New Book Illustrates Challenges Facing Environmental Communicators

Supported by Grant from Arthur W. Page Center at Penn State

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA -- A new book, Talking Green: Exploring Current Issues in Environmental Communication, has been published by Peter Lang International Publishing Group. The editors are Arthur W. Page Center Legacy Scholars from Penn State’s College of Communications: Denise Bortree and Lee Ahern.

The book is an anthology with nine articles contributed by 15 authors, including several leading environmental communications researchers and one leading practitioner. “The goal,” say Bortree and Ahern, “is to identify and explore some of the common questions and challenges that confront environmental communicators.”

Talking Green was inspired by a 2008 essay, Weathercocks & Signposts: The Environmental Movement at a Crossroads by Tom Crompton, a change strategist with the World Wildlife Federation—UK. The executive summary of Crompton’s essay is the first chapter in Talking Green and Crompton contributes an afterword.

The other chapters and their authors include:

“Winning the Conversation: Framing and Moral Messaging in Environmental Campaigns,” by Matthew C. Nisbet, Ezra M. Markowitz and John E. Kotcher, all from the School of Communication at American University;

“Biofuels and the Law of Unintended Consequences,” by Charles T. Salmon of Nanyang Technological University and Leleah Fernandez of Michigan State University;

“Greenwashing to Green Advocacy: The Environmental Imperative in Organizational Rhetoric,” by Brant Short of Northern Arizona University;

“Environmental Risk Communication: Right to Know as a Core Value for Behavioral Change,” by Michael J. Palenchar of the University of Tennessee and Bernardo H. Motta of Bridgewater College;

“Public Response Before and After a Crisis: Appeals to Value and Outcomes for Environmental Attitudes,” by Janas Sinclair of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Barbara Miller of Elon University;

“Individual Factors and Green Message Reception: Framing, Lifestyles and Environmental Choices,” by Harsha Gangadharbatla and Kim B. Sheehan of the University of Oregon;

“Pro-Environmental Behaviors Through Social Media: An Analysis of Twitter Communication Strategies,” by Penn State’s Denise Sevick Bortree.

The final chapter seeks to create a framework for the ethical evaluation of advertising in environmental communication. It is titled “Evaluating the Ethicality of Green Advertising: Toward an Extended Analytical Framework,” by Lee Ahern.

“As much as science has to offer, designing successful message strategies still involves a great deal of art,” the editors write in their preface to the book. “We believe the reflections and insights gathered here will stiffen the resolve of researchers and strategic planners to move forward with the next generation of environmental communications campaigning.”

Talking Green: Exploring Current Issues in Environmental Communication was supported by a grant from the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication, a research unit of Penn State’s College of Communications.

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For more information contact Lee Ahern at or Denise Bortree.