TY - BOOK AU - Aronczyk,M. AU - Espinoza,M.I. TI - A strategic nature: Public relations and the politics of American environmentalism SN - 9780190055387 U1 - 363.700973 21 PY - 2021/// CY - New York PB - Oxford University Press KW - Environmentalism KW - Political aspects KW - United States KW - Public relations KW - Climatic changes KW - Public opinion KW - Mass media and public opinion KW - Society and Culture KW - Sociology N1 - Includes index; Contents Front Matter Copyright Page ExpandFigures and Tables Abbreviations Acknowledgments ExpandIntroduction Public Relations and Its Problems View chapter Expand1 Seeing Like a Publicist: How the Environment Became an Issue View chapter Expand2 Bringing the Outside In: Managing the “External Environment” View chapter Expand3 Environment, Energy, Economy: The Campaign for Balance View chapter Expand4 PR for the Public Interest: The Rule of Reason and the Hazards of Environmental Consensus View chapter Expand5 Sustainable Communication: Green PR and the Export of Corporate Environmentalism View chapter Expand6 The Climate of Publicity: Climate Advocates and the Compromise of PR View chapter Expand7 “Shared Value”: Promoting Climate Change for Data Worlds View chapter Conclusion: We’re Supposed to Be Engaging View chapter End Matter ExpandAppendix 1 Interviews and Observation Sites Appendix 2 E. Bruce Harrison Company, List of Clients, 1973–1997 ExpandNotes Bibliography Archives and Libraries Index N2 - Abstract A Strategic Nature shows how public relations has dominated public understanding of the natural environment for over 100 years. More than spin or misinformation, PR is a social and political force that shapes how we understand and address the environmental crises we now face. Drawing on interviews, ethnography, and archival research, Melissa Aronczyk and Maria I. Espinoza offer an original account of the promotional agents who have influenced public perception of the environment since the beginning of the twentieth century, revealing how professional communicators affect how we think about public knowledge and who can legitimately produce it. Instead of focusing on just the messages or the campaigns, this book provides a conceptual framework for understanding the promotional culture around the meaning of the environment. A Strategic Nature argues that it is not possible to understand the role of the environment in our everyday lives without understanding how something called “the environment” has been invented and communicated to us throughout history. To tell this story properly requires a careful account of the evolution of the institutions, norms, and movements that have pushed environmental concerns to the fore of public opinion and political action. But it also demands an examination of the simultaneous evolution of professional communicators and the formation of their institutions, norms, and movements. Without this piece of the puzzle, we miss crucial ways that struggles are won, resources allocated, and beliefs fostered about environmental problems UR - https://academic.oup.com/book/39011 ER -