Breaking Boundaries: Innovative Practices in Environmental Communication and Public Participation

Breaking Boundaries analyzes efforts made by communities and policy makers around the world to push beyond conventional approaches to environmental decision making to enhance public acceptance, sustainability, and the impact of those decisions in local contexts. The current political climate has generated uncertainty among citizens, industry interests, scientists, and other stakeholders, but by applying concepts from various perspectives of environmental communication and deliberative democracy, this book offers a series of lessons learned for both public officials and concerned citizens. The contributors offer a broader understanding of how individuals and groups can get involved effectively in environmental decisions through traditional formats as well as alternative approaches ranging from leadership capacity building to social media activity to civic technology.

Kathleen P. Hunt is Assistant Professor of Communication at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

Gregg B. Walker is Professor of Communication at Oregon State University. He is the coauthor of Working through Environmental Conflict: The Collaborative Learning Approach (with Stephen E. Daniels) and The Military-Industrial Complex: Eisenhower’s Warning Three Decades Later (with Steven J. Sprecher and David A. Bella).

Stephen P. Depoe is Professor of Communication at the University of Cincinnati. He is the coeditor of several books, including Communication and Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making (with John W. Delicath and Marie-France Aepli Elsenbeer), also published by SUNY Press.