The final day of the AESS conference began with the session I chaired, about new media and environmental communication. Unfortunately, it was scheduled at 8 am, which contributed to low attendance. But we were still able to have an interesting discussion after the presentations. My focus was on framing environmental issues for websites of environmental groups- using language, links, images, and interactivity to create consistent (and ideally more effective) messages.

The other presenters focused on coopting the advertising format for environmental messaging, and how interactive technologies were used in protests by Peruvian natives to mobilize resistance to privatization of their land. Through these talks, there were a few threads that were similar. These included the ongoing problem of the “digital divide”, the necessity of personal trust in a fragmenting media landscape, and the difficulty of getting through communication “noise” without resorting to spectacle (or alternatively, by creating subversive messages that catch on).

Later in the day, these themes were echoed and expanded in another session I attended on educational applications of networked technologies. I found this session interesting because it gave me an applied perspective on the theory-driven discussions I’ve had in the T&T program. For example, one of the big ideas in online theory centers on a distinction between “digital natives” (the current generation, weaned on electronics) and “digital immigrants” (older folks, lurching unsteadily into the digital realm). The idea is the “digital natives” are 1) both more comfortable with online tools and 2) enjoy using them. In fact, even without considering the digital divide, these educators have found that this is not the case with many of their students. In fact, many of their students are not comfortable with higher-order networked communication, and mainly prefer to use tethered, prepackaged apps (or Facebook, which is a pretty closed environment). So this was a useful counter-perspective to the enthusiasm of some of my fellow T&T students 🙂

Overall, I did enjoy the conference- it was a useful experience and helped me connect with a group of people with different interests than those I usually converse with- which was a good change! I think some of the ideas and concerns even just with digital communication tools (e.g., information glut, breakdown of a culture of expertise, the risk of virtualizing the world) brought up here will be good food for thought in the upcoming weeks.

So, this is a bit of a review considering that I’ve been home for a few days (though busy, busy the whole time), but I wanted to at least put down some of the highlights of the conference while I have time…and before leaving for Ithaca.

On the first day of the conference, I attended two panels on psychology and ESS (environmental studies & science). These were interesting because several speakers tackled some fairly big issues, like how to make people aware of massive environmental problems without causing them to succumb to despair, and what effects positive emotion in communication have on the audience vs. negative emotions. This is definitely not an area of expertise for me, and I can see how looking further into research on the subject will be useful.

Later, I went to a session bringing together some different perspectives on climate change (which turned into the theme of the day for me, quite unintentionally). Here, several of the presentations had a focus on framing, which made up a large part of my own presentation. The one I found most interesting was by Thomas Eatmon (Allegheny College), who spoke about parallels in risk assessment frameworks between geoengineering and nanotechnology. This was interesting for a few reasons- first, risk is a complex thing to conceptualize in any situation, and it gets much more so when new technology, large-scale technical research, politics, etc. are part of the picture. Second, as Eatmon points out, the environmental community has to a large extent avoided discussing geoengineering, and instead sees it as “taboo”. But as he pointed out, this leaves the subject of framing the geoengineering debate open to industry/corporations- exactly where we are right now. He suggests, instead of framing geoengineering as “climate engineering”, that we view it as nanotechnology (e.g., ocean iron fertilization, aerosolized sulfur)- a much more threatening frame in the public eye, and one which I think does capture the scale of this type of proposal. Other projects, like space mirrors or CO2-capturing gels, are more point-source (or sink, if you prefer) and more easy to discontinue if problems come up. The “nanotech” parallel seems to be a good thing to bring up for the former category of proposals.

The last session I went to was a grab-bag of sorts for the student presentation competition. There were some interesting conceptualizations brought up in this session of environmentalism and social liberalism (definitely not always connected) and ideas about wilderness environmentalism vs. “environmentalism of the poor” (tied to making a livelihood from the land and social justice). Throughout this conference, I was reminded that “environmental studies” is often a very separate realm from ecology, which is where my background is. I’m sure some of the things I was picking up on were pretty basic to environmental studies folks, but hopefully this makes what I have to contribute potentially new & useful as well.

I’ve been attending the AESS conference in Portland, seeing some interesting talks and participating in some thoughtful discussions. My session is tomorrow, bright and early at 8 am. Here’s my talk abstract:

“Strategies and tactics for environmental communication in the online realm”

Traditional environmental outreach uses two types of communication: large-scale mass media outreach to large segments of the population, and local-scale dialogue-based outreach that approaches problems at the community level.  While large-scale outreach can influence public opinion over large geographic distances, it is difficult to translate changes in opinion into meaningful local action.  For local-scale outreach, the opposite is true.  As an alternative to these two models, many environmental organizations turn to the Internet to create a new dialogic space for large-scale public outreach efforts.

Website creators have to take into account many aspects of a website in order to effectively project an environmental message to its intended audience.  These include low-level tactical features like accuracy and timeliness of information, usability, and artistic design, as well as high-level strategic features such as the overall framing of the organization’s message.  Message framing is particularly important because it should drive the overall narrative of the website and guide lower-level tactical decisions.

This presentation will explore and show examples of the tools available for framing environmental communication in an online new media setting, and discuss how they differ from traditional mass media framing tools.  For websites, the four key elements that can be used for framing the organization’s overall message are language, links, images, and interactivity.  While language and images are important parts of traditional mass media, links and interactivity are to a large extent unique to online media.  Links and interactivity also help build the desired dialogic online space for public outreach.

I’m off to the Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences conference in Portland, where I’ll be chairing a session on new media and environmental communication. I’ve never chaired a talk session before, so we’ll see how this goes! This conference has a discussion-heavy format (in contrast to the 15-minute presentation, 5-minute question format I’m used to), which should give us some good time to talk over some interesting ideas.

Here’s the abstract for my session:

New networked and interactive Internet tools offer “green” communication possibilities and challenges that can be very different from those posed by traditional media. While traditional environmental communication strategies can sometimes be effective in this new realm, relying only on traditional methods can prevent groups from utilizing the full potential of new media. Even in traditional media, new approaches offer the potential to radically change the communication landscape. This session will explore new features and characteristics of the changing communication landscape, such as new participatory tools that can help create environmental change from a local perspective or create a new dialogic space for large-scale public outreach efforts, and creative new uses of traditional communication formats.  While new technologies allow the rapid dissemination of “green” ideas and messages, using these tools thoughtfully is the most effective way to take advantage of them.

Should be a fun and interesting meeting!