Climate change and environmental crisis are the defining challenges of our time.
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) scientists told us in 2018 that we had 12 years left to avert catastrophic climate change. We now have less than a decade to make the fundamental changes needed before anthropogenic climate change becomes irreversible. The decades-long science on climate is richly detailed and increasingly certain, so it is now our social responses to climate change that have become crucial. Fundamental to these is how we communicate on climate.
My interdisciplinary work takes place at the site where environment and climate change research, public understanding, media representation and environmental policy intersect. This is an exciting and acutely consequential place to be researching now. I work with climate scientists at the Climate Futures research group at the University of Tasmania researching and teaching social responses to climate change, and with Communication scholars at Deakin University, studying the complex relationships between media narratives, and the ways we understand and act on the environment.
Most people learn about climate change through the media, so research like mine is crucial if we are to communicate in a way that galvanises better responses to climate change – at individual, communal, national and global levels.
I bring to this work a background as a journalist and travel book author. In an academic context, I have published on media discourse and policy around energy transitions, media coverage of extreme events and climate change, and on the theory, pedagogy and practice of environmental communication.
I’m currently co-lead of the Climate Change Communication and Narratives Network at Deakin, vice chair of the board of the International Environmental Communication Association and a member of the Coordinating Committee, Global Climate Change Week.
Publications, reports and conference presentations
Milstein, T, Mocatta, G, & Castro-Sotomayor, J, Media and Ecocultural Identity in K Chu, A Chang, A Ivakhiv, S Rust, M Tola and A López (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Ecomedia Studies (forthcoming 2023)
Kelly, R, Beasy, K, Lucas, C, Mocatta, G & Pecl, G, Answering children’s questions on climate change: Curious Climate Schools, in K Beasy, C Smith & J Watson (eds.) Engaging with the Sustainable Development Goals through Education and Training (forthcoming 2023)
Mocatta, G, Mayes, E, Hess, K & Everitt Hartup, M, The trouble with ‘quiet advocacy’: local journalism and reporting climate change in rural and regional Australia, Media, Culture & Society, (forthcoming 2022)
Hawley, E & Mocatta, G, (2021) “Fact-based dreaming” as climate communication. Popular Communication, 20(2), pp.91-104
Pearman, O, Boykoff, M, Osborne-Gowey, J, Aoyagi, M, Ballantyne, A, Chandler, P, Daly, M, Doi, K, Fernández Reyes, R, Jiménez-Gómez, I, Nacu-Schmidt, A, McAllister, L, McNatt, M, Mocatta, G, Kjerulf Petersen, L, Simonsen, A, & Ytterstad, A (2021) COVID-19 media coverage decreasing despite deepening crisis, The Lancet Planetary Health, 5. e6-e7.
Schmitt, C; Mocatta, G & Maras-Tate, J (2021) ‘Rhetorical Approaches to Environmental Communication’, in B Takahashi (ed), The ICA Handbook of Current Trends in Environmental Communication, Routledge [Research Book Chapter – in press]
Milstein, T & Mocatta, G (2021) 'Environmental Communication Theory and Practice for Global Transformation: An Ecocultural Approach', Handbook of Global Interventions in Communication Theory, Routledge, Y Miike and J Yin (ed) (In Press) [Research Book Chapter – in press]
Blueprint for a climate-positive Tasmania: a submission to Tasmania’s climate change Act and Climate Action Plan (2021) University of Tasmania (contributing author)
Mocatta, G (2020) Environmental harm as impetus to repoliticisation: experience from Chile, International Communication Association Conference, online, 11-13 May 2020 [Conference Extract]
Mocatta, G (2020) 'When water is energy: tracing water justice discourses in Chile's mega-hydro debate', Water, rhetoric, and social justice: a critical confluence, Lexington Books, C Schmitt (ed), Lanham, pp. 333. (2020) [Research Book Chapter]
Mocatta, G & Hawley, E (2020) 'Uncovering a climate catastrophe? Media coverage of Australia's Black Summer bushfires and the revelatory extent of the climate blame frame', M/C Journal, 23, (4) ISSN 1441-2616 (2020) [Refereed Article]
Mocatta, G & Hawley, E (2020) 'The coronavirus crisis as tipping point: communicating the environment in a time of pandemic', Media International Australia, 177, (1) pp. 119-124. ISSN 1329-878X (2020) [Refereed Article]
Mocatta G, (2020) 'Energy that's as clean as water: tracking mediatized discourse on hydroelectric dam building and climate change in Chile', The 2019 Conference on Communication and Environment in Vancouver, 17-21 June, Vancouver, Canada, pp. 24. (2019) [Conference Extract]
Mocatta, G (2017) 'Designing a Distance Education Course in Environmental Journalism', Environmental communication pedagogy and practice, Routledge, T. Milstein, M Pileggi and E Morgan (ed), United Kingdom, pp. 128-142. ISBN 978-1138673090 (2017) [Research Book Chapter]
Mocatta, G (2015) Environmental Journalism, Open School of Journalism, New York, pp. 97. (2015) [Other Authored Book]
Mocatta, G (2015) 'Media, symbolism and becoming emblematic: lessons from an enduring environmental conflict in Chile', The 2015 Conference on Communication and the Environment in Boulder, 11-14 June, Boulder, Colorado, pp. 10. (2015) [Conference Extract]
Mocatta, G (2013) 'CSR communication vs. protest movement campaign in Chile: A case study of the HidroAysén megaproject debate', CSR Communication Conference 2013 Conference Proceedings, 18-20 September, Denmark, pp. 40-48. ISBN 978-961-235-678-1 (2013) [Conference Extract]