“Environmental Communication is the planned and strategic use of communication processes to support effective policy-making and project implementation geared towards environmental sustainability.” (OECD) 

Environmental policy focuses on issues arising from human impact on the natural environment. This course will examine how public policy is developed and the role played by different forms of communication in the policy processes, with a particular focus on contentious environmental issues. Most of the examples used will have a significant environmental component but the themes of the course are also broadly relevant to the development of other types of policy in politically pluralist societies such as Australia and the United States. The course will use public policy and communications activities in those countries as the starting point but students from elsewhere will be encouraged to make comparisons with their home countries. The nature of public opinion, and how it is shaped, will be examined along with a look at the impact of public opinion in the policy process. We will also look rise of environmental consciousness and the concept of sustainability, now a cornerstone of much public policy.  Media such as newspapers, televisions, radio and the web in its various forms, including social media, will be examined along with other forms of communications such as citizen activism, public participation, political campaigning, advertising and public relations.

By the end of the course students will have learnt to critically assess:

• the processes through which environmental policy is developed, and related communications activities are conducted,
• the competing discourses relating to environmental policy,
• methods used by interests groups to influence environmental policy debates,
• government efforts to promote public participation and mobilise support for their policies, and
• ways that can be used by citizens to participate in public debates about environmental policy.

25% for a series of 300 word pre-class commentaries on material to be discussed in class (to be handed in at the beginning of the relevant class session)

25% for a1000 word analysis of a significant environmental policy document, due in Week 2.

50% for a research essay or policy project.

Lectures, web based discussion and weekly tutorials

Cox R. 2012, Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere, (3^rd edition) Sage, Los Angeles.

A reading brick will be available

Basic Word skills only