Changing Landscapes: Online Media and Politics in an Age of Environmental Conflict. The capacity of Media Studies research to reveal the social and political conditions in which responses to environmental threats occur has been undervalued. Addressing the National Research Priority of 'An Environmentally Sustainable Australia', this project will provide incisive evidence-based analysis of mediated environmental politics, including insight into the media and political processes informing the defi ....Changing Landscapes: Online Media and Politics in an Age of Environmental Conflict. The capacity of Media Studies research to reveal the social and political conditions in which responses to environmental threats occur has been undervalued. Addressing the National Research Priority of 'An Environmentally Sustainable Australia', this project will provide incisive evidence-based analysis of mediated environmental politics, including insight into the media and political processes informing the definition, contestation and negotiation of environmental threat and conflict. This research also contributes to the conceptual development of Media Studies internationally, providing important Australian scholarship on one of the globe's greatest challenges and acute sources of conflict - the politics of environmental sustainability.Read moreRead less
Activating and maintaining community participation in natural and cultural resources initiatives in the Murray-Darling Basin. The project goes beyond the rhetoric of participation to discover what factors activate communities and individuals to become involved in programs and voluntary initiatives for natural resource management. It assesses the effectiveness of existing communication channels and develops new models for more effective and representative participation. It combines the National M ....Activating and maintaining community participation in natural and cultural resources initiatives in the Murray-Darling Basin. The project goes beyond the rhetoric of participation to discover what factors activate communities and individuals to become involved in programs and voluntary initiatives for natural resource management. It assesses the effectiveness of existing communication channels and develops new models for more effective and representative participation. It combines the National Museum of Australia's expertise in environmental history and public communication with the imperative of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to improve community participation in natural resource management. The potential for harnessing communications technology to facilitate new channels for participation is assessed through carefully evaluated pilot programs.Read moreRead less
Encounters with Urban Nature in Australia: An investigation into environmental values, anti-urbanism, multiculturalism, and the transition to urban sustainability. This project offers strategic basic and applied research approaches to overcoming the neglect of moral experience of ?nature? in urban environments so as to further the transition to sustainability in Australia. Working at the intersection of aesthetic, geographical, philosophical, and sociological studies of ecology, this project dev ....Encounters with Urban Nature in Australia: An investigation into environmental values, anti-urbanism, multiculturalism, and the transition to urban sustainability. This project offers strategic basic and applied research approaches to overcoming the neglect of moral experience of ?nature? in urban environments so as to further the transition to sustainability in Australia. Working at the intersection of aesthetic, geographical, philosophical, and sociological studies of ecology, this project develops a comparative qualitative study of three Australian cities. It explores: (1) the paradoxical appeal of anti-urban environmental values to urbanites; (2) the multicultural axis of diversity in urban environmental values; (3) political sites for contesting experiences of ?nature?; and (4) policy opportunities for expression of local synergies between social and biotic well-being in urban ecosystems.Read moreRead less