Pre-conference to the ECREA 2010 – 3rd European Communication Conference
Communicating Climate Change II – Global Goes Regional
Hamburg, Germany, 11-12 October 2010
Held by:
KlimaCampus Hamburg / Institut für Journalistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft
Organization:
Irene Neverla, Monika Taddicken, Corinna Lüthje, Inga Schlichting, Beate Ratter
Overview
The climate change has emerged as one of the most important global agendas. On its way from a subject of scientific inquiry to the issue of general public, debates on climate change have not only spread widely but also undergone transformations. Most importantly, the issue has expanded to the regional level, both in the cases of scientific climate research and media discourse. Accordingly, the conference on ‘Communicating Climate Change II – Global Goes Regional’ focuses on regional aspects of the global climate change.
The events of natural disasters and extreme weather whether it is drought or intense rainfall, floods, cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis, storm surges, wildfires, heatwaves, or volcanic eruptions are being increasingly linked by the media with climate change. Media are making the abstract global phenomenon regionally tangible by adding a transcultural and global dimension to regional geohazards. By regional geohazards we mean threats by extreme weather and extreme natural events of geophysical origin, which only in their circular interaction between human and nature develop into a hazard. Repetitions of these occurrences pose a permanent threat to communities in respective regions. Prerequisite for a geohazard is the awareness of the threat that results primarily from the memories of a catastrophic and traumatic key event. Examples include storms and storm surges of the North Atlantic coast in the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Germany; hurricanes in the U.S. East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico; tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and Asia Pacific; volcanic eruptions in Italy; earthquakes in Japan; avalanches in the Alps; floods and wildfires.
It is against this background that the pre-conference aims to explore the following questions: How do the media represent global climate change and regional geohazards? How do they construct the memory of extreme weather events? What transcultural similarities and cultural specificities can be identified? How does reporting on human-nature interaction develop? How do recipients perceive climate change and regional geohazards and what cultural commonalities and differences can be discerned? How political decisions are taken on climate change issues both in local and regional levels and what role the media play in the process? What immediate, medium or long-term local or global strategies are discussed in media discourses? How mitigation and adaptation related to catastrophe and risk of changing climate are being reported in the media? Which actors and experts are dominating the media coverage? What discourses can be identified?
The pre-conference will feature the presentations of peer-reviewed papers as well as distinguished key-note speakers from an interdisciplinary field of research who will examine important aspects of communicating global climate change on a regional level.
Conference Program
The Program commitee is pleased to inform that 12 proposals have been accepted for the pre-conference "Communicating Climate Change". The 35 proposals were reviewed in a double-blind peer process by an international board of reviewers. You can now find the outstanding conference program with authors from eleven differecnt countries all over the world online
The outstanding researchers Dominique Brossard (University of Wisconsin/Madison, USA), Hans von Storch (GKSS/University of Hamburg, Germany) and Shelley Ungar (University of Toronto, Canada) will give keynoes.
Download the Program here (PDF)
Program Committee
The Program Committee is responsible for the conference program
Prof. Dr. Irene Neverla
Dr. Corinna Lüthje
Dr. Monika Taddicken
International Board of Reviewers:
Hajo Bloomgarden, Amsterdam
Henrik Bödker, Aarhus
Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Kopenhagen
Anabela Carvalho, Minho
Anders Hansen, Leicester
Harald Heinrichs, Lüneburg
Susanne Keuneke, Düsseldof
Claudia Lampert, Hamburg
Markus Lehmkuhl, Berlin
Jutta Milde, Jena
Senja Post, Mainz
Elisabeth Prommer, Berlin/Wien
Simone Rödder, Bielefeld
Constanze Rossmann, München
Georg Ruhrmann, Jena
Jens Wolling, Ilmenau
Timeline
- 10 January 2010: Online submission system open
- 25 March 2010: Deadline for online submission of abstracts (3.500 characters max)
- 23 May 2010: Notification of acceptance
- 15 September 2010: Deadline for submission of full papers (for preparation of the conferees)