Action Research and Wicked Environmental Problems: Exploring Appropriate Roles for Researchers in Professional Communication    

The authors report on a 3-year action-research project designed to facilitate public involvement in the planned dredging of a canal and subsequent disposal of the dredged sediments. Their study reveals ways that community members struggle to define the problem and work together as they gather, share, and understand data relevant to that problem. The authors argue that the primary goal of action research related to environmental risk should be to identify and support the strategies used by community members rather than to educate the public. The authors maintain that this approach must be supported by a thorough investigation of basic rhetorical issues (audience, genre, stases, invention), and they illustrate how they used this approach in their study.

Blythe, Stuart, Jeffrey T. Grabill and Kirk Riley. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2008). Articles>Risk Communication>Community Building>Environmental

The Art of Risk Communication: Overcoming the Public Fear Surrounding Controversial Projects  

Technical writers and editors in the environmental field can make additional contributions to the document production process by becoming familiar with risk communication principles. These principles can help us communicate more effectively with the public about controversial environmental projects, which are ever increasing. Considering the public's power to delay such projects, our ability to diminish public opposition through good risk communication skills is invaluable.

Barr, Christine R. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Risk Communication>Environmental>Writing

Communicating about Environmental Risk with Stakeholders  

To explore the barriers to successful communication about environmental risks, a research project addressed the following questions: what do people understand about the terminology and the graphics used in risk messages? what sorts of communication modes and timing do people prefer? Surveys and focus groups were conducted in two towns to explore the level and types of risk (e.g leaking gas tanks) with which people are uncomfortable. The findings extend the discoveries of other environmental communication researchers: People are confused by regulatory language, they do not trust the government, and they want 'true stories,' credible witnesses, and face-to-face interaction with other stakeholders.

Hart, Hillary. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Risk Communication>Environmental>Civic

Communicating Environmental Issues To A Diverse Public  

A wide variety of environmental issues needs to be communicated to diverse groups of audiences. A panel representing government and industry discusses with the audience the impact of government regulations, public perception, and ongoing research findings on environmental writing. Communication strategies and theories for disseminating information and gaining public support are applied and analyzed.

Barr, Christine R., Kathy E. Carter and Margaret E. Durbin. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Scientific Communication>Environmental

Evaluating Environmental Impact Statements as Communicative Action    

An environmental impact statement (EIS) is supposed to ensure that a government agency thoroughly evaluates a project's impacts, studies feasible alternatives, and gives all stakeholders an active role in project-related decisions. Previous rhetorical studies of the EIS describe a failed or subversive genre routinely used to advance the strategic aims of an agency seeking to implement a project despite significant opposition. This article contends that an EIS motivated by a genuinely persuasive purpose can serve as the discursive focus of democratic decision making about major projects and substantially achieve Habermas's norms of communicative action. This may happen, for example, when a local transportation agency develops an EIS for a federal transportation agency. To illustrate this possibility, two EISs involving distinct federal-local relationships in Puerto Rico are evaluated using criteria proposed by John Forester for investigating the degree to which public decision-making processes fulfill Habermas's norms of communicative action.

Dayton, David. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Communication>Environmental>Government

Is Risk Communication Nothing but Green-Washing?  

Risk-Based Corrective Action (RBCA), a process for cleaning up contaminated sites, is not widely understood. To better communicate with the public about RBCA, a research team sought to measure people’s comfort with the role of risk in decision-making by administering a risk-response survey to inhabitants of two US towns. The survey’s most unusual finding was that people seem more comfortable with environmental risks than with other kinds. Because the survey’s wording probably affected the outcome, the finding raises issues about the responsibility of technical communicators in developing the tools and language of responsible environmental communication.

Hart, Hillary. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Risk Communication>Environmental

Lessons from Environmental Communication  

The Environmental Careers organization estimates that by 1993, there were over 150,000 environmental educators and communicators in the United States. Environmental communication is the only area specifically cited as a growth area in the STC’s 1994-98 Strategic Plan; by 1995, the Society’s PIG in Environmental, Safety, and Health Communication had grown to approximately 500 members. This presentation examines what environmental communication and other areas of scientific and technical communication might learn from one another and the curricular implications of such lessons.

Waddell, Craig. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Communication>Environmental

Performing Sustainable Development Through Eco-Collaboration: The Ricelands Habitat Partnership    

In this article, the authors demonstrate this point through a genealogy and textual analysis of the Ricelands Habitat Partnership (RHP), an eco-collaboration between the rice industry and environmental advocates in California's Sacramento Valley. Articulated here as a story of enemies becoming friends, the RHP gives life to a vision of more (if not perfectly) sustainable agriculture, where sustaining business and the natural environment can go hand in hand. The authors argue that sustainable development (like democracy or other abstract concepts) becomes 'real' for businesses and for society at large through local enactment.

Livesey, Sharon M., Cathy L. Hartman, Edwin R. Stafford and Molley Shearer. JBC (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Environmental>Case Studies