Strategies for enhancing environmental communication that targets education and encourages activism

There seems to exist two general ways that Environmental Communication (EC) is understood in Japan today. One can be called Basic Style, whose main function is the disclosure of information, and the other is Developed Style, where edifying social activities (Figure 1) are the main method. This report will not pursue issues related to the Basic Style of EC, but rather will focus on proposing strategies in the Developed Style of EC. One way to approach this is to propose a scenario for a project highly effective in prompting environmental action, by way of extracting the characteristics of collaborative projects that were successful, analyzing and demonstrating its effectiveness, and then applying what has been learned and understood into the corporate-driven Developed Style EC. Based on this study, we propose that the following factors be incorporated into the planning of Developed Style EC activities. "Events with workshops (performance) " or "entertaining events" should be given priority. The content of the event should give participants a stronger sense that they want to have "fun time" and that the participation is a "necessity for myself (actual feeling)." To use "TV programs and TV commercials," "newspaper", and "internet" to send out information. (There is, however, an issue of the budget. When the budget is abundant, "TV programs and TV commercials" can be used, whereas in case of smaller budget, "internet" may be a better choice.) When an event is organized by a single corporation, the event should be held in series and not as a one-time event, as the participants become only conscious of the organizer after the initial participation. If the awareness enhancement through continued participation is intended, the content should include "workshops (performance)".