environmental practitioners, it would be seen, I suspect, as too basic for an academic audience. But, is that all we want, an academic audience? Can a “crisis discipline” afford to remain sequestered in the hallowed halls of academe, leaving the work that needs to be done to others who are less hesitant to venture into public engagement.
Enough of the critique of COCE and environmental communication, what can we do about it (as Pete asks)? Well, I’ve got a few ideas. Number one, we should give COCE a local angle that emphasizes praxis. We should develop practical workshops and research presentations that include local environmental practitioners (activists, land managers, natural resources personnel, etc.). These workshops and presentations could be outreach to the local community but we could, at the same time, receive feedback as to the practicality and efficacy of our own research. Ultimately, this would produce scholarship that is not only serviceable to environmental practitioners but is also of a higher quality due to the input we would receive from those who are on the front lines of environmental engagement. Second, we should also reach out to other disciplines so that we can hear academic voices from areas like conservation biology, ecology, environmental law, environmental policy, forestry, landscape ecology, conversation psychology, and science communication. Admittedly, we have been having a conversation about the need to become a more interdisciplinary conference for some time now. We have seen progress in this direction through the efforts of Steve Depoe and the editorial board of the journal Environmental Communication; A Journal of Nature and Culture who have a stated goal of “making connections across disciplines.” Additionally, the journal includes a PRAXIS section with the expressed purpose of “promoting interaction between academic scholars and those who practice environmental communication in the field, including community members, industry professionals, governmental officials and others.” However, a look back at the past COCE programs suggests that we are not making similar progress in our biennial conference. In part, this might be due to the mixed feelings that some have about whether or not we should expand the scope. Some may feel that COCE’s success is, in part, due to its relatively small size and warm, inviting climate. Regardless of whether one believes COCE should be large, small or somewhere in between, I do believe that we could improve our public outreach and engagement by including practical workshops, brainstorming sessions, and research presentations. This does not mean that we need to dilute the more scholarly and theoretical elements of our scholarship, rather I believe it is time to add these practical and applied components to what already exists. And if we are to become an international not-for-profit organization, like Depoe suggests, we would most definitely need to include a more engaged, scholarly voice and a stronger connection across disciplines. To sum up, I believe it is time that COCE pushes the “practical-turn” in our conference and our scholarly efforts so that we can enter the public conversation already underway regarding environmental communication.
Soule, M. (1998). What is environmental studies? BioScience 48(5), pp. 397 – 405.
If we want COCE to become relevant beyond our relatively small circle of scholars then we must foster collaboration among the disciplines and among researchers, conservation practitioners, and the general public on behalf of environmental communication. We need to take conservation biologist, Michael Soule’s charge to all those in environmental studies to “educate ecologically literate, responsible citizens who are problem solvers and agents of constructive change” quite seriously (1998, p. 397.). The field of environmental communication has so much to offer in the process of creating constructive environmental change; yet our theories, arcane to the uninitiated, obstruct access to our scholarly work. It pains me to see the amount of applied scholarship on environmental communication that comes out of either not-for-profit organizations or from fields outside of our discipline (e.g. psychology, science). Clearly, we are missing an opportunity to participate in solution-creation in what Robert Cox calls a crisis discipline.” If we agree that environmental communication is indeed a crisis discipline, then it calls for engagement with the general public, and that typically means highly applied research that suggests communication campaigns, techniques, and strategies that promote positive environmental change.
One of the most useful environmental communication resources for land managers and activists in the midwest region is the Biodiversity Project (http://www.biodiversityproject.org) where they can find a number of issue-specific “message kits” that provide best practices for communicating about biodiversity. Some of their best publications include, Healthy Lakes, Healthy Lives, a kit created to help “organizations, agencies and/or businesses play a strategic role in the campaign to restore our Great Lakes, and to encourage and support [them] in their use of unified messages.” Another kit entitled Great Communities for People and Nature offers way to raise “public awareness of biodiversity issues, as well as offer the necessary tools to ensure a successful community-based environmental campaign.” I believe that COCE would benefit greatly from including panels that address similarly inclined research that emphasizes practicality and applicability outside of the academy. While there are many environmental communication academics that work with, observe, and study environmental practitioners, the way in which we write our articles, convention papers, and other published work is not particularly accessible or practical for those who would benefit most from this research. By relying on complex communication and rhetorical theory, we keep the conversation among ourselves. When we make the research accessible (e.g. suggesting communication tips or best practices in environmental communication campaigns) we might be seen as “dumbing down” our work or coming across as too simplistic. However, in my experience working with environmental practitioners (primarily land managers for forest preserves, parks, and other open spaces) this is exactly the type of research that they desire, that which offers them suggestions for best practices in environmental communication. For example, I have written articles on public attitudes about native landscaping that provide communication tips for promoting native landscaping. I have also developed a burn communication campaign with communication products that can be used by land managers. While this academic output is very useful for environmental practitioners, it would be seen, I suspect, as too basic for an academic audience. But, is that all we want, an academic audience? Can a “crisis discipline” afford to remain sequestered in the hallowed halls of academe, leaving the work that needs to be done to others who are less hesitant to venture into public engagement.
Enough of the critique of COCE and environmental communication, what can we do about it (as Pete asks)? Well, I’ve got a few ideas. Number one, we should give COCE a local angle that emphasizes praxis. We should develop practical workshops and research presentations that include local environmental practitioners (activists, land managers, natural resources personnel, etc.). These workshops and presentations could be outreach to the local community but we could, at the same time, receive feedback as to the practicality and efficacy of our own research. Ultimately, this would produce scholarship that is not only serviceable to environmental practitioners but is also of a higher quality due to the input we would receive from those who are on the front lines of environmental engagement. Second, we should also reach out to other disciplines so that we can hear academic voices from areas like conservation biology, ecology, environmental law, environmental policy, forestry, landscape ecology, conversation psychology, and science communication. Admittedly, we have been having a conversation about the need to become a more interdisciplinary conference for some time now. We have seen progress in this direction through the efforts of Steve Depoe and the editorial board of the journal Environmental Communication; A Journal of Nature and Culture who have a stated goal of “making connections across disciplines.” Additionally, the journal includes a PRAXIS section with the expressed purpose of “promoting interaction between academic scholars and those who practice environmental communication in the field, including community members, industry professionals, governmental officials and others.” However, a look back at the past COCE programs suggests that we are not making similar progress in our biennial conference. In part, this might be due to the mixed feelings that some have about whether or not we should expand the scope. Some may feel that COCE’s success is, in part, due to its relatively small size and warm, inviting climate. Regardless of whether one believes COCE should be large, small or somewhere in between, I do believe that we could improve our public outreach and engagement by including practical workshops, brainstorming sessions, and research presentations. This does not mean that we need to dilute the more scholarly and theoretical elements of our scholarship, rather I believe it is time to add these practical and applied components to what already exists. And if we are to become an international not-for-profit organization, like Depoe suggests, we would most definitely need to include a more engaged, scholarly voice and a stronger connection across disciplines. To sum up, I believe it is time that COCE pushes the “practical-turn” in our conference and our scholarly efforts so that we can enter the public conversation already underway regarding environmental communication.
Soule, M. (1998). What is environmental studies? BioScience 48(5), pp. 397 – 405.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Opportunities and pitfalls in the next 10 years: Situating “our" conference in an Increasingly Institutionalized and professionalized field, P. Bsumek
With the growth of the field of environmental communication will come institutionalization and professionalization. In the academy communication programs will offer degrees and certificates in environmental communication. While traditional professional programs such as natural resource management programs and non-traditional cross-disciplinary programs such as “environmental studies” will integrate communication courses and competencies into their curriculum. Additionally, professional organizations such as governmental agencies (local, national and international), corporations, NGOs and interest groups will become more aware of the need for professional environmental communication and, in many cases, more sophisticated in their use of environmental communication.
I want to reflect on the implications associated with the processes of institutionalization and professionalization for “our” conference. My goal is to initiate a conversation about the opportunities and pitfalls for COCE that will follow in the wake of greater institutionalization and professionalization. I do so by offering a brief history of COCE and then, by reflecting on the processes of institutionalization and professionalization as I have experienced them at James Madison University as our university attempts to both integrate environmental communication into cross-disciplinary environmental programs and create a graduate program in environmental communication. I believe that we must imagine a future in which Environmental Communication is increasingly institutionalized and professionalized so that we may decide how “our” conference should situate itself in relation to the organizational processes and discourses associated with the institutionalization and professionalization of our field.
The first COCE that I attended was Big Sky in 1993. My first presentation was at the Syracuse COCE in 1997 (it was an especially memorable experience, but that’s another story ; ). At each of those conferences I remember a small, but present, contingent from traditional natural resources departments. I even remember a short conversation at the Syracuse conference, in which I was told by one of these folks that he would probably not attend another COCE. The conference focus on criticism it seems was too esoteric and irrelevant to the communication skills that needed to be taught to his students. I remember similar conversations with activists at the 2001 conference in Cincinnati. At the time I remember thinking, “I found your presentations pretty irrelevant too.” Nonetheless, here I am 16 years later attending another COCE and lamenting to some degree the relative absence of these “professional” voices.
In the lead essay of the first Environmental Communication Yearbook, Oravec and Clark (2004) argue that interpretation and/or translation (along with naming, policy and poetry) is one of the four main communication functions associated with the study of environmental communication. I would like to suggest that this aspect of environmental communication presents the greatest opportunities and the biggest pitfalls for our field in the next ten years. I think this is so because as recent events highlight, it is not the scholarly tradition of (speech) communication, and certainly not the tradition exemplified by COCE scholarship that is shaping contemporary “environmental communications.” Rather, it is the professionals in the industries of public relations, social marketing and political communications (see Warm Words, Weathercocks and Signposts, Eco-America Report) and the “framing” crowd (Media-Nisbett, Social Cognition-Lakoff) that are steering the environmental “messaging” ship. This suggests the following question: As a field and a conference, what is, or should be, our relationship to these industries and the professionals who circulate within them?
If we decide that we should build closer ties to these industries what are the opportunities and the pitfalls? Those of us in the field of environmental communication, like many in the communication studies discipline, have often grappled with the question of “engagement”—to what extend do we have an obligation to be engaged in the day-to-day workings of politics and social movements? And, to what extent can we avoid it, even if we’d like to? Now, I hesitate to raise this question again, but at this juncture it seems unavoidable.
I believe we stand at a crossroads. On the one hand we have a golden opportunity. The situation is ripe. Environmental communication is in demand. On the other hand, what is in demand may not be what we want to offer. If we choose to take the opportunity and actively pursue associations with the “communications industrial complex” (PR, Social Marketing and Political Communications) can we “translate” what we do in such a way that we transform the status quo more than it transforms us? As I see it, the more engaged we become, the more watered down our scholarship and course content becomes. Conversely, the more we avoid industrial cooptation, the less relevant our field and our conference becomes.
Currently, in my department we are grappling with this very question. We have been given permission to pursue the development of an MA program in environmental communication & advocacy. (It will be paired with a health communication and advocacy program). Did I mention that institutions are gaga for green? So what’s “the catch.” The catch is clear and up front. For the program to pass muster with the board of visitors and the state overseers we have to demonstrate “market viability.” In other words, we have to offer a program that will attract at least some “professionals” who seek a terminal degree. Practically this means providing “learning objectives” and “skill sets” that appeal to prospective students in natural resource management bureaucracies, business and non-profit organizations alike.
An analogy to health communication seems enlightening. At our university we have an undergraduate concentration in health communication. No matter how idealistic the student and how “cutting-edge” the curriculum; a great majority of those students go on to work for drug companies as sales reps and marketers. This is so because, after graduation, they need a job. This then bodes an important question: where will our students end up and what will be preparing them to do?
In the end, I don’t think that these questions are all that difficult to answer. Of course we should engage. The question is how should we do so? Along these lines, I would like us to imagine a future where environmental communication is increasingly institutionalized and professionalized because this future will shape our conference whether we actively engage it or not. So my point is a simple one. Let us make a choice. And let us be clear about the choice that we are making so that we can devise a plan for dealing with this future. Let us not wait for the choice to be made for us.
I want to reflect on the implications associated with the processes of institutionalization and professionalization for “our” conference. My goal is to initiate a conversation about the opportunities and pitfalls for COCE that will follow in the wake of greater institutionalization and professionalization. I do so by offering a brief history of COCE and then, by reflecting on the processes of institutionalization and professionalization as I have experienced them at James Madison University as our university attempts to both integrate environmental communication into cross-disciplinary environmental programs and create a graduate program in environmental communication. I believe that we must imagine a future in which Environmental Communication is increasingly institutionalized and professionalized so that we may decide how “our” conference should situate itself in relation to the organizational processes and discourses associated with the institutionalization and professionalization of our field.
The first COCE that I attended was Big Sky in 1993. My first presentation was at the Syracuse COCE in 1997 (it was an especially memorable experience, but that’s another story ; ). At each of those conferences I remember a small, but present, contingent from traditional natural resources departments. I even remember a short conversation at the Syracuse conference, in which I was told by one of these folks that he would probably not attend another COCE. The conference focus on criticism it seems was too esoteric and irrelevant to the communication skills that needed to be taught to his students. I remember similar conversations with activists at the 2001 conference in Cincinnati. At the time I remember thinking, “I found your presentations pretty irrelevant too.” Nonetheless, here I am 16 years later attending another COCE and lamenting to some degree the relative absence of these “professional” voices.
In the lead essay of the first Environmental Communication Yearbook, Oravec and Clark (2004) argue that interpretation and/or translation (along with naming, policy and poetry) is one of the four main communication functions associated with the study of environmental communication. I would like to suggest that this aspect of environmental communication presents the greatest opportunities and the biggest pitfalls for our field in the next ten years. I think this is so because as recent events highlight, it is not the scholarly tradition of (speech) communication, and certainly not the tradition exemplified by COCE scholarship that is shaping contemporary “environmental communications.” Rather, it is the professionals in the industries of public relations, social marketing and political communications (see Warm Words, Weathercocks and Signposts, Eco-America Report) and the “framing” crowd (Media-Nisbett, Social Cognition-Lakoff) that are steering the environmental “messaging” ship. This suggests the following question: As a field and a conference, what is, or should be, our relationship to these industries and the professionals who circulate within them?
If we decide that we should build closer ties to these industries what are the opportunities and the pitfalls? Those of us in the field of environmental communication, like many in the communication studies discipline, have often grappled with the question of “engagement”—to what extend do we have an obligation to be engaged in the day-to-day workings of politics and social movements? And, to what extent can we avoid it, even if we’d like to? Now, I hesitate to raise this question again, but at this juncture it seems unavoidable.
I believe we stand at a crossroads. On the one hand we have a golden opportunity. The situation is ripe. Environmental communication is in demand. On the other hand, what is in demand may not be what we want to offer. If we choose to take the opportunity and actively pursue associations with the “communications industrial complex” (PR, Social Marketing and Political Communications) can we “translate” what we do in such a way that we transform the status quo more than it transforms us? As I see it, the more engaged we become, the more watered down our scholarship and course content becomes. Conversely, the more we avoid industrial cooptation, the less relevant our field and our conference becomes.
Currently, in my department we are grappling with this very question. We have been given permission to pursue the development of an MA program in environmental communication & advocacy. (It will be paired with a health communication and advocacy program). Did I mention that institutions are gaga for green? So what’s “the catch.” The catch is clear and up front. For the program to pass muster with the board of visitors and the state overseers we have to demonstrate “market viability.” In other words, we have to offer a program that will attract at least some “professionals” who seek a terminal degree. Practically this means providing “learning objectives” and “skill sets” that appeal to prospective students in natural resource management bureaucracies, business and non-profit organizations alike.
An analogy to health communication seems enlightening. At our university we have an undergraduate concentration in health communication. No matter how idealistic the student and how “cutting-edge” the curriculum; a great majority of those students go on to work for drug companies as sales reps and marketers. This is so because, after graduation, they need a job. This then bodes an important question: where will our students end up and what will be preparing them to do?
In the end, I don’t think that these questions are all that difficult to answer. Of course we should engage. The question is how should we do so? Along these lines, I would like us to imagine a future where environmental communication is increasingly institutionalized and professionalized because this future will shape our conference whether we actively engage it or not. So my point is a simple one. Let us make a choice. And let us be clear about the choice that we are making so that we can devise a plan for dealing with this future. Let us not wait for the choice to be made for us.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Bridging the Gap to Common Ground
Mike Liles
Andrea Feldpausch-Parker
Leigh Bernacchi
Anna Munoz
From our collective experiences in the fields of communication, environmental studies, and wildlife management and ecology, we believe COCE provides an opportunity for collaboration amongst seemingly disparate fields for the purpose of achieving common environmental goals. We believe that differing backgrounds should be viewed as strengths as opposed to weaknesses when examining the complexities of environmental issues. Focusing on only the ecological or social perspective when researching environmental problems fails to acknowledge the synergies that are inherent to successful problem solving. We see the environmental sciences as generators of information about natural systems and how they react to human manipulation and natural changes. Humanities and the social sciences contribute knowledge about how a society functions, constructs itself, communicates and evolves. Both, we argue, play an important role in influencing how we interact with, and understand our environment and are equally integral to the creation and implementation of sound environmental decisions. While each discipline must be appreciated for its individual values, it is also critical that we attempt to appreciate and gain fluency in these multiple languages of environmental communication if we are to elevate and make advances in conservation, preservation, environmental justice and other issues of environmental concern. COCE could therefore serve as a platform for mutual understanding and shared knowledge within and amongst disciplines.
In addition to uniting disciplines, we also view COCE as a home for interdisciplinaries who bridge the gap between the different fields of study. We see COCE as an agent for expanding this interdisciplinary field by encouraging the deconstruction of existing boundaries through increased communication between the respective disciplines and interaction with those pioneers who have already made the leap. Such actions should be viewed as opportunities and enthusiastically taken as the potential for successful collaboration, idea sharing and mutual respect far outweighs the risk of failure. COCE has the potential to serve not only as a forum for open discussion, but also as a way to network with people specializing in different facets of the environment and society. We believe that together we are worth more than the sum of our parts (i.e. specific fields of study) and that relationships created at conferences like COCE have the power to inform not only those dealing with the environmental issues at hand, but also future decision makers.
By mastering the multiple languages of environmental communication, arguments that contribute to shared learning, mutual understanding and practical applications can be coherently constructed. In addition to the other roles we have outlined, COCE should also be a forum that offers a safe space for the dialogue and debate of emerging theories and practice. We recognize the value of theoretical knowledge and encourage the application of theory to real-world situations. Although critiques of the sciences and communication can be useful in analyzing the value of a theory or practice, emphasis should also be placed on interdisciplinary collaboration to improve decision-makers’ capacities to address the concerns of the public. As such, COCE should be viewed not only as a forum for sharing and enhancing research related to environmental communication, but also as an opportunity to link academics, managers, policy makers, and all interested citizens by fostering relationships of trust and respect.
Andrea Feldpausch-Parker
Leigh Bernacchi
Anna Munoz
From our collective experiences in the fields of communication, environmental studies, and wildlife management and ecology, we believe COCE provides an opportunity for collaboration amongst seemingly disparate fields for the purpose of achieving common environmental goals. We believe that differing backgrounds should be viewed as strengths as opposed to weaknesses when examining the complexities of environmental issues. Focusing on only the ecological or social perspective when researching environmental problems fails to acknowledge the synergies that are inherent to successful problem solving. We see the environmental sciences as generators of information about natural systems and how they react to human manipulation and natural changes. Humanities and the social sciences contribute knowledge about how a society functions, constructs itself, communicates and evolves. Both, we argue, play an important role in influencing how we interact with, and understand our environment and are equally integral to the creation and implementation of sound environmental decisions. While each discipline must be appreciated for its individual values, it is also critical that we attempt to appreciate and gain fluency in these multiple languages of environmental communication if we are to elevate and make advances in conservation, preservation, environmental justice and other issues of environmental concern. COCE could therefore serve as a platform for mutual understanding and shared knowledge within and amongst disciplines.
In addition to uniting disciplines, we also view COCE as a home for interdisciplinaries who bridge the gap between the different fields of study. We see COCE as an agent for expanding this interdisciplinary field by encouraging the deconstruction of existing boundaries through increased communication between the respective disciplines and interaction with those pioneers who have already made the leap. Such actions should be viewed as opportunities and enthusiastically taken as the potential for successful collaboration, idea sharing and mutual respect far outweighs the risk of failure. COCE has the potential to serve not only as a forum for open discussion, but also as a way to network with people specializing in different facets of the environment and society. We believe that together we are worth more than the sum of our parts (i.e. specific fields of study) and that relationships created at conferences like COCE have the power to inform not only those dealing with the environmental issues at hand, but also future decision makers.
By mastering the multiple languages of environmental communication, arguments that contribute to shared learning, mutual understanding and practical applications can be coherently constructed. In addition to the other roles we have outlined, COCE should also be a forum that offers a safe space for the dialogue and debate of emerging theories and practice. We recognize the value of theoretical knowledge and encourage the application of theory to real-world situations. Although critiques of the sciences and communication can be useful in analyzing the value of a theory or practice, emphasis should also be placed on interdisciplinary collaboration to improve decision-makers’ capacities to address the concerns of the public. As such, COCE should be viewed not only as a forum for sharing and enhancing research related to environmental communication, but also as an opportunity to link academics, managers, policy makers, and all interested citizens by fostering relationships of trust and respect.
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