Communication Concepts for Science and Environmental Communications

Abstract

INTRODUCTiONSEVERAL MODELS describing the flow of information have stood the test of time and retain some currency and presumably validity. All are general models dealing with the flow of any and all kinds of information. Their purpose is accomodative, intended to encompass the broadest range of communications situations.

Impact of Education, Age, Newspapers, and Television on Environmental Knowledge, Concerns, and Behaviors

“…3 ment as set out by Witt (1973) and Schoenfeld (1974). Our focus was on the audience (Ross 1970), defined as that collective number of individuals who attend to a mass medium.…”

A comparative content analysis of environmental news coverage in Time and The Weekly review

“….. PUBLIC Figure 1. Science and environmental communications model (Witt, 1973) The messages of the reporters flow through the editors for editing before passing through to the public. In contrast, substantially all of the feedback from the public goes back to the writers and reporters rather than to the editors because journalists have more daily relations with the public as a part of their job.…”

“…Hence, the flow of feedback creates a problem. That is to say, the editors, who are the main gatekeepers of the news flow, become less aware of public wants and needs, and least responsive to change (Witt, 1973).…”

“…Reporters dealing with the field can be divided into environmental, outdoor and science journalists. Only the last have regular contact with scientific communities, either by personal relationship or scientific journals, because of some common scientific backgrounds (Witt, 1973).…”

“…~though scientists also communicate with their counterparts, this kind of information hardly gets to the public. They contact each other mainly through scientific journals which certainly are unknown to ordinary people (Witt, 1973).…”