"[...] in this article, we present the results of a collective self-assessment exercise for a panel of eight case studies (covering four continents) [Amazon rainforest, Brazil; Colombia; India; Bangaldesh; Egypt; Lake Manyara Basin, Tanzania; Baltic Sea, Germany; Isles of Scilly, UK] ] of communicat
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ions between project teams and local communities within the context of climate change or biodiversity loss. Our analysis develops eight indicators of good stakeholder communication, which we construct from the literature, in addition to Verran (2002) 's concept of postcolonial moments as a communicative utopia. Our study contributes to the (analytical) understanding of such communications, while also providing tangible insights for field work and policy recommendations. We demonstrate that applying our indicators can foster a more successful communication, although we find an apparent divergence between timing, complexity, and (introspective) effort of the project teams. While three case studies qualify for postcolonial moments, our findings show that especially the scrutiny of power relations and genuine knowledge co-production are still rare. We verify the potency of various instruments for deconstructing science; however, we also show that their sophistication cannot substitute other crucial factors. Instead, simple deconstruction efforts may suffice, while trust-building, proper time management, and an advanced awareness of the scientists are crucial. Lastly, we consider that reforming rigid and inadequate funding policies will help overcome significant barriers and improve the work in and with local communities." (Abstract)
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"This report analyses how governments are building climate and carbon factors into their broadband policies, looks at the consequences of inaction, and suggests policy recommendations towards a greener internet. We compiled publicly available documents for the national broadband plans from the 100 l
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ow- and middle-income countries where A4AI has measured internet affordability for the past three years. From these countries, we conducted a keyword search for their mentions of the environment, climate, energy, electricity, and sustainability. From these results, we contextually analysed each mention and compared keyword mentions and density across plans and conducted additional textual analysis. We found that environmental themes are infrequently mentioned and exist mostly within the margins of broadband policy, if at all. An environmental keyword appeared once every 6-7 pages, on average. Genuine targets and policy reforms were even less frequent. These issues are described as limiting factors (reasons why social and economic situations are not better today) or as future possibilities (positive assumptions about what could happen from greater internet access and ICT use). Frequently, these same words - the regulatory environment, sustainable business models, and the investment climates - were used beyond their original meaning to frame policy debates around systems thinking, and did not relate to climate factors at all. Energy was one of the most common environmental themes across national broadband plans. The countries that had most environmental references in their policies, such as Nepal and Peru, tied their ambitions for greater access to the internet with greater access to electricity. This matches with countries' development paths where internet access and electrification are concurrent efforts." (Executive summary, page 3)
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"Communication about biodiversity loss is insufficient and audiovisual stories can help to effectively communicate the problem. This research developed the optimum communication criteria for communicating effectively about biodiversity loss through audiovisual stories. We created our theoretical fra
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mework by combining contemporary research about audiovisual stories concerning science and studies on effective communication about biodiversity loss and conservation. Based on this framework and using relevant multimodal critical discourse analysis tools, we built an analytical model. We applied the model to the analysis of three contemporary audiovisual stories concerning biodiversity loss: Rang-tan: the story of dirty palm oil (Greenpeace International, 2018), “Dream” (Wildlife Conservation Film Festival, 2016, original quotation marks), and The Birdman (Fordesman, 2020). The research findings demonstrate that current audiovisual stories lack aspects of the optimum communication criteria and that conservation communicators have not yet made use of the medium's full potential. Ideally, this thesis has the potential to encourage further research on how to communicate more effectively about biodiversity loss." (Abstract)
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"How does Chinese central media represent Africa through its environmental news? This article argues that the way in which Chinese central media organisations have reported environmental issues across the African continent has altered from a reactive “charm defensive” towards the promotion of a
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developmental model: “Ecological Civilisation”. Based on a critical discourse analysis of headline African news published by the Xinhua News Agency, this research illustrates the emergence of this new, unexpected turn in Chinese representations of Africa, as well as highlighting the coherencies and tensions within this discourse. Questioning why this change in the emphasis of content has occurred, it investigates explanations at the macro-, mezzo-, and micro-levels of analysis, concluding that the evidence indicates that Xinhua’s content remains closely linked to the soft power goals of the Chinese Communist Party. However, the presence of risk discourses in some reports indicates that the hegemonic discourse is altering. This could potentially be the result of Xinhua’s own commercial objectives in Africa, or of the subjectivities of individual Xinhua journalists seeping into reports." (Abstract)
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"Despite recent intergovernmental commitments to advancing climate change education and communication (CCEC) internationally, there remains a lack of global data to enable tracking or target-setting on country progress. This article shares findings from an analysis of CCEC content in 377 submissions
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to the UNFCCC Secretariat. Submission types analyzed included National Communications reporting on recent activities, and Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans outlining future plans. Key findings about CCEC in primary to tertiary education, government, media, civil society, business, and public communications sectors are that: (a) while CCEC content appeared in submissions, little is currently suitable for monitoring purposes; and (b) there were notable gaps in CCEC activities, given a pronounced emphasis on cognitive knowledge over affective and action-oriented approaches. Regional variations were also found, with European countries on average including more content in relation to both Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) elements and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator components. Recommendations for future UNFCCC submissions on the quantity and quality of CCEC are highlighted, as well as for research and research-policy collaboration to further monitoring of CCEC implementation and progress globally." (Abstract)
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"Twitter is a key site for understanding the highly polarized and politicized debate around climate change. We examined large datasets comprising about 15 million tweets from different parts of the world referencing climate change and global warming. Our examination of the twenty most active users e
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mploying the term ‘global warming’ are likely to be automated accounts or bots than the most active users employing the term ‘climate change’. We used a mixed method approach including topic modelling, which is a digital method that automatedly identifies the top topics using an algorithm to understand how Twitter users engage with discussions on ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’. The percentage of the top 400 users who use the term ‘climate change’ and believe it is human-made or anthropogenic (82.5%) is much higher than users who use the term ‘global warming’ and believe in human causation (25.5%). Similarly, the percentage of active users who use the term ‘global warming’ were much more likely to believe it is a results of natural cycles (18%) than active users who use the term ‘climate change’ (5%). We also identified and qualitatively analysed the positions of the most active users. Our findings reveal clear politically polarized views, with many politicians cited and trolled in online discussions, and significant differences reflected in terminology." (Abstract)
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"This study interrogates the conventional understanding of and practice within mediated climate change communication (CCC) as a forum where transformative ideas on sustainability practices are shaped. Besides the dominance of non-African contexts and epistemologies in literature analyzing the media-
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climate change and public nexus, there is little attention given to problematizing public engagement. Common assumption pitches “the public” on the one side and “the communicator” on the other side. This bifurcated model of “communicating” climate change has import for the forms of subjectivity in climate (in)action, including a weakened citizenship representation in climate discourse and the de-pluralization of ideas. This study argues that for people to be actually engaged in climate campaigns, it is important to draw attention to what understanding of “person” and “community” undergird current CCC practice. The work draws insights from African political theories and communication studies to position CCC toward inclusive public engagement." (Abstract)
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"A trendy issue amongst African businesses is employment of strategic green marketing strategies to maximize the visibility of environmental sustainability, in sync with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal No. 15. This short essay has synthesized and reviewed literature relating to green
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marketing and environmental sustainability in Africa, as well as revealed potential gaps for future research. This literature review was conducted using keywords such as green marketing, social responsibility and environmental sustainability guiding the systematic search process. It is recommended that African countries and associated business organizations employ green marketing strategies so as to raise awareness of environmental sustainability." (Abstract)
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"Sustainability has been a guiding principle in development for long but gained renewed impetus through the worldwide adoption of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals following the increasingly tangible environmental and social effects of climate change. Achieving sustainable developm
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ent, however, has proved complicated, as it requires dealing with complex issues that cut across disciplines, sectors and stakeholder interests. This chapter explores what it takes to facilitate sustainable development and social change by unravelling the elements of a communication strategy that can bridge these complexities. Such a strategy is built on the principles of participation and empowerment and applies both ‘telling’ and ‘sharing’ functions of communication to inform, engage and connect stakeholders. These principles and practices are illustrated by two cases where conflicting interests existed between environmental and livelihood objectives. It concludes with the observation that a favorable institutional context is needed to operationalize effective communication for sustainable development." (Abstract)
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"Barbadians are not sufficiently prepared for natural disasters. In addition to being heavily reliant on electricity and the internet for communicating during times of crises and disasters, Barbados is in need of a mandatory building code, more resilient housing and building infrastructures, and gre
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ater uptake of insurance among property owners. Moreover, some Barbadians continue to be delayed in their response to emergency warnings. Their tendency to procrastinate on preparing for emergencies and disasters is largely attributed to the fact that, unlike other Caribbean territories, Barbados has not been significantly impacted by a disaster event for over sixty (60) years. As the telecommunication penetration continues to rise in the island, and the Barbados Government continues to be increasingly communicative, the past few years have seen the emergence of a healthier information ecosystem in Barbados, which in turn has made it easier for Barbadians to access the information that they need to effectively participate in society. This progress is however being undermined by the presence of the following undesirable properties: citizens’ and media professionals’ lack of access to information from local authorities caused by inaccessibility of authorities, unavailability of information, and bureaucratic structures and processes of; some citizens’ lack of access to the key information channels; the disabled community’s inability to access information from credible news and information sources; government’s increasing control over information flow; delays in dissemination of crisis and disaster communication to the media by the government; the use of jargons in crisis and disaster communications by local authorities; the proliferation of fake news and propaganda shared on social media and other online platforms; the inability of some Barbadians to identify malicious/inaccurate information; the deterioration of trust among Barbadians in their main information sources." (Overview of key findings, page 7)
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"The Palgrave Handbook of International Communication and Sustainable Development is a major resource for stakeholders interested in understanding the role of communication in achieving the UN'S Sustainable Development Goals. Bringing together theoretical and applied contributions from scholars in E
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urope, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and North America, the handbook argues that communication is a key factor in achieving the global goals and suggests a review of the SDGs to consider its importance. Reflecting on the impact of COVID-19, it highlights the need for effective communication infrastructure and critically assesses the 2030 agenda and timeline. Including individual SDG and country case studies as well as integrated analysis, the chapters seek to enrich understanding of communication for development and propose crucial policy interventions." (Publisher description)
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"In recent years, Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) has invested time and resources to better understand the results of the support it provides to journalists and media outlets. EJN already uses a suite of methods to gauge the impact of its efforts to improve environmental media, such as e
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valuating individual training and capacity development activities. In 2020, it commissioned a study that aimed to go a step further and support deeper learning on whether, how and why EJN’s work contributes to changes in the policies and practices of different actors. This report summarizes the study’s main findings, insights and recommendations [...] Key findings within EJN's control: EJN’s financial and mentoring support enables journalists with varied levels of experience to undertake reporting that they would otherwise find difficult. As a result, they can produce newsworthy stories on environmental issues. Research challenges mentioned earlier resulted in incomplete data, but it appears that stories supported by EJN are likely to achieve higher levels of engagement when published in local languages. Many stories published with EJN’s support are republished and shared through other news outlets and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Levels of engagement appear to vary considerably across countries and distribution channels, however data explored by the study indicates they may be higher for local language media, particularly video." (Executive summary, page 9-10)
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"Climate journalism gathers, evaluates, selects, and presents information about climate change, its characteristics, causes, and impacts, as well as ways to mitigate it, and distributes them via technical media to general and specialist audiences. It is an important source of information about clima
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te change for many people. Currently, however, the media ecosystem surrounding climate journalism is changing, with economic conditions becoming more strenuous, more communicators joining the debate, and social media changing the affordances of communication. This advanced review synthesizes scholarship on the status quo and the changes taking place in climate journalism in the Global North and the Global South. While it demonstrates that the scholarship has distinct gaps and biases, it does distill several robust findings. First, it shows that the organizational embedding of climate journalism is changing, with specialist reporters becoming scarce and working under more strenuous conditions and with the emergence of online-born news media and niche sites specializing in climate journalism. It also suggests that few specialist climate journalists exist in the Global South. Second, it demonstrates that the range of roles available to climate journalists has diversified, with a shift from “gatekeeping” to “curating” roles. Third, it indicates that climate journalists’ relationships with their sources have changed. Elite sources have been, and still are, important, but their composition has shifted from scientists to a broader range of stakeholders. Correspondingly, there seems to be a strong and rising influence of stakeholder PR on climate journalism." (Abstract)
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"This report—which complements MIF’s in-person and online convenings throughout the year—aims to highlight trends in environmental media grantmaking, impact studies and examples of promising media projects, and insights from funders in the space. This report focuses on U.S. funders who give in
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the U.S. and globally, with funding data covering 2009–2019. Some grantmakers are newer to the field of environmental media philanthropy, and other earlier funders have shifted priorities to non-environmental media work. The big picture shows that while some funders have changed focus, overall funding is going up. We compiled graphics to highlight the top five media projects by four key environmental areas: wildlife, conservation, climate change and oceans. According to our grants data map, between 2009 and 2019, U.S.-based funders have made: $12 million in media grants for wildlife, $56 million in media grants for conservation, $81 million in media grants for climate change, $18 million in media grants for ocean-related efforts. The variety of media projects being supported—from geographic information systems to film and video—is significant, and targeted at a wide range of issues including land conservation, documenting and reporting on the impacts of climate change, wildlife protection and restoration of the ocean environment." (Executive summary)
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"This research investigates the types of environmental issues represented in Malaysian newspapers and Environmental Non-Government Organisation (ENGO) newsletters and examines the factors in the selection of stories by both social actors. A quantitative content analysis was conducted on 2050 environ
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mental articles in The Star and Utusan Malaysia newspapers, together with the World Wide Fund for Nature’s (WWF) and Malaysian Nature Society’s (MNS) newsletters from 2012-2014. A total of 13 people from The Star and Utusan Malaysia, and 11 from the WWF and MNS were chosen for in-depth interview sessions. The study showed that the methods of choosing environmental information for newspapers and newsletters were slightly different. The ENGOs gave more attention to environmental effort topics like sustainable living while the media focused on more environmental problems like floods. The study also found that the Malaysian media and ENGOs shared some criteria for selecting environmental issues, especially proximity, timeliness and impact." (Abstract)
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