Saving the Great Barrier Reef from disaster, media then and now

Foxwell-Norton, Kerrie; Lester, Libby

doi:10.1177/0163443717692738

Cited by 21 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(13 reference statements)

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“…Risk assessments are mediated by a variety of societal determinants, including experiential and sociocultural factors, such as social norms and cultural cognition (Slovic 1999;Kahan & Braman 2006;Gattig & Hendrickx 2007). Furthermore, they are amplified or attenuated by institutions, such as the media and political systems (Kasperson & Kasperson 1996;Voyer et al 2013;Foxwell-Norton & Lester 2017). As a result, perceptions may differ greatly among social subgroups (e.g., livelihood groups).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Convergence of stakeholders’ environmental threat perceptions following mass coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef

Thiault

Curnock

Gurney

et al. 2020

Conservation Biology

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Managing human use of ecosystems in an era of rapid environmental change requires an understanding of diverse stakeholders' behaviors and perceptions to enable effective prioritization of actions to mitigate multiple threats. Specifically, research examining how threat perceptions are shared or diverge among stakeholder groups and how these can evolve through time is increasingly important. We investigated environmental threat perceptions related to Australia's Great Barrier Reef and explored their associations before and after consecutive years of mass coral bleaching. We used data from surveys of commercial fishers, tourism operators, and coastal residents (n = 5254) conducted in 2013 and 2017. Threats perceived as most serious differed substantially among groups before bleaching but were strongly aligned after bleaching. Climate change became the most frequently reported threat by all stakeholder groups following the coral bleaching events, and perceptions of fishing and poor water quality as threats also ranked high. Within each of the 3 stakeholder groups, fishers, tourism operators, and coastal residents, the prioritization of these 3 threats tended to diverge in 2013, but convergence occurred after bleaching. These results indicate an emergence of areas of agreement both within and across stakeholder groups. Changes in perceptions were likely influenced by high-profile environmental-disturbance events and media representations of threats. Our results provide insights into the plasticity of environmental-threat perceptions and highlight how their convergence in response to major events may create new opportunities for strategic public engagement and increasing support for management.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Convergence of stakeholders’ environmental threat perceptions following mass coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef

Thiault

Curnock

Gurney

et al. 2020

Conservation Biology

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“…However, as some scientists may neither have the communication skills nor want to engage in advocacy, which involves passion, values, ideologies, emotions (Kelly, Fleming, & Pecl, 2018; Rose & Parsons, 2015), and strategic message framing, it may work most effectively if communicators work alongside scientists to produce marine conservation messages that are both scientifically credible and strategically crafted. Celebrities were effective MCC messengers in some contexts (see, Day et al, 2014; Foxwell‐Norton & Lester, 2017; Wright et al, 2015) and may be effective trend‐setters for creating new social norms. However, ‘celebritization’ may have pitfalls such as eliciting fashionable, rather than long‐term behaviour changes (Boykoff & Goodman, 2009, p. 395), suggesting caution using this approach.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Message framing strategies for effective marine conservation communication

Kolandai-Matchett

Armoudian

2020

Aquatic Conservation

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1. Human activities are a major source of threat to marine ecosystems. Solutions thus require changes to or cessation of those activities in addition to multiple restorative and conservation effortsall of which, in turn, require public support for success. However, scientific understanding of threats to marine ecosystems has not paralleled public understanding of those threats in many jurisdictions. Highly complex, interwoven, distant, vulnerable to multiple stressors, and hosting biota that are biologically unfamiliar to people, marine ecosystems present unique communication challenges. 2. The merits of effective communication capable of motivating behavioural change, policy action and support for marine conservation are often emphasized. To date, however, environmental communication, as a field, has largely focused on terrestrial ecosystems and more recently on climate change, leaving research-informed marine conservation communication neglected. 3. Adding to the small compilation of marine conservation communication literature, this integrative review provides a new understanding of how six message frames (emotional, problem/solution, outcome, value-based, distance, and social norm) can interactively help enhance the effectuality of conservation messages. Insights from the framing-related literature are merged with those from relevant fields including the theoretical literature, and the behavioural, social, and environmental sciences to define concepts, provide examples and explain the relevance of the six identified frames. The potential strength of these frames are discussed and suggestions on how they might be used to communicate different marine conservation issues are provided.

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“…It is almost impossible to isolate environmental concerns and risks and the decisions they prompt to a defined locality. When residents in Mackay, Queensland, protested against the impacts of the proposed port expansion on the Great Barrier Reef, they entered a world that stretched communicatively from their local newspaper, to a series of NGO-established hashtags, to transnational corporations that sell ice cream, to European banks, to a US president and his daughters, to international governance bodies (Lester, 2016;Foxwell-Norton & Lester, 2017). And back again.…”

Section: Mediated Environmental Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further, when scientific messages are framed with deliberate reference to the 'economy', including the tourism and mining industries, the impacts of mining and tourism on the Great Barrier Reef and the science are (again) diluted by a perhaps unwitting collusion with industry -as has been repeated in the history of Reef policy and protest moments (see Foxwell-Norton & Lester, 2017;Foxwell-Norton & Konkes, 2019). Conservation science may do better to elevate the impact on the Reef's ecology, and return to its messages of connectedness between human and natural systems.…”

Section: Better Conservation Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Citizens and science: media, communication and conservation

Lester¹,

Foxwell-Norton²

2020

Conservation Research, Policy and Practice

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In 2016 a full-page advertisement was placed by 56 Australian scientists in the Brisbane Courier Mail. The context of the advertisement was the continuing commitment of Australian governments, federal and state, to coal mining and coal-fired power stations despite overwhelming evidence connecting this activity to the severe damage being suffered by the Great Barrier Reef (Hoegh-Guldberg, 2015). As well as presenting their scientific credentials in the advertisement-together they had devoted more than 1200 years to studying climate change, marine ecosystems and the Great Barrier Reef-the scientists prioritised the Reef's economic value over its conservation values. The burning of fossil fuels, they wrote, is 'directly threatening a major economic resource. The World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef earns multiple billions for the economy and provides jobs to tens of thousands of Australians' (Courier Mail, 2016). '[T]here can be no new coal mines. . .', the scientists demanded, and 'No new coal-fired power stations'. This attempt to influence public opinion and thus political outcomes through media appeared in the face of what is now recognised as one of the world's most notable failures in conservation: the continuing destruction of a global nature 'superstar'. We suggest in this chapter that such public acts are often rendered futile because of a poor understanding of the communicative processes underpinning the research-to-policy pathway. This is troubling given the risks some scientists-working within expectations of independence and measured professional response-take when entering public debate. But this is only part of the story. While many scientists do not have the necessary communication skills or knowledge to join controversial debates (Besley & Tanner, 2011) or have been

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Saving the Great Barrier Reef from disaster, media then and now

Cited by 21 publications

References 12 publications

Convergence of stakeholders’ environmental threat perceptions following mass coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef

Convergence of stakeholders’ environmental threat perceptions following mass coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef

Message framing strategies for effective marine conservation communication

Citizens and science: media, communication and conservation

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