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[Commlist] cfp: Climate Change Communication in Africa: Key Issues, Practices, and Insights
Mon Jan 29 23:05:45 GMT 2024
*Climate Change Communication in Africa: **Key Issues, Practices, and
Insights*
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*Call for Book Chapters *
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*Editors*
*Tendai Chari**(PhD), *Associate Professor, Department of Media Studies,
University of Venda, South Africa
*Allen Munoriyarwa (PhD), *Senior Lecturer, Department of Media Studies,
University of Botswana, Botswana; Senior Research Associate, Department
of Communication and Media, University of Johannesburg.
Climate change is one of the most urgent and all-encompassing challenges
confronting humanity and the environment in the 21^st century. In public
discourse, climate change has emerged rather forcefully as global rise
in temperatures, ocean pollution increase, and once-stable glaciers melt
beyond expectations. Climate change has become part of the quotidian
discourse at the centre of any global debates, from hunger, famine, war,
droughts, sustainable development, etc. Despite these recent
developments, climate change remains relatively the least understood
phenomenon in the global South, particularly in Africa. Despite Africa
being the least responsible for emitting greenhouse gases[1] <#_ftn1>
attributable for global warming, it is the most vulnerable continent to
climate change due to multilayered historical, social, economic, and
geo-political factors (BBC World Service Trust, 2009). Consequently, the
continent hopes to lead in the carbon credit market by 2030[2] <#_ftn2>.
Home to some of the poorest populations of the world who already live on
the frontlines of disasters and degradation of natural resources, Africa
is disproportionately affected by climate change and the continent’s
ability to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is in
jeopardy (Tadese, 2010). Due to low resilience in impoverished
communities on the continent, climate change has exacerbated existing
socio-economic challenges such as poverty, hunger, inequalities, natural
disasters, conflicts, political instability, human and security
challenges linked to declining biodiversity, increased demographic
pressures on agricultural and grazing land and other natural resources.
The threat posed by climate change to the African continent is not
commensurate with the quality and quantity of information generated
about climate change and the level of citizen awareness or understanding
of this complex and multifaceted phenomenon (Tagbo, 2010). Citizens on
the African continent are among the least informed about the causes of
climate change and its consequences, and the ideological and
geo-political contestations around climate change, thereby limiting the
capacity of African nations to respond and adapt to climate change and
the ability of the most affected communities to communicate their
perspectives and experiences to those responsible for causing climate
change (BBC World Service, 2009). Effective and appropriate
communication has been identified as an essential step towards creating
an enabling environment and understanding of the dynamics of climate
change, societal adaptation and responses to climate change,
particularly in bridging of the gap between the climate change science
and action, raising awareness and understanding of the issue, and
influencing behavioural change (McGahey & Lumosi, 2018). In Africa,
climate change presents unique challenges to communicators because of
the “complex convergence of scientific, practitioners and traditional
knowledge systems” (McGahey & Lumosi, 2018: 87).
While climate change has received considerable scholarly attention in
the industrialised democracies of the West (Bell, 1994;
Henderson-Sellers, 1998; Antilla, 2005; Boykkoff & Boykoff 2007; Sampei
& Aogyi-Usui, 2009) very few studies exist in Africa (Tagbo, 2010;
Sithole, 2023 Evans et al 2018.). Within the global context, criticism
abounds about the way in which climate change is debated and
communicated in the mainstream media with a litany of criticisms ranging
from structural and professional factors which limit mainstream media’s
effectiveness in communicating climate change (Sampei & Aogyi-Usui,
2009; Bokkoff & Boykoff 2007), personalization, dramatization and
novelty which result in “information deficiency” on the subject of
climate change (Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004: 1191). Henderson-Sellers (1998)
notes that climate change reporting is characterized by misinformation,
misrepresentation, misreporting, distortions, overstatements in news
headlines, misquotation, misattribution, inflation, falsification,
over-assertion, all of which impose communication barriers in meaningful
and accurate reporting and understanding of climate science, thus
undermining scientific consensus about climate change.
Further criticism of the mainstream media’s reportage of climate change
revolves around allegations of sensationalism, fearmongering or
“alarmist reporting” – what Ereut & Segnit refer to as “climate porn”
(cited Boykoff & Boykoff, 2007:3). Through dramatization of climate
change mainstream media tend to emphasize crisis over continuity, “the
present over the past or future conflicts”, and downplaying complex
policy information, the workings of government and the bases of power
behind central characters” (Boykoff & Boykoff, 2007: 3). Extant
literature on climate change communication tends to focus on media
coverage of the climate change crisis in Africa (Tagbo, 2010; Sithole,
2023; BBC World Service Trust, 2009, Cramer, 2008; Evans & Musvipwa,
2016; Evans et al 2018). Challenges of communicating climate change in
Africa are not only abound, but also unique, ranging from underreporting
of climate change stories in the media due to lack interest in climate
change stories by journalists who are intimidated by the scientific
jargon, episodic reporting of climate change whereby reportage tends to
be concentrated around climate change events such as conferences and
disasters (the so-called ‘disaster journalism’), the tendency to treat
climate change as a beat instead of incorporating it in other beats as
climate change intersects with various issues such as economics, health,
politics, food security, agriculture etc., over-reliance by African
media on foreign news agencies, resulting in lack of local angles or
contextualization of climate change. Further limitations of climate
change communication in Africa include marginalization of indigenous
communication knowledge systems because of coloniality, reliance on
experts, government and civil society organisations and other
stakeholders who might have their own interests, and lack of journalists
who are trained in science communication. However, very few studies
have explored climate change communication in Africa from diverse
theoretical and methodological perspectives. As a result, understanding
of climate change communication and its potential to influence climate
change adaptation, behavioural change, action, and policy is very minimal.
The proposed edited volume, key issues, practices, trends,
controversies, and challenges linked to communicating climate change
both in the mainstream and alternative media in the African context. Our
central claims in this book are twofold. Firstly, climate change can
only be understood if the media effectively and responsibly inform and
educate citizens about climate change. Secondly, the quality of climate
change information in the media is very much linked to the degree of
attention given to climate change issues in the media, and the quality
of information about climate change possessed by those tasked with
reporting climate change. The aim of this edited volume is to enhance
understanding of the climate change-communication nexus by drawing
lessons from different regions of the African continent. In this regard,
we, therefore, seek to interrogate the key issues, debates, and
practices around the climate change communication discourse in Africa.
We are looking for original and innovative contributions which
critically engage with and reveal the unique African experiences in
climate change communication using a broad range of theoretical and
methodological approaches. The abstract must clearly state the
objectives of the study, theoretical framework(s), and methodologies
deployed in the study.
*POSSIBLE TOPICS*
Contributions could focus on, but not limited to the following topics:
* Media framing of climate change in Africa
* News sourcing patterns in climate change reporting
* News values in climate change communication
* Pitfalls in climate change communication
* Community media and climate change in Africa
* Climate change and disaster journalism in Africa
* Foreign new agencies and climate change communication in Africa
* Philanthropy journalism and climate change communication.
* Climate change journalism activism
* Mobile technology and climate change activism
* Indigenous African media and climate change
* Digital media activism and climate change
* Decoloniality, coloniality and climate change communication
* Role of the arts in climate change in Africa
* Climate change in film and theatre
* Music and climate change awareness in Africa
* Sonification and climate change in Africa
* Cartoons and climate change in Africa
* Visual representation of climate change in Africa
* Photography, climate change and sustainability
* Datafication and climate change communication
* Artificial Intelligence (AI) and climate change communication
* Ethical issues in climate change reporting
* ‘NGOfication’ of climate change communication
* Misinformation and Disinformation in Climate Change communication
* Fact-Checking and Climate Change Communication
*Abstracts and biographies*
Abstracts should be between 300 and 400 words and should be emailed as
Word files to (tendai.chari /at/ univen.ac.za) <mailto:(tendai.chari /at/ univen.ac.za)>
(Andmunoriyarwaa /at/ ub.ac.bw) <mailto:(munoriyarwaa /at/ ub.ac.bw)>
Biographies should be between 150 and 200 words.
*Length of Articles*
Articles should not be more than 7000 words including references.
Reference Style: Harvard
*Important Dates*
Deadline for Accepting Abstracts: 15 March 2024
Notification for Accepted Abstracts: 30 March 2024
Deadline for Full Papers: 31 July 2024
Expected Date of Publication: 31 December 2024
*Targeted Publisher: Routledge/Taylor & Francis*
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*References*
Bell, A. (1994). Climate of Opinion: Public and Media Discourse on
global warming. /Discourse & Society/, 5(1)33-64.
Antilla, L. (2005) Climate of sceptiscism: US Newspaper Coverage of the
science of climate change: /Global Environmental Change/, 15(1): 338-352.
Tagbo, E. (2010). Media Coverage of Climate Change in Africa: A Case
Study of Nigeria and South Africa. Reuters Institute Fellowship Paper,
University of Oxford. Retrieved from
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/research/files/Media%2520Coverage%2520of%2520Climate%2520Change%2520in%2520Africa%2520A%2520Case%2520Study%2520of%2520Nigeria%2520and%2520South%2520Africa.pdf
<https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/research/files/Media%2520Coverage%2520of%2520Climate%2520Change%2520in%2520Africa%2520A%2520Case%2520Study%2520of%2520Nigeria%2520and%2520South%2520Africa.pdf>.
Accessed 30 December 2023.
Cramer, C.M. (2008) The Framing of Climate Change in Three Daily
Newspapers in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Unpublished
MPhil Dissertation, Department of Journalism, Stellenbosch University.
Evans, H.C Dyll, L and Teer-Tomaselli, R. (2018). Communicating Climate
Change. In Leal Filno, W., Manolas, E., Anzal, A.M., Azeitero, U., and
McGhie, H. (eds.) Handbook of Climate Change Communication. Heidelberg:
Springer International.
Tadesse, D., (2010) The Impact of Climate Change in Africa. Pretoria:
Institute for Security Studies.
Sampei, Y. and Aoyagi-Usui, M. (2009) Mass-Media Coverage, its influence
on public awareness of climate change issues and its implications for
Japan’s national campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Global
Environment Change. 19(2) 2013-212.
Mosser, S.C. and Dilling, L. (2012) Communicating Climate Change:
Closing the Science- Action Gap. In Richard, B. Norgaard and David
Scholsberg (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society,
161-174. Oxford; Oxford University Press.
Henderson-Sellers, A. (1998) Climate Whispers: Media Communication about
Climate Change. Climate Change 40: 421-456.
Boykoff, M.T. and Boykoff, J.M. (2004) Balance as Bias: Global Warming
and the US prestige Press. Global Environment Change, 14: 125-136.
Boykoff, M.T. and Boykoff, J.M. (2007) Climate Change and Journalistic
Norms: A Case of US Mass-Media Coverage. Geoforum 38: 1190-1204.
Evans, H.C, and Musvipwa, K. (2016). News Media Coverage of Climate
Change: Perspectives from South Africa and Zimbabwe. Pretoria: Africa
Institute of South Africa.
BBC World Service Trust (2009) Least Responsible, most affected, least
informed: Public Understanding of Climate Change. Retrieved from
https://www.gov.uk/research-for-development-outputs/least-responsible-most-affected-least-informed-public-understanding-of-climate-change-in-africa-policy-briefing-no-3
<https://www.gov.uk/research-for-development-outputs/least-responsible-most-affected-least-informed-public-understanding-of-climate-change-in-africa-policy-briefing-no-3>.
Accessed 31 December 2023.
*_Biodata_*
*Tendai Chari*is an Associate Professor of Media Studies and a National
Research Foundation (NRF) C3 Rated Researcher at the University of
Venda, South Africa. He holds a PhD in Media Studies from the University
of Witwatersrand, South Africa. Previously he lectured at several
universities in Africa, including the University of Zimbabwe, (where he
was Head of the Media Programme in the English Department.
*Allen Munoriyarwa*is Allen Munoriyarwa is a Senior Lecturer in the
department of Media Studies at the University of Botswana. He is also a
non-resident Senior Research Associate in the Department of
Communication and Media at the University of Johannesburg. His research
interests are in contemporary/digital media and journalism. He holds a
PhD in Journalism from the University of Johannesburg.
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[1] <#_ftnref1> The statistics are available here:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268395/production-based-co2-emissions-in-africa-by-country/
<https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268395/production-based-co2-emissions-in-africa-by-country/>.
[2] <#_ftnref2> See the story here:
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/land-use-biodiversity/africa-hopes-starring-role-if-carbon-offsets-market-can-overcome-credibility-2023-10-02/
<https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/land-use-biodiversity/africa-hopes-starring-role-if-carbon-offsets-market-can-overcome-credibility-2023-10-02/>.
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