Presentations

Today’s presentations offered a variety of topics that showed thoughtfulness and creativity.  It was very interesting to see the unique ways people approached the assignments for the class.  I found many of the projects to be very innovative in the ways student’s created a communications plan.  A student that particularly stood out was Anneka.  Anneka’s dedication and enthusiasm towards the environment was evident through both of her projects and through her class contributions.  Anneka is an inspiration and this planet could certainly use more people like her!

As this class is nearing the end, I think people’s engagement with environmental issues and environmental communication will extend far beyond the boundaries of this course. This course has allowed students to critically engage with a topic that is important and has value within our own lives.

Thank you

Environmental Communication in the 21st Century

An example 21^st century environmental communication is an app called Eco Challenge. The purpose of this app is to create challenges for people to help reduce their impact on the environment.  There are different topics that you can choose from that are related to the environment and sustainability.  When you select a topic the app firstly exposes how something is harmful to the environment. The second step allows you to calculate your individual impact on the environment and the third step gives you ecological alternatives to work towards sustainability.  The gamification aspect in the app is that you earn points for participating in the challenges and there is a public score board that your name can appear on for completing the most number of challenges. You can also earn badges for using ecological alternatives. Topics that the app offers challenges in are water conservation, personal care products, plastic reduction, meat consumption, the local food movement, GMOs, and energy reduction.  

I think this app is beneficial because it is easily accessible and free to download.  The app allows people to learn about a topic but most importantly offers people an alternative to their current attitudes and behaviors.  The app outlines many facts that are not always communicated in mainstream media and I think it is important that people are able to see their individual impact on the environment.

Researching Environmental Communication

The concept of framing environmental issues in the media is a topic that I would like to conduct research on.  Hansen (2011) argues that “one of the most interesting and productive developments in approaches to media coverage of environmental issues has been the increasing application of the concept of ‘framing’, i.e. the principles of ‘selection’ and ‘salience’ (Entman, 1993) in media content which may contribute to the structuring of public and political responses by directing attention to: what the issue/problem is; who/what is responsible; and what the solution is” (p. 15).  If I were granted the opportunity to undertake environmental communication research, I would do a cross cultural comparison of how different countries frame the same environmental issue.  This topic interests me because I believe that there should be unity in how environmental issues are framed. Within Canadian and American media this is rarely the case.  I would be very interest to see how other countries frame issues in comparison to North American media.