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The purpose of the book is to provide an applied, practical, yet theoretically grounded, reference on strategic public communication that is specific to environmental topics. The book explains how to design and implement environmental communication campaigns to bring about desired changes in audience knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors concerning issues such as: pollution prevention/remediation, water resource protection and land/forest stewardship. The book should prove useful for public/private for-profit and nonprofit sector organizations and for undergraduate and graduate students of communication and environmental sciences.
The book begins with an overview of the principles of strategic public communication and explains how these principles are uniquely adapted to environmental issues. Subsequent chapters teach the reader how to conduct audience research, develop theory driven persuasive, educational and dialogic communication strategies, and manage, monitor and evaluate campaign progress. A detailed case study of a long-term watershed-based forest stewardship project in Connecticut is presented that illustrates how these principles are used to plan and evaluate an environmental campaign. The book illustrates each aspect of the strategic communication process with examples from several other environmental communication campaigns. The strategic principles and examples discussed are easily generalized to other regions in and outside of this country. Click here to browse the table of contents.
Dr. C. Ben Tyson has over twenty years academic and applied experience planning, implementing and evaluating strategic public communication campaigns, social marketing and nonformal education/training projects in the United States, Africa, and the West Indies. Most of this work concerns natural resource conservation and agriculture production. He has degrees in Communication Science and (Social) Marketing Communication from the University of Connecticut, Extension Education from the University of Arizona, and Plant Science from the University of Delaware. He presently serves as director of Central Connecticut State University's Center for Social Research and is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication where he teaches courses in strategic public communication, persuasion/social influence, public relations, environmental communication, and research methods.
"Time and time again, people in forestry non-governmental organizations, private enterprise and governmental agencies acknowledge communications to be the number one ingredient required to tell the story of good forestry to the public. With Strategic Communication for Influencing Environmental Behavior, the forestry professional can now develop, implement and evaluate more efficient and effective strategic communication campaigns necessary in the debate over current and future forest resource and land-use issues."
— Robert M. Ricard
Extension Educator, Urban and Community Forestry
University of Connecticut, Department of Extension
Fellow in the Society of American Forester
"Environmental issues are all around us. So are the opportunities to influence them. They can be as close as your neighborhood or global in scale. Yet regardless of where we find them, they are most often complex, and translating our beliefs into effective action is rarely easy. Tyson provides an elegant framework for systematically designing
environmental communications campaigns that work. His twenty-plus years experience in researching, designing and implementing such campaigns are evident in his practical yet fundamentally sound approach. You don't need a huge budget to positively influence environmental issues, but you can easily waste one without proper planning and design. Following Tyson's approach will go a long way towards ensuring that doesn't happen."
— Stephen H. Broderick
Senior Extension Educator, Forestry
University of Connecticut Cooperative Extension System
"Lack of awareness, knowledge and action concerning environmental issues continues among the public, including key leaders in business and government in our region. Promoting the economic and social benefits of resource conservation and management is essential if political and financial support is to be forthcoming for conservation efforts. Dr. Tyson's book provides a practical guide for strategically communicating with these audiences. It clearly illustrates how to conduct campaigns to influence environmental behaviors. The book should prove useful as a tool for those of us interested in learning about the role of communication in natural resource conservation."
— Christopher Modisette,
Executive Director of the Southern New England Forest Consortium, Inc.
"Though skeptical at first, I am now convinced it offers a fundamentally sound method for influencing human knowledge & attitudes and behaviors on environmental issues. I always assumed, as do many natural resource professionals and environmental organizations, that awareness about environmental issues will lead to people to change their lifestyles. Ultimately we tend to be disappointed when our best efforts to "inform" folks seem to fall on deaf ears. Strategic Communication for Influencing Environmental Behavior offers a framework for understanding how and why people change their behavior on environmental issues and helps to bridge the gap between awareness and action. Better yet, the book also offers practical examples on how to conduct a communication campaign that will lead to the desired impacts."
— Timothy Fleury
Extension Educator, Forest Resources
University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension
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