Environmental Communication and Critical Coastal Policy ─ Communities, Culture and Nature

Charting new waters for environmental communication, this analysis of coastal management and public participation places local culture and local media at the forefront. The book addresses coastal zone management in the context of global climate change and its challenges alongside other global environmental challenges such as fossil fuel use, pollution, forest degradation, biodiversity loss and so on. Climate change is particularly relevant as the coastal zone is the environment where climate change impacts are most notable.

The book challenges the current status quo in environmental policy which posits that more science and better communication will deliver greater citizen participation in, and awareness of, environmental issues. Instead, the book argues that ‘more science and better communication’ has been largely responsible for the lacklustre response by citizens to environmental concerns and that the inclusion of a range of local meanings and cultural frameworks with which experts could engage would better incite participation in, and awareness of, local environmental issues.

This book examines the way in which local media (mainstream, alternative and social media) engages with local environmental issues. These local sets of relations which create, maintain and manage ideas and assumptions about the environment, represented within the ‘background noise’ of a wide range of media products, are critical to an ongoing effort to engage with local communities. The value and possible role of these media alternatives are examined here to illustrate and support the key argument that meaningful local engagement is a largely ignored but powerful tool in the coastal management process.

Kerrie Foxwell-Norton is a Senior Lecturer at Griffith University, Australia.