Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Environmental science concerns and confidence display an inverse correlation to societal progress on mitigating climate change and its effects: we know so much yet do so little. This gap can be correlated to opposing political interests and competing interests in the public as well as private domain. Despite or even especially because of this, environmental communication practitioners may hold an important role in linking research to policymakers and actors in political and general society. In this study, the findings of environmental research are complemented with observations of public environmental communication practitioners in Sweden, on what the communication climate looks like in adverse political and social climates. Using the analytical lens of social representations theory, the study found three major themes (audiences and actors; challenges and change; possibilities and successes) that are explored in their normative, cognitive, and affective dimensions. Disconnects between respondents' aims and results are discussed, as differences between normative and cognitive dimensions are discovered, and experienced successes are discussed alongside possibilities for environmental communication for positive climate change.