Communicating the Future

W. Lance Bennett is Emeritus Professor of Political Science and Communication, and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Journalism, Media and Democracy at the University of Washington.

• Acknowledgments vi Introduction: The Future is Now 1Overview of the Book 141 Communicating Complex Problems 182 What’s Missing in Environmental Communication? 623 Economy vs. Environment: Selling Predatory Economics 914 Democracy with a Future: Mobilizing Ideas and Opportunities for Change 1215 Communicating Change: Attention, Amplification, and Organization 149Notes 170Index 187

"Communicating the Future asks big questions and offers big ideas alongside a synthesis of insights from digital media research, political communication, and social movement studies to fight fragmentation in how we respond to and analyze the existential threat posed by the global climate emergency."—Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, University of Oxford"Lance Bennett provides a compelling, provocative vision for constructing a new social reality. This important book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of communication, networks, organization, and social change and provides a thought-provoking, hopeful, and practical guide for creating a more viable future."—Cynthia Stohl, University of California, Santa Barbara"With Communicating the Future: Solutions for Environment, Economy, and Democracy, W. Lance Bennett has written a compact, accessible, and useful book that compliments—in both substance and tone—influential works such as Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything, Bill McKibbon's The End of Nature, and Naomi Oreskes's Merchants of Doubt."—The International Journal of Communication"Communicating the Future is an original work of simply outstanding scholarship—making it critically important reading for students, scholars, and practitioners of media and communication, as well as political activists and non-specialist readers concerned about dealing with the environmental crisis."—Midwest Book Review