OADD 2360 - Communicating the Climate Crisis: From traditional to emerging Mediums

Climate change, environmental injustice, biodiversity loss… the environmental crisis is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Communicating these complex and interconnected issues is difficult but critical. In a fragmented media ecosystem shaped by misinformation, digital innovation, and shifting trust, environmental storytelling faces new pressures and possibilities. This course examines the evolution of environmental communication, from historical silences and lobbying influence to activist campaigns, emerging formats, and new cultural narratives. Emphasis will be placed on analyzing diverse media productions, understanding narrative strategies, and exploring how communication can inspire awareness, engagement, and action.

Learning Outcomes:

• Students will critically analyze the role of media and emerging mediums in shaping public attitudes and behaviors toward the environmental crisis, considering the unique challenges these topics present.
• Students will learn about why climate change and biodiversity loss have historically been difficult to communicate, focusing on how journalistic modes of operating along with a strong fossil fuel lobby perpetuated a « climate silence » in mass media.
• Students will explore different ethical and philosophical perspectives, in relation to environmental justice, sustainability, and global contexts, and analyze how cultural narratives can shape environmental perceptions and often exclude marginalized stories.
• - Students will analyze new and emerging media, such as social platforms, streaming services,podcasts, virtual or augmented reality, eco-fiction, with the goal of better understanding the opportunities and risks they represent, as well as their potential for innovative storytelling on environmental issues.

Professional Skills:

• Media analysis and critical thinking: students will learn to dissect traditional and new media productions, identifying biases, gaps, and evaluate its impact on public perceptions.
• Storytelling techniques and narrative construction: students will develop skills in creating compelling narratives tailored for diverse audiences, formats and distribution contexts.

No prerequisites

Feedback will be provided throughout the course via in-class discussions after oral presentations. Midway through the course, students will receive feedback on their final project to guide their progress.

• Expose (30% - Collective) – each week, two students will be asked to do a 20-minute presentation together on one of the week’s topics.
• Class participation (20% - Individual) – students will be asked to actively participate in class discussions.
• General participation (10% - Individual) – students are expected to contribute to discussions based on the assigned reading materials.
• Short pitch of a media production (10% - Individual) – students will be asked to present a brief pitch (2-3 min) of a recent media production addressing climate or environmental issues they found interesting. This can include a communication campaign, documentary, article, podcast episode, social media campaign or post…
• Final Project (50% - Individual) - students will develop a creative environmental communication project of their choosing, selecting both their topic and their medium. They will present their work in the form of a “pitch document” (between 1500 and 2000 words maximum, around 5 pages), or in the form of a “prototype” (for ex: podcast episode; short film) + a shortened version of the “pitch document”.

• Attendance: 2 hours a week / 24 hours a semester
• Reading and Preparation for Class: 2 hours a week / 24 hours a semester
• Research and Writing for Individual Assessments: 54 hours a semester
• Other (Final Project Development): 48 hours a semester