Environmental Communication

Members of the International Environmental Communication Association (IECA) can choose to publish their article Gold Open Access for a reduced article publishing charge (APC) of £1250 / €1500 / $2065, which represents a discount of 30% on the standard APC. Please email [email protected] with your IECA membership number if you would like to choose this option.

IECA members can also subscribe to Environmental Communication at a discounted rate. To become an IECA member, please visit https://theieca.org/membership.

Aims and Scope
As the flagship journal of the International Environmental Communication Association, Environmental Communication is a premiere international and interdisciplinary publishing outlet for original research on the ways communication matters to ecological relations and vice versa. The journal is intended for scholars, students, and broadly engaged audiences attuned to the ethical stakes of environmental communication.

Communication is understood as pragmatic and constitutive—that is, influencing, moving, naming, negotiating, orienting, reacting to, and otherwise shaping the world in complex ways. We publish significant research in critical, theoretical, and applied fields, such as: business & organizational communication; critical advertising, public relations, & design; Critical Environmental Justice Studies; critical legal studies & policy; critical theory & ethics; Cultural Studies; discourse, linguistics and social interaction; ecocultural, interpersonal, & intercultural communication; Ethnic Studies; Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies; health and risk communication; critical information studies & communication technologies; journalism & mass communication; media studies, including fashion, film, games, music, photography, podcasting, radio, & television; pedagogy; performance studies, including ethnography; public participation & governance; rhetoric & public culture; science communication; and social & behavioral change.

We foster historical, current, and futurist research on environmental topics, including: abolitionist ecologies; air & wind; animals & animality; apocalypse; biodiversity & extinction; blue ecology & oceans; buildings and infrastructure; climate; consumer studies and market-based advocacy; disasters; disinformation and misinformation campaigns; eco-ableism; eco-fascist myths; eco-feminisms; environmental historiography; environmental and climate justice; energy; environmental law and rights; fire & heat; food systems; greenwashing; heat; Indigenous epistemologies; intergenerational studies; just transition; labor; land; militarism; nature; natural resource management; outdoor recreation & tourism; plants; pollution; popular culture & trends; public controversies; public health; queer ecologies; racial ecologies; social movements, protests, and revolution; sovereignty; sports; spirituality & religion; sustainability, including economy, ecology, and equity; transportation; waste; water; and wildlife, nature, & marine conservation, preservation, and conflict.

The pages of this journal ideally are not written tabula rasa, as if each author just discovered communication matters for environmental relations (and vice versa). Authors are expected to write for an informed, interdisciplinary, and international audience. We provide a forum for ongoing conversations building collective knowledge, although one need not agree or be shy about areas of marginalization and critique to date. Our editorial board is committed to equitable and inclusive reviewing practices. Given our global readership, we encourage contributions to be contextualized in specific cultures at particular historical moments and attuned to power inequities, including in research topic, design, analysis, and citations.

The Editorial Board will consider the following types of submissions:
Publications will be reviewed anonymously by at least two reviewers. Special Issue proposals are identifiably assessed by the Editor. Book, Film, & Performance Reviews are identifiably assessed by the Review Editor.

Research Article (6-9,000 words, including title, abstract, notes, references, and figures): Original empirical research or new scholarly analysis of significant scope and breadth, including empirically-grounded and theoretically-nuanced scholarship or literature reviews that make an original argument. Given the high volume of submissions, evaluation criteria will prioritize essays that reflect the Aims and Scope of the journal, as well as: originality of insights, clarity of argument, methodological care. Please, note: the journal currently only publishes in English, even as our authors engage multiple languages.

Advanced Review (6– 8,000 words): Comprehensive synthesis and review of research and developments of interdisciplinary significance, highlighting future directions for research, analysis, and/or professional practice.

Book, Documentary Film, Podcast, Radio Program, or Performance Review

We solicit Reviews and welcome related inquiries, particularly from graduate students. All Reviews should evaluate works that have been produced in the past two years. Books and documentary films can be any length and should be created by scholars or practitioners. Podcasts and radio programs should consist of at least one season or a series of shows. Performances should be live and of notable significance by scholars or practitioners. Reviews should be structured in three parts: 1) an argument for the studied material’s environmental communication relevance; 2) a brief description or explanation of the book, documentary film, podcast, radio program, or performance; and 3) a critical assessment. Provide a heading with the Review author's name, a short Review title, and the following information:
● For a book, provide the name of author(s)/editor(s), title, city, publisher, date, and ISBN.
● For a documentary film, provide the title, director’s name, production company or studio, year, and website URL (if available).
● For a podcast or radio program, provide the title, host name(s), year, and website URL (if available).
● For a performance, provide the title, playwright’s name, director’s name, date witnessed, and website URL (if available).
Reviews should not exceed a 1,000-2,500-word count, including references. Manuscripts that exceed this maximum will be returned to the authors for reduction in length and resubmission. The only exception to this word count limit is for Reviews that require lengthy and/or frequent translations. In this situation, the word count should not exceed 3,000 words. While Reviews of works communicated in any language are encouraged, the journal only publishes Reviews in the English language; therefore, any non-English-language words, sentences, and paragraphs in a Review should be accompanied by English translations. Contact the Review Editor, Prof. Catalina de Onís, with questions or ideas: [email protected]

Special Issues: If you have a proposal for a Special Issue, please email a 2 page proposal to the journal editor, including: (1) who: the name(s) and affiliation(s) of the (co)editors (and contributors if you already know who they are); (2) what & why: a 1-2 paragraph rational for the topic’s significance for this journal and how the (co)editors are well-positioned to lead the effort; (3) when: a brief, tentative timeline of expected completion; and (4) by whom: 3-5 names of potential qualified reviewers. You should receive a response within two weeks. We’re particularly excited about topics “ripped from the headlines” that bridge impactful practitioner and scholarly praxis legally, politically, and/or culturally, as well as proposals led by under-represented voices of the Global South and the Global South of the North.

When invited by the Editor or a special issue, we also consider:
Research Insight (2– 3,000 words): Original empirical research or new scholarly analysis smaller in scope than a full research article, often providing insight on recent or emerging debates and trends, and/or a novel social, professional, or country context.

Alt Text This journal is now including Alt Text (alternative text), a short piece of text that can be attached to your figure to convey to readers the nature or contents of image(s). It is typically used by systems such as pronouncing screen readers to make the object accessible to people that cannot read or see the object, due to a visual impairment or print disability. Alt text will also be displayed in place of an image, if said image file cannot be loaded. Alt Text can also provide better image context/descriptions to search engine crawlers, helping them to index an image properly. To include Alt Text in your article, please follow our Guidelines.


Peer Review Statement

Environmental Communication is an international, ranked, peer-reviewed journal that publishes original research contributions to scientific knowledge.

All manuscript submissions are subject to initial appraisal by the Editor, and, if found suitable for further consideration, to peer review by independent, anonymous expert referees. All peer review is double anonymized and submission is online via ScholarOne.

Authors can choose to publish gold open access in this journal.

Read the Instructions for Authors for information on how to submit your article.