ARSTM members Lynda Olman and Dani DeVasto’s 2020 ARSTM@NCA preconference presentation “Hybrid Collectivity: Hacking Environmental Risk Visualization for the Anthropocene” was recently published open-access in Communication Design Quarterly (CDQ) under the same name. Congratulations to Lynda and Dani!
Read the abstract:
In this essay, we propose a hack of existing models of environmental risk communication so that they will better address Anthropocene risks. We focus our discussion on a key area of risk communication: environmental risk visualization (ERV). Drawing on social constructionist theories of risk and our own research on ERVs, we assemble criteria for designing and evaluating ERVs based on their hybrid collectivity—meaning their ability to collect agents around themselves over time and across traditional Modern divides between human/nonhuman, expert/nonexpert, and nature/culture. We test the criteria on two ERVs from the 2011 Fukushima disaster and discuss the resulting promises and challenges of an approach to risk communication motivated by hybrid collectivity.
Or read the full manuscript of “Hybrid Collectivity: Hacking Environmental Risk Visualization for the Anthropocene” in CDQ!