Undergraduate Course: Politics and communication of environmental risks (PLIT10175)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Risks are pervasive in our lives, shaping individual, collective, and political decisions on a daily basis. Risks can be thought of as potential threats, natural or human-induced, to things that humans value. Environmental risks can be highly localised (e.g., air pollution on a congested street in Edinburgh) or global (e.g., rising sea levels, ocean plastic pollution, changing weather patterns). Some political scientists and sociologists argue that risks in modern society are becoming increasingly complex, difficult to manage, and have led to a loss of trust in the institutions responsible for controlling risks on our behalf. In this course, we will explore how current environmental risks (global and local) are viewed, discussed, and managed by a range of societal actors. We will focus on the mechanisms by which people perceive, effectively communicate about, and ethically respond to such risks. Students will select an environmental risk that they explore throughout the semester; they will analyse and creatively communicate about it for their final project. |
| Course description |
Environmental risks affect us all. Whether the risk comes from a coal-fired power plant or heavy industry in your community that threatens local health via air pollution, or it's the effects of global climate change on food you consume from halfway around the world, we cannot avoid environmental risks in our everyday lives. Environmental risks are not only pervasive; they can be endlessly frustrating as well. 'Why can't others just see this risk the way I do and come to my logical conclusion for how to deal with it?' 'Why is more action not taken by government on this issue?' Our journey together into the world of environmental risks will challenge you to place yourself in others' shoes and will make you think long and hard about assumptions you have for how the world works.
Major topics may include:
-Understanding and perceiving environmental risk
-Communicating environmental risk
-Evaluating ethicality of environmental risks
-In-depth case study: Applying our knowledge of environmental risk
There are opportunities for you to determine much of the course's content and format, particularly in relation to your assignments. A few aspects of how we shall interact in this course are, however, not up for negotiation. We shall endeavour to create a democratic and inclusive learning climate and community that allows for freedom of expression, critical reflection, active listening, constructive dialogue, meaningful participation, and enhanced understanding. We shall learn about and apply our knowledge of environmental risks in several different manners to accommodate different learning styles, but we shall also push each other slightly beyond our academic comfort zones.
Our course meets for two hours each week. The first half of each class will be mostly me sharing my thoughts, reflections, and additional background on the readings and topics for the week (still with plenty of opportunity for your questions and reflections). The second half of each class will be more interactional, with discussions, debates, group activities, etc.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Students are recommended to have passed: an introductory course in politics, sociology, sustainable development, or human geography.
Students who lack this pre-requisite, but have completed comparable courses, should contact the Course Organiser to confirm if they are eligible to take this course. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | No specific requirements. Some previous coursework in social science of environmental issues will be useful. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2024/25, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 11,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 16.5,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
168 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
90 %,
Practical Exam
10 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Policy brief - 25% - max 1000 words
Risk journal - 25% - max 1500 words
Critical engagement with an environmental risk (piece of communication) - 40% - max 2000 words
Class participation - 10% |
| Feedback |
The Course Organiser will meet individually with each student during the third week of the course to discuss and offer feedback on their final project. A second formative approach to feedback is that the Course Organiser asks student to share their incipient risk journals (a semester-long undertaking) at the end of week 3.
Feedback on all assessed work shall normally be returned within three weeks of submission. Where this is not possible, students shall be given clear expectations regarding the timing and methods of feedback. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Understand a range of environmental risks that have garnered political attention in recent years and differentiate between them;
- Critically reflect on and internalise their own perceptions of environmental risks, their causes, and their solutions;
- Synthesise and apply knowledge of environmental risk perception, communication, and ethics to an in-depth examination of a key real-world environmental controversy;
- Interact with and evaluate environmental risks through a range of media: academic and non-academic texts, journalism, video, music, poetry, etc.;
- Demonstrate their understanding of environmental risks through a semester-long project in which they communicate effectively about a specific environmental risk of their choosing.
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Reading List
Heberlein, T. (2012). Navigating Environmental Attitudes.
Weber, E. U. (2017). Understanding public risk perception and responses to changes in perceived risk. In Policy Shock: Recalibrating Risk and Regulation after Oil Spills, Nuclear Accidents and Financial Crises, 82-106.
Fischhoff, B. (1995). Risk perception and communication unplugged: twenty years of process 1. Risk analysis, 15(2), 137-145.
Hansson, S. (2013). Difficulties for moral theories. In The Ethics of Risk: Ethical Analysis in an Uncertain World (pp. 21-43). Springer.
Cox, R. (2007). Nature's 'crisis disciplines': Does environmental communication have an ethical duty?. Environmental Communication, 1(1), 5-20. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
-Skills and abilities in research and enquiry: identify and analyse the strengths and challenges of different social and political systems, and develop processes for promoting social and political progress; recognise, build on, and transcend the boundaries of the various social science disciplines - their empirical methods and their analytical traditions - in the pursuit of publicly useful knowledge.
-Skills and abilities in personal and intellectual autonomy: be independent learners who take responsibility for their own learning and are committed to continuous reflection, self-evaluation and self-improvement; be able to sustain intellectual interest by remaining receptive to both new and old ideas, methods, and ways of thinking; be able to use collaboration and debate effectively to test, modify and strengthen their own views.
-Skills and abilities in communication: make effective use of oral, written and visual means to critique, negotiate, create and communicate understanding; use communication as a tool for collaborating and relating to others; further their own learning through effective use of the full range of communication approaches; recognise the benefits of communicating with those beyond their immediate environments. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Darrick Evensen
Tel: (0131 6)51 1624
Email: darrick.evensen@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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