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Environmental Knowledge Communication: The Multimodal Chronotopes of Green Discourses across Media

To be or not to be green is no longer a question for anyone. The challenging question is: how are the greening or greenwashing efforts communicated? Science communicators, marketing communicators, researchers, educators and artists are among those who try to foster more environmental awareness, responsibility and pro-environmental behavior either through new types of green discourses or through renewed versions of already existing ones. Creating convincing multimodal discourses focused on environmental issues proves to be a challenge for many categories of communicators.

Therefore, drawing upon a multimodal theoretical framework, I intend to determine how knowledge about environmental issues is communicated in green discourses across several media in accordance with the potential and constraints of various semiotic modes. By examining the complex interconnectivity and functional differentiation of several semiotic modes, I also intend to establish which modes are given prominence in green discourses and why.

I focus upon how multimodal knowledge about social actors, actions, time and space is selectively communicated in green discourses and I discuss multimodal processes of discursive transformation like evaluation and legitimation.

In the first phase of the project, I analyze green discourses in corporate websites, global news and educational films. Later on, animation and music videos will be explored.

Green discourse in corporate websites
I explore how environmental knowledge is communicated in the new specialized discourse of corporate websites in order to reflect upon the ways in which eco-friendly corporate identities are promoted.

Green discourse in global news
I explore how multimodal knowledge about greening and greenwashing efforts of corporations are persuasively promoted and critically exposed in order to shape the public awareness of environmental issues.

Green discourse in educational films
I explore how learning in and about environment is multimodally communicated in order to reflect on the implications of introducing environmental literacy in educational practices.

 


 


Further information:

Associate Professor Carmen Daniela Maier (cdm@asb.dk)