Resources and References

Stonington, Maine The harbor in Stonington, ME.

Additional Resources

Many additional resources can be found on the NEST homepage. Please refer to the homepage for all relevant resources, materials, and information about NEST projects.

Terms & References

Sustainability Science

Sustainability science is the foundation of NEST. In 1987, the United Nations' Brundtland Commission delivered a substantial report called Our Common Future in which they laid out challenges and goals related to sustainable development. Since that report, the conversation on sustainability has grown and expanded beyond the concept of development alone.

A 2001 article in Science described a scientific field that was emerging from sustainability. Within two years, the field started to take shape, something researchers William Clark and Nancy Dickson wrote about in a 2003 article that stated "sustainability science focuses on the dynamic interactions between nature and society."

These interactions are complex, but they provide a wide range of opportunities for continuing research about the environment. Much work within sustainability science has been done since then, and the term itself has often been written about as sustainability scientists continue to think about their place in social-ecological systems.

  ↳ References

  • Cash, D. W., Clark, W. C., Alcock, F., Dickson, N. M., Eckley, N., Guston, D., et al. (2003). Knowledge systems for sustainable development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 100, 8086-8091.
  • Chapin, F. S., Folke, C., & Kofinas, G. P. (2009). A framework for understanding change. In F. S. I. Chapin, C. Folke & G. P. Kofinas (Eds.), Principles of Ecosystem Stewardship (1 ed., pp. 3-28). New York, NY: Springer Science + Business Media.
  • Clark, W. C., & Dickson, N. M. (2003). Sustainability science: the emerging research program. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 100, 8059-8061. doi:10.1073/pnas.1231333100
  • Clark, W. C., Tomich, T. P., van Noordwijk, M., Guston, D., Catacutan, D., Dickson, N. M., & McNie, E. (2011). Boundary work for sustainable development: natural resource management at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi:10.1073/pnas.0900231108
  • Dewulf, A., François, G., Pahl-Wostl, C., & Taillieu, T. (2007). A framing approach to cross-disciplinary research collaboration: experiences from a large-scale research project on adaptive water management. Ecology & Society, 12, 1-24.
  • Funtowicz, S., & Ravetz, J. (2003). Post-normal science. International Society for Ecological Economics, 1-10.
  • Goldstein, B. E. (2012). Collaborative Resilience: Moving Through Crisis to Opportunity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Hutchins, K., Lindenfeld, L., Bell, K., Leahy, J., & Silka, L. (2013). Strengthening knowledge co-production capacity: examining interest in community-university partnerships. Sustainability, 5(9), 3744-3770.
  • Johnson, T. R. (2011). Fishermen, scientists, and boundary spanners: cooperative research in the U.S. Illex Squid Fishery. Society & Natural Resources, 24(3), 242-255. doi:10.1080/08941920802545800
  • Kates, R. W., Clark, W. C., Corell, R., Hall, J. M., Jaeger, C. C., Lowe, I., . . . Svedin, U. (2001). Sustainability science. Science, 292(5517), 641-642. doi: 10.1126/science.1059386
  • Miller, T. R. (2013). Constructing sustainability science: emerging perspectives and research trajectories. Sustainability Science, 8, 279–293.
  • Miller, T. R., Baird, T. D., Littlefield, C. M., Kofinas, G., Chapin, F. S., & Redman, C. L. (2008). Epistemological pluralism: reorganizing interdisciplinary research. Ecology and Society, 13(2).
  • Ostrom, E., Janssen, M. A., & Anderies, J. M. (2007). Going beyond panaceas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, 15176-15178. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0701886104
  • Palmer, M. A. (2012). Socioenvironmental sustainability and actionable Science. BioScience, 62(1), 5-6. doi: 10.1525/bio.2012.62.1.2
  • Parker, J., & Crona, B. (2012). On being all things to all people: boundary organizations and the contemporary research university. Social Studies of Science, 42(2), 262-289. doi:10.1177/0306312711435833
  • Silka, L. (1999). Paradoxes of partnerships: reflections on university-community collaborations In N. Kleniewski & G. Rabrenovic (Eds.), Research in Politics and Society: Community Politics and Policies (Vol. 7, pp. 335-359). Stamford, CT: JAI Press.
  • Tengö, M., Brondizio, E. S., Elmqvist, T., Malmer, P., & Spierenburg, M. (2014). Connecting diverse knowledge systems for enhanced ecosystem governance: the multiple evidence base approach. Ambio. doi: 10.1007/s13280-014-0501-3
  • Turner, B. L., Kasperson, R. E., Matson, P. A., McCarthy, J. J., Corell, R. W., Christensen, L., . . . Schiller, A. (2003). A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 100, 8074-8079. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1231335100
  • van Kerkhoff, L., & Lebel, L. (2006). Linking knowledge and action for sustainable development. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 31, 445-477. doi:10.1146/annurev.energy.31.102405.170850
  • Walker, B. H., & Salt, D. A. (2006). Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems And People in a Changing World: Island Press.
  • Whitmer, A., Ogden, L., Lawton, J., Sturner, P., Groffman, P. M., Schneider, L., . . . Killilea, M. (2010). The engaged university: providing a platform for research that transforms society. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 8, 314-321. doi: 10.1890/090241
  • Wickson, F., Carew, A., & Russell, A. (2006). Transdisciplinary research: characteristics, quandaries and quality. Futures, 38, 1046-1059. doi: 10.1016/j.futures.2006.02.011

Environmental Communication

Environmental communication is a sub-field of ecological studies. This area of inquiry studies how humans participate and communicate in environmental systems. In an introduction to the topic, Mark Meisner of the International Environmental Communication Association explains, "as with other forms of communication, environmental communication is both an activity/phenomenon and a field of study that, not surprisingly, studies the activity/phenomenon."

The academic journal Environmental Communication has served as a home for environmental communication scholars since 2007 to share original research perspectives about the field. These take many forms, and are as varied as the ways people communicate in and about the environment.

This website is an example of environmental communication, as are advertisements supporting or opposing various energy solutions (Cozen, 2010; Baum, 2012; Li, 2013). Even conversation among individuals who share information with each other about the environment and their place in it is a form of environmental communication (Carbaugh & Cerulli, 2013). As Robert Cox writes in the first chapter of his environmental communication textbook, "our understanding of nature and our actions toward the environment depend not only on science but on public debate, media, the Internet, and even ordinary conversations".

  ↳ References

  • Atkinson, L., & Kim, Y. (2015). "I drink it anyway and I know I shouldn't": Understanding green consumers' positive evaluations of norm-violating non-green products and misleading green advertising. Environmental Communication, 9(1), 37-57. doi:10.1080/17524032.2014.932817
  • Baum, L. M. (2012). It's not easy being green ... or is it? A content analysis of environmental claims in magazine advertisements from the United States and United Kingdom. Environmental Communication, 6(4), 423-440. doi:10.1080/17524032.2012.724022
  • Carbaugh, D., & Cerulli, T. (2013). Cultural discourses of dwelling: Investigating environmental communication as a place-based practice. Environmental Communication, 7(1), 4-23. doi:10.1080/17524032.2012.749296
  • Cox, R., & Pezzullo, P. C. (2016). Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
  • Cozen, B. (2010). This pear is a rhetorical tool: Food imagery in energy company advertising. Environmental Communication, 4(3), 355-370. doi:10.1080/17524032.2010.499212
  • Ferrari, M. P. (2013). Sporting nature(s): Wildness, the primitive, and naturalizing imagery in MMA and sports advertisements. Environmental Communication, 7(2), 277-296. doi:10.1080/17524032.2013.781049
  • Li, X. (2013). A comparative analysis of hybrid car advertisements in the USA and China: Desire, globalization, and environment. Environmental Communication, 7(4), 512-528. doi:10.1080/17524032.2013.818051
  • Lindenfeld, L. A., Hall, D. M., McGreavy, B., Silka, L., & Hart, D. (2012). Creating a place for environmental communication research in sustainability science. Environmental Communication, 6(1), 23-43. doi:10.1080/17524032.2011.640702
  • Thompson, J. L. (2009). Building collective communication competence in interdisciplinary research teams. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 37, 278-297. doi:10.1080/00909880903025911
  • McGreavy, B., Hutchins, K., Smith, H., Lindenfeld, L., & Silka, L. (2013). Addressing the complexities of boundary work in sustainability science through communication. Sustainability, 5, 4195-4221. doi:10.3390/su5104195
  • Osmond, D. L., Nadkarni, N. M., Driscoll, C. T., Andrews, E., Gold, A. J., Allred, S. R. B., . . . Groffman, P. M. (2010). The role of interface organizations in science communication and understanding. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 8, 306-313. doi: 10.1890/090145
  • Rogers, R. A. (2008). Beasts, burgers, and hummers: Meat and the crisis of masculinity in contemporary television advertisements. Environmental Communication, 2(3), 281-301. doi:10.1080/17524030802390250

Transmedia Storytelling

Transmedia storytelling is the way this website was thought about and put together. The phrase was first widely discussed in a 2003 column for MIT Technology Review when media scholar Henry Jenkins used it to discuss a trend in entertainment narratives where stories were being told through a range of media working together.

Jenkins has written often about the topic (2003, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2012), usually within the context of entertainment. But in the meantime, writers and producers have begun to explore other uses for transmedia, including for non-fictional purposes such as education (Jenkins, 2010; Hall & Hall, 2010; Gilardi & Reid, 2011) and political participation (Cheong & Gong, 2010; Ashuri, 2012; Jansson, 2013; Hayles, Jagoda, & LeMieux, 2014).

At its heart, transmedia describes rich media environments in which the "reader" has a role in creating the experience and can choose how to make their way through the story. A key element of this process is engagement between the user and the media elements, something that hopefully leads to increased public participation as well. You can read more about this website's transmedia strategy on the "About this Website" page.

  ↳ References

  • Abba, T. (2009). Hybrid stories: Examining the future of transmedia narrative. Science Fiction Film & Television, 2(1), 59–75.
  • Ashuri, T. (2012). Activist Journalism: Using Digital Technologies and Undermining Structures. Communication, Culture & Critique, 5(1), 38–56.
  • Biggs, S. (2004). Age, gender, narratives, and masquerades. Journal of Aging Studies, 18, 45–58.
  • Chen, J., & Olivares, L. (2014). Transmedia. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 1(1-2), 245–248.
  • Cheong, P. H., & Gong, J. (2010). Cyber vigilantism, transmedia collective intelligence, and civic participation. Chinese Journal of Communication, 3(4), 471–487.
  • Ciancia, M. (2013). What is transmedia? Projects and thoughts beyond the buzzword. In Cleland, K., Fisher, L. & Harley, R. (Eds.). Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium of Electronic Art, ISEA2013, Sydney. Retrieved from http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/9649
  • Chvasta, M. (2005). Remembering praxis: Performance in the digital age. Text and Performance Quarterly, 25(2), 156–170.
  • Elwell, J. S. (2014). The transmediated self: Life between the digital and the analog. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 20(2), 233–249.
  • Fenske, M. (2004). The aesthetic of the unfinished: Ethics and performance. Text and Performance Quarterly, 24(1), 1–19.
  • Gilardi, F., Reid, J., Gilardi, F., & Reid, J. (2011). E-Learning through Transmedia Storytelling. How the Emerging Internet-Based Participatory Cultures in China can be Co-Opted for Education. (Vol. 2011, pp. 1469–1474). Presented at the Global Learn. Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/37361/
  • Gourgey, H., & Smith, E. B. (1996). “Consensual hallucination”: Cyberspace and the creation of an interpretive community. Text and Performance Quarterly, 16(3), 233–247.
  • Gray, J. M. (2012). Web 2.0 and collaborative on-line performance. Text and Performance Quarterly, 32(1), 65–72.
  • Hall, R., & Hall, M. (2010). Scoping the pedagogic relationship between self-efficacy and Web 2.0 technologies. Learning, Media & Technology, 35(3), 255–273.
  • Hayles, N. K., Jagoda, Patrick, & LeMieux, P. (2014). Speculation: Financial games and derivative worlding in a transmedia era. Critical Inquiry, 40(3), 220–236.
  • Jansson, A. (2013). Mediatization and Social Space: Reconstructing Mediatization for the Transmedia Age: A. Jansson. Communication Theory, 23(3), 279–296.
  • Jenkins, H. (2003/2012). Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars?: Digital cinema, media convergence, and participatory culture. In M. G. Durham & D. M. Kellner (Eds.), Media and cultural studies: KeyWorks, (pp. 452-470). West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons.
  • Jenkins, H. (2004). The cultural logic of media convergence. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 7(1), 33-43.
  • Jenkins, H. (2008). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York, NY: New York University Press.
  • Jenkins, H. (2010). Transmedia Storytelling and Entertainment: An annotated syllabus. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 24(6), 943–958.
  • Jenkins, H. (2014). Rethinking ‘rethinking convergence/culture’. Cultural Studies, 28(2), 267-297.
  • Kozel, S. (2007). Closer: performance, technologies, phenomenology. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
  • Langellier, K. M. (2013). Storytelling, turning points, and wicked problems in performance studies. Text and Performance Quarterly, 33(3), 214–219.
  • Langellier, K. M., & Bell, E. E. (2010). The performance turn: Poiesis and praxis in postmodern times. In J. W. Chesebro, (Ed.), A century of transformation: Studies in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Eastern Communication Association (pp. 107-128). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  • Long, G. A. (n.d.). DSpace@MIT: Transmedia storytelling: business, aesthetics and production at the Jim Henson Company. Retrieved September 28, 2014, from http://dspace.mit.edu.prxy4.ursus.maine.edu/handle/1721.1/39152
  • Norrington, A. (2010). Harnessing “e” in Storyworlds: Engage, Enhance, Experience, Entertain. Publishing Research Quarterly, 26(2), 96–105.
  • O’Flynn, S. (2012). Documentary’s metamorphic form: Webdoc, interactive, transmedia, participatory and beyond. Studies in Documentary Film, 6(2), 141–157.
  • Peterson, E. E. (2009). Performance and storytelling. In W. F. Eadie (Ed.), 21st Century communication: A reference handbook, Vol. 1 (pp. 147-155). Los Angeles: Sage.
  • Peterson, E. E., & Langellier, K. M. (2006). Communication as storytelling. In G. J. Shepherd, J. St. John, & T. G. Striphas (Eds.), Communication as...: Perspectives on theory (pp. 123-131). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  • Phillips, A. (2012). A creator’s guide to transmedia storytelling: how to captivate and engage audiences across multiple platforms. New York: McGraw-Hill.
  • Plotz, T., & Bell, E. (1996). Invisible rendezvous: Mapping the music and community of computer-mediated communication through performance (point and counterpoint). Text and Performance Quarterly, 16(2), 172–188.
  • Pullinger, K., Havard, A., & Hundley, M. (2013). Digital Storyworlds: Transmedia Literature in the ELA Classroom. Language Arts, 91(2), 126–131.
  • Radner, J. (2008). On the threshold of power: The storytelling movement today. Storytelling, Self, Society, 4(1), 36–49.
  • Riggs, N. A. (2014). Leaving cancerland: Following Bud at the end of life. Storytelling, Self, Society, 10(1), 78–92.
  • Ryan, M.-L. (2004). Narrative across media: The languages of storytelling. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press.
  • Sangalang, A., Quintero Johnson, J. M., & Ciancio, K. E. (2013). Exploring audience involvement with an interactive narrative: implications for incorporating transmedia storytelling into entertainment-education campaigns. Critical Arts: A South-North Journal of Cultural & Media Studies, 27(1), 127–146.
  • Scolari, C. A. (2009). Transmedia storytelling: Implicit consumers, narrative worlds, and branding in contemporary media production. International Journal of Communication, 3, 21.
  • Shoebridge, P. & Simons, M. (n.d.). Welcome to Pinepoint. Retrieved from http://pinepoint.nfb.ca/#/pinepoint
  • Stern, D. M. (2011). You had me at Foucault: Living pedagogically in the digital age. Text and Performance Quarterly, 31(3), 249–266.
  • Sterne, J. (2006). Communication as techné. In G. J. Shepherd, J. St. John, & T. G. Striphas (Eds.), Communication as...: Perspectives on theory (pp. 91-98). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  • Sukovic, S. (2014). iTell: Transliteracy and digital storytelling. Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 45(3), 205–229.
  • Veglis, A. (2012). From Cross Media to Transmedia Reporting in Newspaper Articles. Publishing Research Quarterly, 28(4), 313–324.
  • Vukadin, A. (2014). Bits and Pieces of Information: Bibliographic Modeling of Transmedia. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 52(3), 285–302.