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Current and recent projects
Counter-hegemonic environmental discourses
in Latin American contexts
Counter-hegemonic environmental discourses
in Latin American contexts
This projects seeks to give greater visibility to research produced in and about the region, with a focus on environmental communication. The project also aims to foster dialogue and collaboration between researchers from the Global South and the Global North.
This initiative is based on the recognition that Latin American scholars contribute fundamental perspectives to the study of environmental communication and the need to overcome the barriers that perpetuate forms of bibliometric coloniality.
The project includes various activities, including a symposium and workshop that will bring together Latin American researchers at Michigan State University from March 31 to April 2, 2025, as well as a database compiling work published by regional researchers on environmental communication.
Read more about this initiative here.
The University of Rhode Island’s (URI) Metcalf Institute, Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, and the URI Science and Story Lab launched the SciComm Identities Project (SCIP) to prepare the next generation of science communicators from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds. The project, supported by a $2.8 million collaborative National Science Foundation grant, will address a significant gap in science communication research and training by centering the motivations, experiences, and priorities of racial and ethnic minority scientists.
This project tests the extent to which normative behaviors ingrained in academia and science relate to cultural norms and communication styles of underrepresented racial and ethnic minority scientists, and how these factors influence their science communication efforts.
Read more about the project here.
Publications:
Environmental journalism in South America
I am currently working on two parallel projects in Peru and Bolivia.
A first project examines environmental discourses in the Peruvian Amazon in relation to oil spills that primarily affect Indigenous communities. The project seeks to expand theoretical understandings about the construction, dissemination, and cooptation of discourses, primarily across mediates spaces such as traditional, independent, and Indigenous/community media. A first field trip was completed in late May 2024 and a second one in December 2024.
A second project examines decolonial environmental journalism practices in independent media in Bolivia and Perú. Interviews with journalists, editors, and owners of independent media were conducted in June 2024.
The Lancet Countdown Latin America is an interdisciplinary project that seeks to highlight the intersection of climate change and public health in the region. The regional center is part of the larger Global Lancet Countdown. The research team, led by Dr. Stella Hartinger at Universidad Cayetano Heredia in Perú, develops a series of indicators at the intersection of these issues with the goal of providing the best available science to policy decision makers in the region.
I have been leading Working Group 5: Public Engagement and Governance since 2021, now co-leading it with Carolina Gil Posse. The project has published two reports, scoping reviews, viewpoints, policy briefs, and a series of in-person and virtual meetings. The reports received important media coverage from outlets such as CNN and El País.
Leadership team of the Lancet Countdown Latin America in London, 2024, with Dr. Marina Romanella, director of the Global Lancet Countdown
Publications
Hartinger, S….Takahashi, B.,… et al. (2024). The 2023 Latin America report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: The imperative for health-centred climate-resilient development. The Lancet Regional Health – Americas.
Yglesias, M., Hartinger, S….Takahashi, B.,… et al. (2023). The Lancet Countdown South America: Increasing health opportunities by identifying the gaps in health and climate change research. The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, 26.
Takahashi, B., et al. (2023). Climate change and public health in South America: A scoping review of governance and public engagement research. The Lancet Regional Health – Americas.
Hartinger, S….Takahashi, B.,… et al. (2023). The 2022 South American Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change: Trust the Science, now that we know, we must act. The Lancet Regional Health – Americas.
Infrastructure collapse and its effects on news practices during Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico
Communities in disasters depend on reliable information channels to formulate and to communicate response, but in disasters with far-reaching infrastructure collapse, these information channels have unique challenges. This project investigated how Puerto Rican media organizations and journalists performed their functions when Hurricane Maria pummeled Puerto Rico in September 2017. This project examined media content, before, during, and after the hurricane; and the ways audiences sought and used this limited information provided by the news media. The results of this project provide practical tools to improve communication responses to future disasters, especially when it comes to vulnerable populations, and to help news organizations in Puerto Rico and elsewhere to update their emergency preparedness plans to better face the challenges imposed by natural disasters. As a result, such procedures will allow citizens of Puerto Rico and other regions with vulnerable populations to be better informed to respond to an emergency.
Training for environmental journalists
Climate reporting in Mexico, 2024
I led a workshop for Mexican journalists and students on intercultural climate stories.
I also delivered the keynote presentation at the 7th Foro Hispanoamericano de Periodismo Científico focused on climate reporting.
Environmental journalism in Bolivia, 2024
With funding from the State Department and US Embassy in La Paz, I am working with colleagues in the Knight Center and Fundación para el Periodismo in Bolivia on a project that seeks to increase the quantity and quality of environmental reporting in Bolivia.
Environmental journalism in Perú, 2021
With funding from the State Department and US Embassy in Lima, I worked with colleagues in the Knight Center on a project that sought to increase the quantity and quality of environmental reporting in Peru. This project was conducted fully online during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Here are examples of news stories produced by participants:
Environmental journalism in Chile, 2018
With funding from the State Department and US Embassy in Santiago, I worked with colleagues in the Knight Center on a project that sought to increase the quantity and quality of environmental reporting in Chile. More information on this project is available here.
Here are examples of news stories produced by participants:
Modern smugglers use social media to sell Chile’s ancient botanical riches
The unsustainable use of nature is leaving Chile without water
Chile’s unique marsh forests struggle to survive in a drying region
University helps residents respond to risk and disaster with art
Scientists listen to the ocean to understand how marine organisms live
In addition, some of their stories also appeared or where referred to in Chilean publications:
• "Una aberración": el proyecto inmobiliario en la península de Hualpén que preocupa a expertos
• Cactus nativos del desierto de Atacama amenazados por su comercialización en redes sociales
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