creating a place for environmental communication research in sustainability science

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This article was downloaded by: [Northeastern University] On: 18 November 2014, At: 16:13 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Environmental Communication Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/renc20 Creating a Place for Environmental Communication Research in Sustainability Science Laura A. Lindenfeld , Damon M. Hall , Bridie McGreavy , Linda Silka & David Hart Published online: 07 Mar 2012. To cite this article: Laura A. Lindenfeld , Damon M. Hall , Bridie McGreavy , Linda Silka & David Hart (2012) Creating a Place for Environmental Communication Research in Sustainability Science, Environmental Communication, 6:1, 23-43, DOI: 10.1080/17524032.2011.640702 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2011.640702 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions

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Page 1: Creating a Place for Environmental Communication Research in Sustainability Science

This article was downloaded by: [Northeastern University]On: 18 November 2014, At: 16:13Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Environmental CommunicationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/renc20

Creating a Place for EnvironmentalCommunication Research inSustainability ScienceLaura A. Lindenfeld , Damon M. Hall , Bridie McGreavy , LindaSilka & David HartPublished online: 07 Mar 2012.

To cite this article: Laura A. Lindenfeld , Damon M. Hall , Bridie McGreavy , Linda Silka & DavidHart (2012) Creating a Place for Environmental Communication Research in Sustainability Science,Environmental Communication, 6:1, 23-43, DOI: 10.1080/17524032.2011.640702

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2011.640702

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Creating a Place for Environmental Communication Research in Sustainability Science

Creating a Place for EnvironmentalCommunication Research inSustainability ScienceLaura A. Lindenfeld, Damon M. Hall, Bridie McGreavy,Linda Silka & David Hart

Environmental communication scholarship is critical to the success of sustainability

science. This essay outlines three pressing areas of intersection between the two fields.

First, environmental communication scholarship on public participation processes is

essential for sustainability science’s efforts to link knowledge with action. Second,

sustainability science requires collaborations across diverse institutional and disciplinary

boundaries. Environmental communication can play a vital role in reorganizing the

production and application of disciplinary knowledge. Third, science communication

bridges environmental communication and sustainability science and can move

communication processes away from one-way transmission models toward engaged

approaches. The essay draws on Maine’s Sustainability Solutions Initiative to illustrate

key outcomes of a large project that has integrated environmental communication into

sustainability science.

Keywords: Sustainability; Public Participation; Interdisciplinarity; Science

Communication; Stakeholder Engagement

Introduction

The growing field of sustainability science acknowledges that science-as-usual has

been complicit in creating our current unsustainable moment (Latour, 2004).

Sustainability science calls for a revision of science that requires different interactions

among practitioners, publics, and businesses (Cash, Borck, & Patt, 2006; Clark &

Dickson, 2003; Kates et al., 2001; McNie, 2007; Speth, 1992). Building on critiques of

science, sustainability science aims to support the long-term health of ecological and

Laura Lindenfeld is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism and the

Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. Correspondence to: Laura Lindenfeld, 5784

York Complex #4, Orono, ME 04469, USA. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 1752-4032 (print)/ISSN 1752-4040 (online) # 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2011.640702

Environmental Communication

Vol. 6, No. 1, March 2012, pp. 23�43

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socio-cultural functioning, where both leverage rather than compromise each other.

To achieve its goals, the field must attend to complex social�ecological interactions

and understand how to work with communities in novel ways. We maintain that

environmental communication scholarship is critical to the success of sustainability

science.

Sustainability science builds on ideas regarding sustainable development and thus

faces similar definitional challenges (Kates, Parris, & Leiserowitz, 2005). Our

definition builds on Chapin et al.’s (2010) concept that sustainability science is:

use-inspired research (Stokes, 1997) that spans and integrates a broad range ofscience, engineering, and policy disciplines and is directed towards the manage-ment of human-environment systems in ways that meet needs for humanlivelihoods while protecting ecosystem and environmental integrity. (Clark andDickson, 2003; Turner et al., 2003, p. 39)

Despite the existence of multiple definitions and dialogue about their relative

merits, most sustainability scientists focus on a series of dualities, including

interactions between human well-being and ecosystem health; the present and the

future; knowledge and action; local and global; and theory and practice.

Sustainability science aims to create ‘‘useable knowledge’’ (Cash et al., 2006;

McNie, 2007; Pielke, 2007). It emphasizes the coproduction of knowledge with

stakeholders and communities and integrates local knowledge (Clark & Dickson,

2003), rather than deferring to trickle-down models that often characterize university

research (van Kerkhoff & Lebel, 2006). This requires engaging diverse stakeholders to

develop a solutions orientation to research design (Kates et al., 2001) and a place-

based lens (Clark & Dickson, 2003; ICSU, 2002; Kates et al., 2001; Kates & Parris,

2003) focused on contexts where social and ecological systems (SES) interact in

complex, often unexpected ways (Clark & Dickson, 2003). Sustainability science grew

out of the ‘‘collective surge’’ toward sustainable development (Aguirre, 2002) and

calls for rethinking who initiates research, whose needs science serves, and how

parties collectively mobilize research outcomes. It depends on social science

disciplines like communication, economics, sociology, political science, and anthro-

pology. Environmental communication offers particular contributions critical to

sustainability science.

Whereas science has frequently characterized communication scholarship as a

service for improving the transmission of others’ brilliance, sustainability science’s

mission depends on constitutive understandings of communication, as evidenced in

its early reflexive orientations (Cash et al., 2003). This begins with defining problems

from the perspective of stakeholders and developing solutions collaboratively (Clark

& Dickson, 2003). Scientists must understand which sources are accepted as valid to

inform decisions and appreciate how groups define problems. This calls for engaged,

participatory communication research (Morgan, 2009) that interrogates problem

contexts.

Sustainability science acknowledges that the science-as-usual framework has often

developed the ‘‘wrong’’ kinds of information (McNie, 2007) and that science

24 L. A. Lindenfeld et al.

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communication often fails to deliver useful knowledge (Cash et al., 2003).

Environmental communication scholarship forms a cornerstone to sustainability

science’s ability to achieve its goals, especially its aspirations to create better pathways

for linking knowledge with action (K l A)1 (NRC, 1999). Environmental

communication’s ability to generate critical perspectives on science is central to

sustainability science’s aim to render itself relevant to stakeholders’ needs. Sustain-

ability science calls for the rich lines of inquiry, methodological insight, and

theoretical frameworks that communication scholars have developed.

Following an overview of sustainability science’s emergence, we offer a critique of

the field. We outline three areas of critical intersection and illustrate the complexities

and benefits of these intersections through our experience on a large, interdisci-

plinary project, Maine’s sustainability solutions initiative (SSI). We conclude that

sustainability science’s success depends on integration of environmental communica-

tion, and environmental communication should create deliberate strategies for

participating in this solutions-oriented field.

Diverse Pathways, Overlapping Goals

The concept of sustainability has circulated in natural resource management for

decades. Variations of the term were used to efficiently manage and maximize

renewable natural resource yields (Dixon & Fallon, 1989). Based on concerns of

overexploitation of natural resources in international development, the Brundtland

Report conceptualized interconnectivity among social, economic, cultural, and

environmental systems as ‘‘sustainable development’’ to situate environmental issues

centrally in global politics (Our Common Future, 1987). The Brundtland Report, a

watershed publication, helped to advance a ‘‘collective surge’’ of interest in

sustainable development (Aguirre, 2002) and the use of the term ‘‘sustainability’’

(Peterson, 1997). International development agencies quickly applied the terminol-

ogy to their work, and funding followed. The institution of science turned its

attention after research began to account for global scales of cumulative human

impact on global SES.

Sustainability science understands that the interdependent nature of SES requires a

coordinated effort involving multiple disciplines and the participation of decision

makers, communities, and stakeholders. Sustainability science places great impor-

tance on understanding communication processes within transdisciplinary analyses

and dissemination in social systems that impact ecological systems (Clark, Jaeger, &

van Eijndhoven, 1998), yet communication scholarship has not played a significant

role in this process. The call by Schellnhuber and Wenzel (1998) for ‘‘global

governance’’ of the anthroposphere and the ecosphere emphasizes the need for

multidisciplinary scientific evidence to establish a systems approach, thus laying the

groundwork for the high degrees of interdisciplinarity and integration of knowledge

that characterize sustainability science (Cash et al., 2003).

The National Research Council cemented the concept of sustainability science with a

call to action in Our Common Journey: ATransition toward Sustainability (NRC, 1999).

Environmental Communication Research in Sustainability Science 25

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This report argues that a sustainable future requires advances in basic knowledge and

‘‘the political will to turn this knowledge and know-how into action’’ (p. 7).

Sustainability science must develop an integrative framework that addresses urgent

needs, particularly through the development of K l A collaboratives (NRC, 1999). In

2001, scholars further laid the foundation by seeking to understand sustainability

problems ‘‘through integrated, place-based models and inverse, novel research

approaches that help society to meet the needs of humans while supporting earth’s

life-support systems’’ (Kates et al., 2001, p. 641). By 2003, sustainability science has

become a ‘‘vibrant arena’’ that combines global and local perspectives (Clark &

Dickson, 2003, p. 8050).

The field now enjoys institutional support and has become a recognized area of

inquiry. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences features a section on

sustainability science in which more than 200 peer-reviewed papers have been

published. Funding in the European Union (especially in Germany, Italy, and UK),

South Africa, and the US have led to global support, while online fora such as Science

and Innovation for Sustainable Development (www.sustainabilityscience.com) support

knowledge exchange and networking. A growing number of universities across the

globe have also created research and education programs focused on advancing the

theory and practice of sustainability science.

One of sustainability science’s primary challenges is to examine prospective future

pathways for coupled SES that operate under varying conditions of uncertainty and

complexity (Swart, Raskin, & Robinson, 2004). A central goal is to develop increased

understanding of factors that limit resilience and create vulnerability for SES (Walker,

Holling, Carpenter, & Kinzig, 2004). Clark and Dickson (2003) conceptualize three key

characteristics: (1) a focus on the coupled interactions of SES; (2) a problem-driven

orientation; and (3) commitment to generating knowledge through collaborations

between scholars and practitioners. Traditional methods of producing knowledge

require fundamental reorganization if we are to address the magnitude of the

interlinked, complex problems that create barriers to long-term sustainability (Speth,

2004). This requires an increased ability to engage in collaboration with diverse

constituents who often have conflicting value systems (Frame, 2008; Jasanoff, 2004;

Kates et al., 2001; Komiyama & Takeuchi, 2006).

Challenges for Sustainability Science

Systematic critiques of sustainability science have yet to be articulated. While

sustainability science holds great promise, it runs the risk of replicating many

problems associated with sustainable development. Critiques of sustainable devel-

opment can help anticipate critiques of sustainability science. Environmental

communication has the capacity to help address some of these areas of vulnerability,

and we outline how environmental communication can bolster sustainability

science’s ability to address these challenges.

As Peterson articulates in her hallmark critique, sustainable development tended to

privilege the term development over sustainable (1997). Sustainability science runs

26 L. A. Lindenfeld et al.

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similar risk in focusing on development to the exclusion of the complex interlocking

spheres of sustainability. Peterson argues that sustainable development’s focus on

measuring sustainability based on scientific as opposed to ethical or political terms is

deeply problematic, and sustainability science has tended to articulate itself along the

same lines of division. With its focus on linking K l A, sustainability science hopes

to manage the contradiction of producing ‘‘objective’’ science while engaging

communities in decision making. Similarly, scientific research goals often neglect

to consider entrenched cultural differences and the need to govern culturally

pluralistic societies that often find themselves in what seem to be irreconcilable

conflicts (Benhabib, 2002). Peterson’s critique reminds us that cultural norms

frequently determine what is viewed as important to sustain, while scientific research

often reaches different conclusions (1997). We must bridge this divide if we are to

develop sustainable solutions.

Sustainability science runs the risk of ‘‘fetishizing’’ data at the expense of

understanding conflicts that undergird societal decision making at multiple levels

and scales. Positing knowledge as reliable, while not considering the power inherent

in knowledge production, puts sustainability science at risk of undermining its core

tenets. Post-normal science approaches like sustainability science rest on the

understanding that ‘‘facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions

urgent’’ (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1991, p 137). Decision making under high degrees of

uncertainty requires novel approaches to science communication that move beyond

transmission models to models of engagement. This requires deeper understandings

of conflicts around science production and usage. One need only to look at the

complexity of engaging US citizens around climate change to note how easily science

is politicized (Mooney & Kirshenbaum, 2009). Sustainability science can learn from

more general critiques of science (Kuhn, 1962; Prelli, 1989), and taking these critiques

seriously means placing itself under scrutiny.

Our critique of sustainability science conceptualizes important roles for environ-

mental communication. Critique itself fulfills an important function in post-normal

bodies of research that have both empirical and corrective aims. Peterson emphasizes

criticism’s ability to serve as a ‘‘corrective for humanity’s hypertechnologized state’’

(1997, p. 3). Environmental communication offers complementary frameworks in

this arena. The intersection between the fields provides fertile ground for

collaboration. We frame three of the most urgent areas of intersection and discuss

how these can help sustainability science to address these challenges. We spend

proportionally greater time on the first intersection, as it constitutes a pivotal issue

for both fields.

Intersection I: Linking Knowledge with Action

One of the greatest challenges facing sustainability science results from difficulties in

producing knowledge to support improved decision making, while strengthening

communities’ socioeconomic and cultural assets. Traditional methods of generating

knowledge are ill equipped to further this broader goal. While society clearly needs

Environmental Communication Research in Sustainability Science 27

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knowledge production in engineering and natural sciences, this is insufficient for

producing a transition to more sustainable communities. Cash et al. (2006) refer to

this as a ‘‘loading dock’’ problem that must be countered to create better K l A

linkages. In the traditional model, scientists decide what to study and make

information available to society by placing it on a ‘‘loading dock,’’ then waiting for

society to pick that information up and use it. This process has largely failed to meet

societal needs (McNie, 2007; van Kerkhoff & Lebel, 2006). To produce more useful

knowledge, academics and communities must manage various boundaries to achieve

and maintain salience, credibility, and legitimacy (Cash et al., 2006). Van Kerkhoff

and Lebel (2006) critique conventional assumptions of K l A processes and argue

for an increased focus on public participation; improved integration of invested

parties; initiatives that stress learning and knowledge sharing; and models that focus

on negotiation and power sharing.

Environmental communication has particular strength in this area, as its objects of

inquiry often focus on everyday practices and vernacular discourses. In particular,

environmental communication has deep expertise in public discourse surrounding

environmental policy (Peterson, 1997, 2004; Peterson & Franks, 2006; Taylor, 2007);

conflict, public participation, and decision making (Beierle & Cayford, 2002; Daniels

& Walker, 2001; Depoe, Delicath, & Elsenbeer, 2004); environmental and anti-

environmental social movement discourse (DeLuca, 1999; Endres, Sprain, &

Peterson, 2009; Moser & Dilling, 2007); and environmental justice (Pezzullo, 2007;

Sandler & Pezzullo, 2007), all of which are pertinent to advancing sustainability

science. While a thorough overview of this literature exceeds the parameters of this

essay, a few issues are especially noteworthy.

The environmental communication research on public participation offers

important insights for sustainability science’s K l A agenda. Heath, Palenchar,

Proutheau, and Hocke (2007) view the study of stakeholder relationships as key to

environmental communication’s mission. With this literature’s origins in conflict

studies, the research lenses applied to collaborative natural resources decision making

and public comment are critically attuned to matters of equity, voice, and power

imbalances. Senecah’s (2004) Trinity of Voice approach includes concepts of access,

standing, and influence, to develop a schematic for more effective public engagement

processes. Building and maintaining trust is central to community cohesiveness and

improved decision making that results from sense of community (Senecah, 2004).

Daniels and Walker (2001) delineate critical attributes of collaboration that

differentiate it from traditional forms of participation, an important distinction for

the forms of engagement that sustainability science seeks to engender. Collaboration

is less competitive, is based on mutual learning and fact-finding, allows for

exploration of differences, focuses on interests rather than positions, and allocates

responsibility across multiple parties. Collaborative engagement is ongoing and

draws conclusions through interactive, reflective practices (Daniels & Walker, 2001).

While collaboration as engagement has limitations (Peterson, Peterson, & Peterson,

2005), environmental communication research on other forms of public participa-

tion can add significant depth to the engagement of stakeholders and public

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audiences. These frameworks can be instrumental in focusing on the definition and

measurement of sustainability, while attending to sustainability’s ethical and political

dimensions. These engagement frameworks are critical to balancing competing

conceptualizations and focusing attention on process and outcomes.

Other conceptual frameworks in environmental communication can address the

problem of privileging development over sustainability. This requires critical

practices to ensure that the field scrutinizes the impact of its undertakings. Cantrill

and Oravec look to language as a space where we ‘‘reify what we take to be real,’’ an

approach that foregrounds communication’s constitutive power (1996, p. 2). If

sustainability aims to create solutions to existing problems, we must remember that

problems themselves are socially constructed creatures. As Cantrill writes, ‘‘while

grave threats may in fact exist in the environment, the perception of such danger,

rather than the reality thereof, is what moves people to action (1996, p. 76).

Sustainability science’s vast reliance on data enables it to model change at the global

level. Yet, SES data tend to focus less on cultural and more on economic and social

issues, and they frequently model populations on large scales. Including environ-

mental communication can remind us of the importance of culture, social networks,

and communication practices at finer scales that are specific, locally based, and often

highly resilient. Adopting a framework that allows for the nuanced, rich analysis that

many environmental communication researchers undertake can balance the need to

produce SES models with important insights into on-the-ground practices.

Environmental communication’s attention to nuanced communication practices

that foster interpersonal and group relationships moves beyond other disciplines’

structure and process lenses. Environmental communication conceptualizes com-

munication as a constitutive process, whereby communication shapes our relation-

ships with each other and the natural environment (Cox, 2010). With its concern for

voice and local knowledge, communication research documents perspectives of

diverse stakeholders and maintains local voices. As Carbaugh writes, our objective

should be in ‘‘formulat[ing] the meaningfulness of conversational interaction to

participants in terms they find resonant, important to them, thereby opening portals

into their communal standards for such action’’ (2005, p. xiii). Communication

practices are essential within decision making because what knowledge gets counted

as valid is as important as the knowledge itself (Latour, 2004). This research

perspective helps identify subtle signs of conflict, power, and marginalization within

decision making discourse before they erupt into intractability of process or harmful

policies with unintended consequences. Natural resources management scholarship

on stakeholder and public participation rarely cites the work of communication

scholars (Hage, Leroy, & Petersen, 2010; Reed, 2008; Siebenhuner, 2004), yet this

research addresses precisely the complexities that sustainability science must address

if it is to engage in successful collaboration.

K l A conceptualizes knowledge production as co-construction rather than as a

top-down model in which universities function as the experts and communities are

perceived as having a knowledge deficit (Aeberhard & Rist, 2009; Anadon,

Gimenez, Ballestar, & Perez, 2009; Hage et al., 2010; Hart & Calhoun, 2010;

Environmental Communication Research in Sustainability Science 29

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Hordijk & Baud, 2006; Jasanoff, 2004). This requires fundamental rethinking of

how knowledge is produced (Kahan, 2010; Leach, 2007). Increasingly, sustainability

science has begun to emphasize what environmental communication scholars have

long understood to be key to establishing meaningful relationships between

universities and communities: a profound need for ‘‘context-dependency of

participatory knowledge production [and] the importance of reflection and

transparency regarding the role of scientific advisors in the science policy process’’

(Hage et al., 2010). The coproduction framework can also help sustainability

science to avoid the problem of relying on producing models for models’ sake.

Sustainability science requires partnerships with multiple stakeholders and diverse

communities. Scholars must understand what kinds of research and modeling

stakeholders and communities need and remain attuned to the range of issues people

face. This means engaged research that is capable of assessing salient discourses, power

structures, local language, and cultural practices within particular contexts. To listen in

depth to how stakeholders and communities conceptualize and communicate their

relationship to each other and to the landscape requires researchers who do precisely

this. Communication scholarship has called for more grounded, problem-based

(Craig & Tracy, 1995; Tracy, 2007), useful praxis-oriented (Chouliaraki, 2006; Cronen,

2001), and engaged communication scholarship (Deetz, 2008). This praxis-oriented

inquiry addresses problems that matter to people. This culture of merging basic and

applied communication work acknowledges the messiness of situational complexities.

Sprain, Endres, and Petersen (2010) argue that communication that seeks to affect

public communication practices should move to a model of transdisciplinary,

networked research and engagement approaches. Transdisciplinarity, which refers

here to a research strategy that moves both across academic disciplines and beyond the

university walls, parallels many of the tenets that sustainability science implies with its

concept of K l A.

Sustainability science stresses the importance of ensuring broad participation of

people and institutions, ranging from industry and government to researchers and

students (Komiyama & Takeuchi, 2006). Environmental communication scholars

have a long-standing record of research that addresses this concern. Building on

Kinsella’s concept of public expertise (2004), Endres (2009) develops the concept of

public scientific argument to articulate how nonscientists engage in public debate

within the context of contemporary technocratic modes of public participation. Yet,

this research has infrequently reached scholars of sustainability science given the

fractured nature of university disciplines and the resulting lack of interface between

these groups (Amey & Brown, 2004). Environmental communication scholars can

help sustainability science and its partner communities identify and develop

improved ways to work in partnership. This requires understanding on the part of

universities that partnerships are often fraught with paradoxes (Silka, 1999). There is

also an increased recognition that university/community engagement tends toward a

‘‘helicopter syndrome’’ in which researchers drop down into a community to spend

time collaborating on a problem, only to then move on to other issues. Sustainability

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science requires long-term commitments that provide ongoing collaboration built on

trust (Senecah, 2004), shared resources, and a common vision.

Our suggested integration of environmental communication can help sustain-

ability science to address sustainability problems and conceptualize enduring

solutions by situating research and engagement across various altitudes, from fine-

scale, place-based communication research that provides rich detail and depth about

communities and stakeholder groups, to large-scale modeling projects that aim to

account for global population change and large-scale natural resource management.

Together, these approaches can bolster sustainability science to address some of its

key challenges.

Intersection II: Reorganizing Disciplinary Knowledge

Linking K l A challenges researchers to engage with groups outside academe. This

rests on the assumption that university researchers themselves are able to work

together. Sustainability science requires unprecedented levels of collaboration across

disciplines and with stakeholders. This work is both transdisciplinary (Sprain et al.,

2010) in that it reaches beyond the institutional walls of higher education, and

interdisciplinary (Amey & Brown, 2004) in that it requires diverse disciplines to come

together in novel ways. Interdisciplinarity requires that diverse constituents who

often have different reward systems and conflicting values navigate the often unruly

and*for many university researchers*frightening territory of working together.

Increasingly, researchers have focused on studying interdisciplinary research

collaboratives (Amey & Brown, 2004; Dewulf, Francois, Pahl-Wostl, & Taillieu,

2007; Lattuca, 2001; Thompson, 2007). While there is much to note about this

scholarship, what is of particular interest here is the recognition that institutional

barriers manifest themselves in behaviors and attitudes of researchers. In short,

interdisciplinary collaboration is complicated and certain forms of engagement

enable success (e.g., the use of framing as a strategy to help researchers develop

collective languages (Dewulf et al., 2007)), while other forms hinder progress (e.g.,

disciplinary arrogance and jockeying for power (Thompson, 2007)).

Environmental communication resembles sustainability science in its employment

of multiple methods from communication and social science theories, but often

incorporates research into the content of the natural sciences and management

disciplines. Environmental communication scholars often have an affinity for

interdisciplinary thinking that can help to bridge gaps that arise within collabora-

tions. Where communication’s disciplinary lenses are hybridizations of social science

theories and methodologies applied to communication practices, environmental

communication also remains conversant with many other disciplines, among others,

environmental sciences and economics. As a field that attends to issues of power,

voice, agency, and participation, environmental communication is attuned to issues

that threaten to undermine interdisciplinary collaboration. Thompson’s ethnographic

research on interdisciplinary research teams demonstrates how environmental

communication research can contribute to interdisciplinarity. She identifies key

Environmental Communication Research in Sustainability Science 31

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attributes that foster or undermine collective communication competence, a framework

that helps us understand some of the core underpinnings of successful collaboration

(Thompson, 2007). Thompson’s work exemplifies a larger body of literature within

organizational communication, an area that can enhance organizational studies in

sustainability science from the vantage point of communication.

Organizations like the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health,

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and US Department of

Agriculture have developed funding streams targeted at advancing interdisciplinary

approaches to solving complex research problems. This is especially true in the area

of sustainability. Environmental communication’s attention to how communication

constitutes group identity and enables or disables communication can help

sustainability science teams to study their own collaboration processes and improve

their ability to work together with partners outside of the university walls.

Intersection III: Expanding Approaches to Science Communication

Sustainability science’s aim to create wide-reaching transformation requires

involvement of broader publics in decision making and behavior change at

different scales and across diverse settings. The literature on science communication

and public audiences should play an expanded role in sustainability science. Science

communication overlaps with sustainability science and environmental commu-

nication and bridges the two. Integrating science communication can help to

conceptualize the relationship between on-the-ground daily practices and discourses

that appear across various kinds of media. Media studies scholarship creates

knowledge about how sustainability issues are communicated in diverse contexts

across different channels. This research spans a range of topics (Hansen, 2010) from

the study of Hollywood film (Ingram, 2000) to analysis of advertising campaigns

(Smerecnik & Renegar, 2010) to the study of newspaper coverage of sustainability

issues (Carvalho & Burgess, 2005). Environmental communication provides

particular strengths in the area of cultural and popular representations of nature

(Boyce & Lewis, 2009; Corbett, 2006; Dobrin & Morey, 2009; Meister & Japp, 2002)

and technical and scientific communication within the public sphere and public

understanding of science (Carvalho, 2007; Cox, 2010; Nisbet, 2009; Stamm, Clark,

& Eblacas, 2000).

Environmental and science communication scholarship emphasizes that commu-

nication processes must attend to social values to build trust and collaborative

partnerships. While science communication supports the development of effective

science message frames sensitive to social values, environmental communication

provides analytical tools to reveal the limits of precisely the frames that sustainability

science requires. Citizen science as a participatory form of science communication may

provide an additional boundary field between the two communication disciplines.

Yet, many sustainability scientists still tend to see communication as a one-way

process that occurs at the project’s end. The past decade has seen a growth in the

number of workshops designed to train scientists to communicate more effectively

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with public audiences (Irwin, 2001). These workshops aim to bridge the growing

science-society gap in the US Strategies for training scientists to reach a broad range

of audiences are often based on the problematic trickle-down model of commu-

nication. With a focus on message construction and audience analysis, such

workshops can help scientists develop effective strategies for communicating results

with nonscientists, but they do not challenge scientists to rethink aspects of the

communication process. While efforts to help science become more relevant to

broader publics are necessary, these efforts would benefit from a more sophisticated

understandings of communication to bridge dominant perspectives on communica-

tion and its relevance to science and the more expansive views as articulated by the

field of environmental communication.

Science communication covers a spectrum of research from dissemination of

scientific ‘‘facts’’ to models of public engagement (Bubela et al., 2009; Kurath &

Gisler, 2009; Nisbet & Scheufele, 2009). Science communication also intersects with

sustainability science and environmental communication in its rearticulation of

transmission models of communication. The traditional scientific literacy model

posits a deficit model of communication that reiterates the ‘‘loading dock’’ problem

(Bauer, Allum, & Miller, 2007; Nisbet & Scheufele, 2009). While recent science

communication scholarship critiques the deficit model, the field still emphasizes the

importance of message framing and the role of media (especially new media) in

making science information relevant and understandable to public audiences (Illes

et al., 2010; Nisbet & Mooney, 2007; Schweizer, Thompson, Teel, & Bruyere, 2009).

Given science communication’s emphasis on message frames, researchers largely

articulate the importance of frames sensitive to social values and local contexts (Nisbet

& Scheufele, 2009; Norton, 1998; Schweizer et al., 2009). Communication between

researchers and stakeholders that is respectful of the diverse perspectives that

stakeholders bring to collaborations is more likely to result in meaningful partnerships

(Dewulf et al., 2007; Norton, 1998). Nisbet and Scheufele emphasize the importance of

understanding ‘‘an intended audience’s existing values, knowledge, and attitudes, their

interpersonal and social contexts, and their preferred media sources and commu-

nication channels’’ (2009, p. 1767). The field of science communication tends to focus

on the interplay between researchers and stakeholders in mediated systems of

communication (Nisbet & Scheufele, 2009). Science communication research may be

especially useful in situations where relevant scientific information has already been

produced, but needs to be communicated in ways that build trust, overcome language

barriers, and shift values (Hart & Calhoun, 2010).

Environmental communication faces the challenge of linking media studies and

collaboration/engagement research. It is one thing to understand what kind of

discourses circulate in popular culture; it is another to understand how this impacts

decision making in particular contexts. Bridging these two areas calls for a deeper

understanding of how attitudes about landscape change, sustainability, and resource

management may be cultivated through a variety of print and online media.

Approaches that merge these two areas must remain sensitive to information needs

and cultural values, as outlined in our section on K l A. Knowledge about attitudes,

Environmental Communication Research in Sustainability Science 33

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values, and concerns can play an instrumental role in anticipating responses to changes

in laws, policies, and social frameworks. Merging knowledge from science commu-

nication with sustainability science and environmental communication can help us

better understand critical boundaries between science and the general public. This

integration is instrumental to knowledge diffusion, application, and transfer, but it

poses challenges for environmental communication scholarship for a number of

intellectual and institutional reasons. By virtue of our training, environmental

communication scholars as a group tend to understand issues of power and voice.

At risk of marginalizing environmental communication, sustainability science must

understand that environmental communication research is not public relations.

Similarly, our role in the research process is far more critical and engaged than to serve

as editors of papers or experts for improving scientific information transmission. The

discipline has long since departed from the fantasy that there are formulaic means by

which social support can automatically be achieved. Environmental communication

scholars can provide a sophisticated view of communication, language, and power to

complement science communication’s focus on information transmission systems.

These fields, taken together, promise to improve democratic decision making.

Overlapping Frameworks, Shared Intersections

Environmental communication and sustainability science have much to offer each

other. In addition to the three areas outlined, the two fields share other commonalities.

Sustainability science’s understanding of sustainability issues as urgent problems

mirrors Cox’s articulation of environmental communication as a crisis discipline (Cox,

2007). There is an increased understanding that SESs are ‘‘messy,’’ that is, interlocking

social and ecological problems frequently include multiple, often competing issues

(Alessa, Kliskey, & Altaweel, 2009). Mirroring this recognition is a body of scholarship

in environmental health (of people and ecosystems) that characterizes sustainability

projects as ‘‘tame’’ or ‘‘wicked,’’ that is, they are ‘‘illusive or difficult to pin down and

influenced by a constellation of complex social and political factors, some of which

change during the process of solving the problem’’ (Kreuter, De Rosa, Howze, &

Baldwin, 2004, p. 442). Environmental communication has a tradition of reflexivity and

critique of rationality in knowledge formation and of analyzing how reality has been

constructed in ways that privilege the human functioning to the detriment of ecological

functioning (Cantrill & Oravec, 1996). Because discourse within the public realm

constructs habitual and pathological realities, it may also be used to deconstruct and re-

construct alternative realities (Ivie, 2001) that align ecological and socio-cultural

functioning. This understanding is pertinent to the conceptualization of SES as messy,

‘‘wicked’’, and often contradictory.

The potential for integration and cross-fertilization is tremendous. In the following

section, we describe efforts to integrate environmental communication into Maine’s

Sustainability Solutions Initiative (SSI) and initial outcomes of this integration.

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Environmental communication has played a key role in SSI since the project’s outset,

and we illustrate some complexities and benefits of this collaboration.

Lessons Learned: Environmental communication in Maine’s Sustainability

Solutions Initiative

Since 2009, we have had the opportunity to work with colleagues from over 20

disciplines through the SSI at the University of Maine. The SSI (http://www.umaine.

edu/sustainabilitysolutions/index.htm) grew out of a multiyear collaboration of

faculty from numerous disciplines. Our K l A team has played a central role in the

SSI’s development, and the SSI recognizes the centrality of environmental commu-

nication to its research mission. The K l A team consists of social scientists from

environmental communication, psychology, economics, anthropology, human

ecology, law, and policy, and its primary research focuses on ways in which different

stakeholders and communities interact with the research process. We seek to

understand how collaboration and other forms of engagement can help overcome

obstacles to K l A processes. We develop models of collaboration and test theories

on the ways in which individual- and group-level processes link individual

stakeholders and community actions and how the research process influences and

is influenced by these collaborations.

The SSI seeks to transform Maine’s capacity for addressing the challenges of

developing a sustainable future that aligns with the values, needs, and desires of the

state’s communities. Central to this transformation is a focus on problem-driven

research that strives to identify and implement solutions. Currently, the SSI is funded

in part by a five-year $20 million grant from NSF under the Experimental Program to

Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). A core underpinning to SSI’s approach is

the shared characterization of problems through engagement with stakeholders and

communities. SSI has adopted a portfolio approach to identify alternative scenarios

and characterize their uncertainty; understand the interplay among diverse systems;

create a more nuanced understanding of complexity; and ensure responsive

identification of limits, thresholds, and unintended consequences for Maine’s future.

The project’s ultimate goal is to create meaningful solutions.

Environmental communication research has influenced how SSI conceptualizes

problems and solutions. In spring 2009, we conducted a survey of municipal agents

to understand how this important group of stakeholders characterizes sustainability

problems. We also sought to learn how municipalities would like to collaborate with

us. We are learning that university researchers and municipal agents conceptualize

problems and solutions in strikingly different ways and that we prefer different

collaboration strategies (Hutchins, Lindenfeld, Silka, Leahy, & Bell, 2011). This

research is vital to SSI’s overall effort, because without a clear understanding of not

only what problems people face but also how they conceptualize them, the SSI risks

Environmental Communication Research in Sustainability Science 35

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approaching collaborations with frames that do not resonate with our stakeholders

and trying to work with them in ways that are unproductive. Other research has

sought to understand the complexity of engaging in transdisciplinary collaboration

from the vantage point of researchers. To this end, we have conducted extensive

interviews with SSI team members to understand what K l A means to them, what

concerns they have about engaged research, and how we might overcome obstacles to

transdisciplinary collaboration.

Our experiences led to a number of recognitions that deserve attention in this

essay. The collaboration between biophysical and social scientists has proven not only

more complex but also more rewarding than anticipated. While many biophysical

colleagues initially thought of communication research as public relations, perspec-

tives have changed over time. One biophysical colleague, Gayle Zydlewski, speaking

on the benefits of interdisciplinarity, summed it up when she said to the SSI team,

‘‘I learned that social scientists are not our outreach coordinators.’’ SSI increasingly

appreciates what environmental communication research offers to our collective

efforts. Barthes wrote that:

[i]nterdisciplinary work is not a peaceful operation: it begins effectively when thesolidarity of the old disciplines breaks down�a process made more violent, perhaps,by the jolts of fashion�to the benefit of a new object and a new language, neither ofwhich is in the domain of those branches of knowledge that one calmly sought toconfront. (1977, p. 155)

Building trust and continually finding new ways to articulate what we bring to the

collective sustainability science enterprise helps our project to identify strategies for

collaborating. This process is slow and cannot be rushed. It involves many meetings

and face-to-face time, and humor plays an important role in building bridges and

creating a common language, two of the key characteristics of successful inter-

disciplinary collaboration (Thompson, 2007). Setting the problem at an altitude that

rests above the ability of any one discipline ensures that the collective actions of the

group override the dominance of any one researcher. Graduate students are a crucial

force in breaking down walls, as they are in the position to approach some of our more

established colleagues and bring fresh energy and new language to the conversation.

As environmental communication researchers, we have learned that it is important

for us to read more deeply in the fields of our respective biophysical partners. We find

ourselves*at the faculty and graduate student level alike*signing up for courses in

areas foreign to our training. The ability to show that we value our collaborators’

knowledge and experience has helped us to gain trust and standing, and enabled us to

have conversations about what our work can contribute. This work requires new

tools that no one discipline can design on its own. Our evolving tool box has

integrated concepts and theories from social psychology, economics, organizational

studies, natural resource management, and other fields with which we have

intersected. In particular, we have found the work of scholars like Elinor Ostrom

to be inspirational in that they transcend any particular disciplinary framework and

call for local models to address local solutions (Ostrom & Cox, 2010).

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The K l A focus makes this research tangible to us in a way that our previous

research often did not. Being involved with diverse groups across Maine heightens

our awareness of people’s needs and creates a deeper sense of respect for what

communities face. This, in turn, makes us feel a deep sense of ethical commitment to

our work. Sustainability problems involve diverse needs, opportunities, assets, and

complications. They also involve funding agency timelines, restrictions, outputs, and

outcomes. Likewise, universities operate within their own unique spheres that create

roadblocks and opportunities unique to higher education. Involving environmental

communication in our K l A research has helped us to conceptualize our work as a

continual process of alignment where we consider these various needs, assets, and

complexities on an ongoing basis and iteratively cycle back to modify our approach.

This work reminds us that research intervenes and changes relationships. There are

deep stakes in the work we are doing. Many of our team conversations revolve around

issues of ethics and considerations of how our research practices and products affect

groups and individuals outside of our research circle. These reflexive conversations

and recognitions are crucially important to sciences that want to remain relevant and

make a positive impact in the world.

Concluding Thoughts, Future Directions

The development of sustainability science will be greatly strengthened by

integrating environmental communication. We have outlined the advantages of

this integration. We conclude by considering how environmental communication

research can benefit from this relationship. Integrating with sustainability science

means that environmental communication works in collaboration with other

disciplines. As we have learned through our own experiences, interdisciplinary

collaboration is hard, but sustainability work is even harder, as it involves long-

term collaborations with communities, cross-campus colleagues, and stakeholders.

Environmental communication stands to benefit from intersecting with sustain-

ability science in that it can be part of a larger, transdisciplinary endeavor focused

on solving problems.

Integration provides new venues for interdisciplinary research funding. We note

NSF’s 2010 establishment of the science, engineering, and education for sustainability

(SEES) investment area that aims to promote research and education geared at

addressing the challenges of creating a sustainable future. SEES provides an

extraordinary opportunity for environmental communication researchers to become

involved in extramurally funded collaborative research. EPSCoR funding provides

opportunities for eligible states in the US to build capacity in areas like sustainability

science. While universities are struggling to find new resources, interdisciplinary

grant funding can provide important, exciting frameworks for rethinking how

institutions of higher education can and should work.

Just as sustainability science will face challenges in integrating environmental

communication, so, too, will environmental communication need to adapt.

Interdisciplinary research often results in multiauthored publications. Many

Environmental Communication Research in Sustainability Science 37

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communication departments lack experience evaluating collaborative research of

faculty for promotion and tenure. While the biophysical sciences have long utilized a

model where multiple papers constitute a dissertation, communication departments

have been slower to adjust to this framework. These institutional barriers are by no

means insurmountable, but they require thoughtful consideration of what can and

should be changed.

Many environmental communication scholars are comfortable engaging critically

with texts and discourse. Sustainability science requires us to move beyond

criticism to action and solutions. Identifying strategies for linking the sophisticated

critiques of science and scientific endeavors with productive engagement is

challenging. We recognize that not all scholars will want to be involved in engaged

research. As Sprain et al. write, ‘‘we do not assume that making a difference

motivates all communication scholars. If we are to make moves toward expanding

the difference-making capacities of our discipline, we must start by confronting the

reality that scholars may or may not choose to engage in research that makes a

difference’’ (2010, p. 212). Environmental communication scholars who want to

engage in research that makes a difference can find important places in

sustainability science research teams.

We conclude this article with a few caveats. It is not our intent to assert that all

environmental communication scholars should direct their efforts toward sustain-

ability science. Although there is much that environmental communication scholars

can offer to this field, not all areas of our scholarship lend themselves to this focus,

and environmental communication is clearly engaged on a variety of important

fronts other than sustainability science. Second, we recognize that there is a

continued need for critical analysis of the sustainability science enterprise. Our

own engagement with sustainability science reminds us that we must remain attuned

to the development of hierarchies and power differences across disciplines and within

sustainability science.

Regardless of these limitations, there is much to be gained by bringing

environmental communication into the evolving field of sustainability science.

Doing so will likely strengthen environmental communication in ways that are crucial

for addressing the sustainability problems of our era. There is an ethical opportunity

here. As Senecah notes ‘‘the ethical call is for EC folks to help each other apply our

diverse expertise, knowledge, and skills in whatever ways will productively get us

somewhere in addressing the EC crises of our era’’ (2007, p. 32). Engaging in

sustainability science is one meaningful way to engage in this ethical call.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for insightful comments and feedback on

previous versions of this article. This material is based on work supported by the

National Science Foundation award EPS-0904155 to Maine EPSCoR at the University

of Maine.

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Note

[1] We use the term K l A with some reservations. We believe that knowledge is only part of

what motivates action. Colleagues in the field of social psychology remind us that we should

focus on linking changes in behavior with action rather than concentrating on knowledge.

We use the concept of K l A in this essay because it is the concept that circulates in

sustainability science, but it is important to create a more refined understanding of how

action transpires.

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