Under Pressure

Pete Bsumek is Associate Professor in the School of Communication Studies at James Madison University, USA. His research and teaching focus on rhetoric, advocacy, and processes of decision-making, with a specific emphasis in environmental communication. He is the 2014 recipient of the J. Robert Cox Award in Environmental Communication and Civic Engagement. Jennifer Peeples is Professor of Communication Studies at Utah State University, USA. Her area of research is environmental rhetoric with a focus on the discourse and images used in the construction of environmental controversies. She has won a number of awards for her research and is on the editorial board for Environmental Communication and the Quarterly Journal of Speech. Jen Schneider is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Administration at Boise State University, USA. Her work examines the communication of scientific, technological, and environmental controversies. She is particularly interested in controversial or contested energy development and practices, such as hydrofracturing, coal mining, and nuclear power, and the role of rhetoric and expertise in defending such practices. Steve Schwarze is Professor and Chair in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Montana, USA. His research examines the rhetoric of environmental controversies. His research appears in prominent outlets for rhetoric and environmental communication, such as the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs and Environmental Communication.

“This book is engagingly written. It is the result of a methodical and exhaustive research process and should represent an example of the best practice in scholarly inquiry. As for the content, it could be interesting for European audience, who are stressed not only by economic and environmental worries, but by a looming energy crisis.” (‪Violeta Stojičić, Language & Ecology, 2023)“This volume addresses rhetorical strategies employed by the coal industry to resist regulatory efforts by the government and environmental groups. … This book is of interest not only to environmental communication scholars and students, but also to those studying integrated marketing communication approaches to advertising and public relations. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.” (J. H. Fritz, Choice, Vol. 54 (5), January, 2017)

• 1.Coal Under Pressure.- 2.Industrial Apocalyptic.- 3.Corporate Ventriloquism.- 4.Technological Shell Game.- 5.Hypocrite’s Trap.- 6.Energy Utopia.- 7.Coal and the Contradictions of Neoliberalism