Module: Climate Change & Societal Transition

Module Specifications.

Current Academic Year 2024 - 2025

All Module information is indicative, and this portal is an interim interface pending the full upgrade of Coursebuilder and subsequent integration to the new DCU Student Information System (DCU Key).

As such, this is a point in time view of data which will be refreshed periodically. Some fields/data may not yet be available pending the completion of the full Coursebuilder upgrade and integration project. We will post status updates as they become available. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Date posted: September 2024

Module Title	Climate Change & Societal Transition
Module Code	CM5029 (ITS) / CUS1020 (Banner)
Faculty	Humanities & Social Sciences	School	Communications
Module Co-ordinator	Declan Fahy
Module Teachers	Madeline Boughton, Trish Morgan
NFQ level	9	Credit Rating	10
Pre-requisite	Not Available
Co-requisite	Not Available
Compatibles	Not Available
Incompatibles	Not Available

Coursework Only
A modified version of the original assessment or project.

Description

This module critically examines how global and national societies discuss and debate public policies and personal behaviours around how to respond to climate change. It examines the institutional, political, and economic factors that shape how the transition to a low carbon society could or should take place in the emerging anthropocene era. Focusing on the role of public communication, public opinion, and social change, the module examines how government, national organisations, transnational organisations, news outlets, interest groups, scientists, social movements, public thinkers, and citizens shape major debates on climate change resilience, adaption, and mitigation. It examines the role of communication in relation to different theories of social change and the various worldviews that underpin those future visions of society. It explores the economic, technological, and political forces that shape social decisions. As it explores these issues, the module will apply research-based knowledge to the communication activities of experts and advocates, in Ireland and internationally, who work to influence a transition to a low-carbon society.

Learning Outcomes

1. Develop a systematic understanding of the role of public communication in climate change and social transition.
2. Identify, based on current insights, the major challenges and problems in national and global societies related to climate change resilience, adaptation, and mitigation.
3. Scrutinise the social norms and relationships that contribute to obstacles to, and opportunities for, public and political action on climate change and social transition.
4. Select and demonstrate a range of advanced research techniques in the production of a research papers that examine climate change and societal transition.
5. Demonstrate advanced enquiry skills in the analysis of communication campaigns around climate change and social transition.

*Type*	*Hours*	*Description*
Workload	Full-time hours per semester
Lecture	22	Eleven lectures will introduce students to central concepts, intellectual approaches, key theorists, and case studies around social transition and climate change.
Independent Study	158	Students will be expected to read, each week, several assigned scholarly texts and audio-visual material, or both, to prepare for each week's class. They will also be expected to read case studies of communication campaigns around climate change.
Assignment Completion	30	This essay assignment involves the deep reading, synthesis, and evaluation of several core texts and critical examples in putting forward an argument about a selected approach to climate change communication.
Assignment Completion	40	This project involves the creation of an evidence-based and theory-driven public communication campaign around climate change and societal transition.
Total Workload: 250

All module information is indicative and subject to change. For further information,students are advised to refer to the University's Marks and Standards and Programme Specific Regulations at: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/examinations/index.shtml

Indicative Content and Learning Activities

Perspectives on a climate-challenged society
The opening class will focus on the various worldviews about the relationship of humans to the environment, and how these philosophies underpin different responses to climate change and paths to a low-carbon society.

Why societies disagree about the super-wicked problem of climate change
This class will discuss climate change as a phenomenon sociologists have called a super-wicked problem, one that cannot be solved, but can only be managed. It will explore what this wicked nature of climate change means for resilience, mitigation and adaption to climate change.

Communication and Social Change: Public Persuasion
This class examines one set of ideas from communication studies and related disciplines that argue that social change results from effective persuasion, leading over time to the formation of a critical mass of public opinion that leads to policy change and behaviour change. It will examine cases and examples where these strategies have been applied.

Communication and Social Change: Power-politics
This class examines one set of ideas from communication studies and related disciplines that argues that social change results from the mobilisation of social movements and increased citizen participation in politics that puts press on government and industry to force social change. It will examine cases and examples where these strategies have been applied, especially in relation to environmental organisations and social movements around the environment.

Communication and Social Change: Dialogue and Deliberation
This class examines one set of ideas from communication studies and related disciplines that argues that social change results from effective dialogue and deliberation between different sectors of society to create shared understandings and potential paths forward. It will examine cases and examples where these strategies have been applied, including the policies of Green parties in government and in opposition.

Technology and Social Change
This class examines the idea that technologies will drive social change to a low-carbon society. It examines the public and political debate surrounding technologies such as nuclear power, carbon capture, fracking, solar and hydro power. It examines the process by which energy innovation occurs and how new technologies diffuse through society.

The Market and Social Change
This class examines market-based mechanisms that can aid the transition to low-carbon societies. It will examine the role of industries, companies, and entrepreneurs in the areas of renewable technologies.

Political Economy and Climate Change
This class examines the macro economic and political environment in which policies around climate change are shaped and enacted, and how that environment impacts on social change

Case Study of Social Transition in Action
This class will involve a field trip to Cloughjorgan ecovillage to see first-hand how a community has put in place a small-scale transition to a low-carbon way of living.

Assessment Breakdown
Continuous Assessment	100%	Examination Weight	0%

Type	Description	% of total	Assessment Date
Course Work Breakdown
Essay	Students must write a 3,000-word essay on one of the following three topics: 1. Evaluate the origins, strengths, and weaknesses of approaches to climate change and social transition based on theories of persuasive communication. 2. Evaluate the origins, strengths, and weaknesses of approaches to climate change and social transition based on theories of communication and power politics. 3. Evaluate the origins, strengths, and weaknesses of approaches to climate change and social transition based on theories of dialogue and deliberation.	30%	Week 8
Project	Students must take on the role of a public communication specialist of an organisation of their choice and design a communications strategy that aims to create social change around some aspect of climate change. That organisation can be a government department, scientific organisation, local authority, business association, national or international NGO, grassroots movement, or trade association associated with a particular technology. The campaign must lay out in detail an evidence-based and theory-driven rationale for what change it hopes to effect among which part of society, how it aims to communicate about that change, and how that change will happen.	70%	Week 12

Reassessment Requirement Type
Resit arrangements are explained by the following categories: Resit category 1: A resit is available for both* components of the module. Resit category 2: No resit is available for a 100% continuous assessment module. Resit category 3: No resit is available for the continuous assessment component where there is a continuous assessment and examination element.
* ‘Both’ is used in the context of the module having a Continuous Assessment/Examination split; where the module is 100% continuous assessment, there will also be a resit of the assessment
This module is category 1

Indicative Reading List

Dryzek, John S: 1997, The politics of the earth: Environmental discourses, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
Hulme, Mike: 2009, Why we disagree about climate change: Understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
Dryzek, John S., Richard B. Norgaard and David Schlosberg: 2013, Climate-challenged society, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
Pielke, Jr., Rodger: 0, The climate fix: What scientists and politicians won’t tell you about global warming, Basic Books, New York,
Zello, Frank: 0, Make it a green peace! The rise of countercultural environmentalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
Klein, Naomi: 2015, This changes everything: Capitalism vs the climate, Penguin, London,

Other Resources

None