Routledge Environment, Media and Communication (Routledge Introductions to Environment: Environment and Society Texts)

Media and communication processes are central to how we come to know about and make sense of our environment and to the ways in which environmental concerns are generated, elaborated, manipulated and contested. The second edition of Environment, Media and Communication builds on the first edition’s framework for analysing and understanding media and communication roles in the politics of the environment. It draws on the significant and continuing growth and advances in the field of environmental communication research to show the increasing diversification and complexity of environmental communication. The book highlights the persistent urgency of analysing and understanding how communication about the environment is being influenced and manipulated, with implications for how and indeed whether environmental challenges are being addressed and dealt with. Since the first edition, changes in media organisations, news media and environmental journalism have continued apace, but – perhaps more significantly – the media technologies and the media and communications landscape have evolved profoundly with the continued rise of digital and social media. Such changes have gone hand in hand with, and often facilitated, enabled and enhanced shifting balances of power in the politics of the environment. There is thus a greater need than ever to analyse and understand the roles of mediated public communication about the environment, and to ask critical questions about who/what benefits and who/what is adversely affected by such processes. This book will be of interest to students in media/communication studies, geography, environmental studies, political science and sociology as well as to environmental professionals and activists. Review "The second edition of Anders Hansen's Environment, Media, and Communication makes an important contribution to the growing corpus of environmental communication textbooks available for undergraduate and graduate students. Hansen's volume provides a solid grounding in theories of media psychology, structures, and patterns of audience engagement, and is bolstered by updated case studies as well as careful attention paid to the transformational role of social media in our increasingly complex and cluttered information environment. I look forward to using it in my own environmental communication class!" - Stephen Depoe, Professor of Communication and Department Head, University of Cincinnati, USA "An understanding of environmental communication is critical to addressing current global challenges, and this new edition of Environment, Media and Communication provides students and practitioners with an indispensable guide to this swiftly changing field. Hansen is one of the leading founders of this multidisciplinary area of research and his book provides an excellent overview of a large body of research, including an analysis of the impact of digital and social media. A new concluding chapter surveys just how far the study of environmental communication has come over the last couple of decades and provides important pointers for its future directions." - Alison Anderson, Associate Head of School, University of Plymouth, UK, and Adjunct Professor, Monash University, Australia "Hansen’s updated textbook accomplishes the unenviable task of keeping its readers abreast on both the quickly changing environment and media technologies, and does so in an accessible and engaging manner." - Jennifer Peeples, Professor, Utah State University, USA About the Author Anders Hansen is Associate Professor in the School of Media, Communication and Sociology, University of Leicester, UK. He is Associate Editor of Environmental Communication; Founder and immediate-past Chair of the IAMCR Group on Environment, Science and Risk Communication; Founding member, and Executive Board Member and Secretary 2011–2015, of the International Environmental Communication Association (IECA).