Environmental Literacy and New Digital Audiences

Pat Brereton is a Professor at Dublin City University, Ireland, and has taught and published extensively around environmental communications and all forms of new media.

"The study is informed by Brereton’s vast expertise and continuing interest in environmental ethics and the public sphere. Consequently, the questions about audience-hood and environmentalism that he tackles are not limited to merely how media audiences consume and understand environmental messages, but rather how those audiences might actually be motivated to take social action. This makes his examination of the role of media in the formation of environmental citizenship, understood as civic participation in an age of ecological crisis, a crucial resource for those of us who are committed to confronting the challenge of climate change." -- Patrick D. Murphy, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, Klein College of Media and Communication, Temple University, USA"This is a much needed and very accessibly written book on popular audio visual media which fills a significant gap in environmental communication research. In this age of rapidly spreading fake news and misinformation through social media sites, an ability to critically interpret visual media is critical. Through an array of fascinating examples from food documentaries, to video games (such as Pokemon Go), You Tube videos (such as Prince Ea), to Netflix and blockbuster Hollywood movies, Brereton expertly demonstrates the value of critical media literacy, convincingly arguing for it to be embedded within all media and communications education." -- Alison Anderson, Professor in Sociology, University of Plymouth, UK

• Acknowledgements1 Environmental Literacy Introduction2 Understanding Audience Psychology and Trigger Points for Promoting Environmental Literacy3 Promoting New Media Literacy4 Food Documentaries and Green Anxieties: Actively promoting Environmental Literacy5 Eco-Documentaries: Old Problems New Aesthetic Opportunities6 Contemporary Hollywood Blockbusters and Environmental Narratives7 An Environmental Reading of Post 9/11 American Televisual Series8 Netflix and Emerging Streaming Networks: New Forms of Immersive and Addictive Narratives and Characterisation9 Video Games and Environmental Learning: New Modes of Audience Engagement 10 Going Viral: YouTube and New Forms of Environmental Literacy11 Conclusion: Constructing an Environmental Literacy Consensus through New MediaIndex