Energy Communication: Theory and Praxis Towards a Sustainable Energy Future

Cozen, Brian; Endres, Danielle; Peterson, Tarla Rai; Horton, Cristi C.; Barnett, Joshua Trey

doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1398176

Cited by 31 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 31 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…As noted by Ceccarelli (2013b), RoS scholars have tended to prefer a passive role in the study of science. On the other hand, along with other scholars (Sprain et al, 2010;Cozen et al, 2018), we follow Cox's (2007) claim that environmental communication research demands that we risk neutrality by suggesting potential applications to, in this case, energy transitions. Learning that offshore wind professionals attending professional conferences saw themselves as frontier heroes in the stewardship model led us to imagine opportunities for building a sense of community with people who are alienated from science and technology.…”

Section: Strategic Coalitionssupporting

confidence: 57%

“…However, as Ceccarelli notes, many RoS scholars have consciously chosen a "somewhat passive" (Ceccarelli, 2013b, p. 2) role in the study of science, reserving politically relevant action to teaching and extra-academic activities. Environmental communication scholars (Endres et al, 2008;Sprain et al, 2010;Sprain and Feldpausch-Parker, 2018) and energy communication scholars (Cozen et al, 2018), on the other hand, argue that their sub-discipline's status as a crisis discipline (Cox, 2007) requires a more active orientation that seeks to apply heuristic contributions to policy, activism, or other forms of response to ongoing crises.…”

Section: The Frontier Myth In Internal Scientific Rhetoric Studying Smentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, our study directly responds to calls for research on the internal communication among energy professionals (Endres et al, 2016;Cozen et al, 2018). We chose to study offshore wind experts exclusively because internal communication of energy scientists and engineers has been undertheorized in the field of energy communication (Endres et al, 2016).…”

Section: The Frontier Myth In Internal Scientific Rhetoric Studying Smentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Frontier Myth in U.S. Offshore Wind Energy Communication

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Increased penetration of low-carbon energy technologies, such as wind and solar, into the U.S. energy system has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, facilitate transmission of energy to remote regions, and increase opportunities for public participation in energy system change. It also offers a window of opportunity to observe the social dynamics of rapid socio-technical system change. Studying internal, yet informal, communication among energy professionals enables communication researchers to probe processes and practices of identity composition, which may, in turn, suggest opportunities to shift the relationship between energy professionals and energy consumers away from alienation and toward consubstantiation. With this goal in mind, we analyzed communication among U.S. offshore wind professionals-specifically energy scientists and engineers-at professional conferences. Textual analysis of conference presentations and ethnographic interviews indicates that scientists and engineers working with the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry are composing an identity inspired by the frontier myth. We suggest that these evocations of the frontier myth might be strategically used to cultivate consubstantiality between technically-oriented energy professionals and publics. Awareness of a common connection to frontier myth may contribute to public engagement with offshore wind energy specifically, and more generally, with low-carbon energy technologies.

show abstract

Section: Strategic Coalitionssupporting

confidence: 57%

Section: The Frontier Myth In Internal Scientific Rhetoric Studying Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Frontier Myth In Internal Scientific Rhetoric Studying Smentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Frontier Myth in U.S. Offshore Wind Energy Communication

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Similar to other politicized concerns, energy and specifically energy policy emerges as part of the national cycle of political discussion/contest to which journalists' attention is attuned (Curtin and Rhodenbaugh, 2001). More spontaneous than these routinised occurrences however, are the developments that affect citizens and consequently demand political action, such as energy shortages or crises (Cozen et al, 2017). At other times, interest groups and organizations direct the medias' attention to their view of policy reform and related concerns about climate change and sustainability (DeLuca, 2009).…”

Section: Energy As An Environmental Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

Fracturing Debate? A Review of Research on Media Coverage of “Fracking”

Matthews

Hansen

2018

Front. Commun.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Hydraulic fracturing is an energy extraction process that is increasingly attracting controversy. This article seeks to outline how the media report hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking"), and to explore its place within the reporting of energy concerns generally. To this end, it draws on an environmental communication perspective to understand the media reporting of the issue and the processes that shape it. This review reveals that media reporting of fracking is partitioned broadly according to discussions of the economic benefits or the environmental risks associated with the process. Further, these observed patterns in the reporting appear to mirror the recognized claims made about the issue, and the influence from protests and online media alongside national polity on energy production and security. While there is evidence that the practices of journalists and the geographic, economic and political contexts of their news production environments shape the amounts and the types of news reporting, the publics' perceptions appear, somewhat knowledgeable, but largely ambivalent or undecided on the issue at present. Therefore, it is argued that future research must continue to examine the reporting of hydraulic fracturing, its context, production, and its wider reception to develop our understanding of the role of the media in national conversations on fracking, energy, and the environment.

show abstract

“…While overlaps exist between STS scholarship and the emerging subfield of energy communication (Endres et al, 2016;Cozen et al, 2018), we move beyond the frame of the latter by taking a relational starting point and by considering a wider diversity of energy democracy-related practices within which forms of energy communication exist. In what follows, we first contextualize our argument by reviewing dominant perspectives on energy public engagement in the literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Democracies and Publics in the Making: A Relational Agenda for Research and Practice

Chilvers

Pallett

2018

Front. Commun.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mainstream approaches to energy democracy and public engagement with energy transitions tend to adopt specific, pre-given meanings of both "democracy" and "publics." Different approaches impose prescriptive assumptions about the model of participation, the identity of public participants, and what it means to participate well. The rigidity of many existing approaches to energy participation is increasingly being challenged by the ever-multiplying diversity of ways in which citizens participate in energy systems, as consumers in energy markets, protesters against new infrastructures and technologies, as initiators of community energy projects, and as subjects of behavior change interventions, amongst others. This paper is concerned with growing areas of scholarship which seek to understand and explore these emerging energy publics and forms of energy democracy from a relational perspective. Such work, grounded in constructivist and relational ontologies, views forms of participatory democracy and publics as being co-produced, constructed, and emergent through the performance of collective practices. It pays closer attention to power relations, politics, materiality, exclusions, and effects in both understanding and intervening in the making of energy democracy. This in turn shifts the focus from studying discrete unitary forms of "energy democracy" to one of understanding interrelations between multiple diverse energy democracies in wider systems. In this paper, we chart these developments and explore the significant challenges and potential contributions of relational approaches to furthering the theories, methods, and practices of energy democracy and energy public engagement. The paper draws on an expert workshop, and an accompanying review, which brought together leading proponents of contending relational approaches to energy participation in direct conversation for the first time. We use this as a basis to explore tensions between these approaches and set out a relational agenda for energy democracy research in terms of: developing concepts and theories; methodological and empirical challenges; and implications for practices of governance and democratic engagement with energy transitions.

show abstract

Energy Communication: Theory and Praxis Towards a Sustainable Energy Future

Cited by 31 publications

References 31 publications

The Frontier Myth in U.S. Offshore Wind Energy Communication

The Frontier Myth in U.S. Offshore Wind Energy Communication

Fracturing Debate? A Review of Research on Media Coverage of “Fracking”

Energy Democracies and Publics in the Making: A Relational Agenda for Research and Practice

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About