What is peak oil?
a. Peak Oil is the simplest label for the problem of energy resource depletion, or more specifically, the peak in global oil production.
i. Oil is finite, non-renewable resource, one that has powered phenomenal economic and population growth over the last century and a half. The rate of oil ‘production’, meaning extraction and refining (currently about 85 million barrels/day), has grown almost every year of the last century.
You should know the basic claims of Hubbert & Hirsch. (Resilience article)
a. M. King Hubbert – the first to predict an oil peak
i. U.S. geologist working for shell oil. In 1956, Hubbert predicted that production from the US lower 48 states would peak between 1965 and 1970. It ended up peaking in 1970/1971. – Basically oil will peak
b. The ‘Hirsch Report’
i. Summary – as peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.
ii. Essentially we should create a plan before the peak which hasn’t happened.
McGuire’s Input-Output Framework is covered in the department’s persuasion class. For our purposes you should understand the basics of the framework and realize that its components form what—in McGuire’s words—are a “resource checklist” for analyzing communication campaigns. Beyond that understanding you should know the following:
• What are the five classes of persuasive communication input variables?
.
- Source 2. Message 3. Channel 4. Audience 5. Destination
Structure of argument – attitude structure assumes that attitudes are organized into interconnected systems so that a persuasive communication that deals with one issue is likely to have ramifications on other unrelated issues. Giving new information from an outside source or increasing the salience of information already within the audiences own belief system by means of a directed thinking task can change attitudes
How are fear appeal messages defined?
Fear appeal messages “refer to those contents of a persuasion communication which allude to or describe unfavorable consequences that are alleged to result from failure to adopt and adhere to the communicator’s consciousness.” And “attempt to change our attitudes by appealing to [the] unpleasant emotion of fear.” Simply put, the logic of a fear appeal strategy is to get people’s attention and emphasize the dangers of risky behaviors, thereby increasing the likelihood that people will engage in less risky behaviors.
What does the intro claim about exposure to fear appeals affecting behavior? (Ch 11 - book)
The idea that fear can motivate is intuitively compelling and, in fact, has been a central tenet of emotion theory… however, decades of scholarship also suggest a complex picture in which exposure to fear appeals sometimes reduce risky behavior under certain circumstances.
What are two fundamental notions about fear appeals that involve some controversy?
- An affective state of fear is a discrete emotion with characteristics distinct from other emotions
- Fear has served a function for humans over time
⇨ Fear propels people to protective action in response to perceived danger
o For example, happiness invites behavioral maintenance and anger invites active attack to remove perceived obstacles
What is risk (and by contrast what is the instructor’s counter definition)?
Risk represents the possibility of danger and danger indicates a possible loss, injury, or other negative outcome.
Idk the instructor’s counter example
What is the risk point about lack of uniformity?
One important explanation for why exposure to risk information does not uniformly translate into behavior change lies in the lack of uniformity among people in the perception and interpretation of risk. There is often a gap between real and perceived risk; people lack the skills to accurately interpret risk information.
You should have a basic notion of fear appeal theories, including fear as a drive, the parallel response model, protection motivation theory, and the extended parallel process model.
- Fear as drive – drive = state of tension that motivates people to find ways to reduce tension.
o The assumption that intense and disturbing emotions, including fear, are functionally similar to a drive - Parallel Response Model – increasing fear produced gains in protective responses
o 4 components needed in a fear appeal: 1) perceived vulnerability 2) perceived severity 3) response efficacy 4) self-efficacy
o this theory’s focus primarily involves cognitive processes and does not explicate the possible explanatory role of fear as an emotion - Extended Parallel Process Model – exposure to a fear appeal initiates two appeals of a message. First, information in the message is used to appraise the threat of the hazard, based on perceptions about the severity of the threat as well as how susceptible individuals believe themselves to be the threat.
Note in the “fear as a drive” section the point on curvilinear interpretation.
- Janis proposed a curvilinear interpretation where increasing fear produces adaptive responses up to the point where fear becomes too strong, after which adaptive responses should decrease.
Note the general point in the first sentence of the information processing section.
- Where as fear appeal theories developed clear predictions about outcomes of exposure to particular message configurations, they have been less clear on the message processing mechanisms that explain those outcomes.
What are approach and defense activation, and how do they differ?
- Intense positive emotions activate an approach system and intense negative emotions, including fear, activate a defensive system. Approach activation involves consideration of all available information, whereas defense activation leads people to quickly fall back on internalized responses.
At the top of p. 171 what do the authors conclude about the likelihood of curvilinear effects?
“… linear effects of fear appeals on message acceptance are more likely than curvilinear effects.”
What does the Fear Appeals section note about laboratory settings?—note, too the Hastings report.
- The complete information environment in which public communication campaigns operate have little resemblance to laboratory settings in which all possible competing or reinforcing sources of influences are controlled.
- Hastings… reports that the few evaluations of explicit fear appeal campaigns that have been published generally demonstrate smaller fear appeal effects than lab studies.
Why does oil peak? Why doesn’t it suddenly run out? (Resilience article)
Oil companies have, naturally enough, extracted the easier to reach, cheap oil first. The oil pumped first was on land, near the surface, under pressure, light and ‘sweet’ and therefore easy to refine. The remaining oil is more likely to be off-shore, far from markets, in smaller fields and of lesser quality. It therefore takes ever more money and energy to extract, refine, and transport. Under these conditions, the rate of production inevitably drops. Furtheremore, all oil fields eventually reach a point where they become economically, and energetically, no longer viable.
Note the authors’ identification of the oceans problem and the claims about lack of awareness and media coverage of the issues.
- Basically there are a lot of problems with the ocean and people are barely concerned – they’re essentially unaware or uninformed.
What is the focus of the chapter? (Ch 16)
- “Solutions to these complex ocean environmental problems including the need to develop greater ocean literacy, seem scarce. But crises, fortunately, can also create opportunities for new paradigms to emerge such as with the sub discipline of environmental communication (EC). This is the focus of the chapter…”
what are monologic modes?
a one-way or linear transmission of information to raise awareness, educate, or persuade. Special care is taken in determining the target audience, the message development and source, and the most appropriate channel of communication
what are dialogic modes?
- Two-way or participatory mode describes discourse, information exchanges, mutual understanding, and consensus development that occur in community-based social marketing initiatives, citizen science programs, or stakeholder-driven processes.
Have a basic understanding of the approaches taken in the Seafood Watch/Monterey Bay Aquarium campaign.
- Seafood Watch = buycott campaign where Monterey Bay Aquarium visitors = primary audience
- Monterey Bay = educational campaign
what is the claim about effective communication strategy?
“An effective communication strategy to reach diverse goal audiences and secure difficult-to-achieve sustainability outcomes requires planners and researchers to accurately identify the linkages between the ecological, physical, economic, and social aspects (including values) related to a particular issue.
what do the authors argue that 21st Century environmental communication efforts requires?
- “Consequently, 21st century environmental communication efforts require more substantive strategies than simple monologic (silver bullet or knowledge deficit) designs relied upon in former decades. Responding effectively to the challenges posed by today’s crises demands the transdisciplinary convergence of social ad environmental science perspectives to formulate innovative, theory-based communication models and assessment techniques, such as those presented here.”
What did CJR report about peak oil in 2008? What is the problem with our reporting of the story?
a. It is a complex story that has gained prominence in recent years – especially as oil prices spiked last summer – but still begs clear, nuanced explanation. The overall conclusion of Monday’s panel, however, seemed to be that the press should not (or cannot) bear full responsibility ofr the public’s lack of concern about our future energy economy.
Theobald—Why is peak oil an underreported story?
a. “There’s a tendency, especially among academics, to blame journalism,”
b. Underreported story, partly because it remains a tough sell in newsrooms. It doesn’t make for great art, either. An analysis of how global oil production affects gas prices will always take a backseat to a photo of unhappy people who think they are paying too much at the pump.
