Communications Research

Agricultural producers and environmental representatives in the Floridan Aquifer region have anecdotally perceived themselves to hold conflicting perspectives and goals for regional water management. To examine the validity of this perception and resolve perceived conflicts, stakeholders’ mental models were documented using a card-sorting method called conceptual content cognitive mapping and a survey. The study found that despite perceived conflict, agricultural producers and environmentalists have similar water concerns and priorities. Representatives of both groups expressed high levels of concern for the quality and quantity of surface and groundwater. Additionally, both groups placed high priority on the allocation of water to both crop irrigation and the protection of springs, rivers, and wetlands. However, the groups disagreed on the degree to which agriculture contributes to water challenges. The study additionally produced visual maps (shown below) of producers’ and environmentalists’ conceptions of the relationship between water and the regional economy. The maps reveal that the groups think about the topic in fundamentally different ways, and those differences contribute to environmentalists’ perceptions that producers do not share their land ethic and producers’ perceptions of being unfairly blamed for the degradation of regional waters. While surveyed producers possess an agricultural, operational-level view of the water-economic system that includes the protective actions taken by individual farmers and ranchers, environmentalists possess a watershed-level view of the water-economic system that highlights detrimental impacts of the agricultural industry as a whole.

Meaningful engagement by the public in the water decisions that affect their lives requires basic scientific knowledge such as where their water comes from, the factors that affect quality and availability, and the challenges that influence water supply. To assess what the regional public knows about water science, we developed an “ordinary water science knowledge” (OWSK) assessment. This survey measures recognition of water facts and scientific consensus at a level that would enable an ordinary resident of Florida or Georgia to competently participate in water discussions and make citizen-level voting decisions on water topics (Hundemer et al. 2021). Florida and Georgia residents were found to lack fundamental knowledge about their water resources including regional water processes, its challenges, and policies. This is base information that would enable a person to competently participate in water discussions and make citizen-level voting decisions on topics related to the Floridan Aquifer. The knowledge deficits identified in the study are areas on which water communicators can build the public’s water science comprehension and, thereby, support increased public engagement.

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It is not enough for the public to know the water science that affects their lives. It is also important that they believe it. Our study of Florida and Georgia residents’ knowledge and belief on four water topics – pollution from fertilizer, pollution from septic systems, the impact of climate change on water availability, and the adequacy of future water supply – found that belief in regional water science was moderated by political orientation. As a result, some individuals do not believe what they understand to be the consensus of water scientists on topics pertaining to the Floridan Aquifer. Equipped with this information, water communicators can take proactive steps to increase the likelihood that the public will accept water science.

Among the steps that communicators take to increase belief in and support for water protective actions are moral arguments and the identities of the communicators – put simply, messages and messengers. When water policies are introduced the communication environment is often competitive with multiple messages and messengers being used in an attempt to sway public support. Using a sample ballot experiment, we examined the effect of water policy messages and messengers on policy support across the political spectrum, finding that the two variables affect public support in fundamentally different ways. While moral messages affected net policy support they did not modify the partisan support gap between the political left and right. In contrast, Democratic and Republican spokespersons had no significant effect on net policy support, but did affect who contributed that support, effectively making the policy more or less partisan. Because policy acceptance often depends on both net policy support (an electoral mandate) and the minimization of political polarization, moral arguments and political spokespersons both appear to be important to water policy success.

Local and regional news media often have a major impact on public awareness of and interest in water challenges. It is not simply what the media report that affects public perceptions, but also how they report it. A study of nine years of water reporting from six newspapers in the Floridan Aquifer region revealed a hierarchy of frames used to relate water conditions to human interests. The dominant reasons provided for readers to care about water conditions were economics, human health, and ecosystem impacts (in that order), with ecosystem impacts receiving comparatively little journalistic attention.  The relatively low attention given to the ecosystem impacts of regional water issues may have unintended effects. For example, public interest in water issues may not be as high as it would be if ecosystem impacts were robustly covered. Water news framing can also impact the objectives of water policy. If ecosystem impacts are not emphasized in the media, they may not be adequately attended to in governance.

In-depth interviews with 21 environmental organization staff and agricultural leaders enabled us to further probe their perceptions of water issues and the way they value the environment. Several key words appear to be used differently by each group, compounding communication challenges. For example, concepts like ‘sustainability’ and ‘stewardship’ were defined similarly, but the actions and goals they represented differed. For farmers, environmental and financial ‘sustainability’ were deeply intertwined and codependent concepts. Sustainable and stewardship behaviors almost always fell into the domain of land management practices and rarely extended into their homes and lifestyles. Producers tended to believe their farm operations were sustainable as long as they followed guidance and regulations of state institutions. They relied on personal experiential farm knowledge derived from their lifetimes of observation of and working their land. Overall, they saw themselves as place-based stewards of their land and focused on improving its quality for future generations to use. On the other hand, sampled environmental professionals discuss financial aspects of sustainability, and associated behaviors related to both their professional work and especially to lifestyle practices. They considered any farm categorized as ‘commercial’ or ‘monoculture’ to be unsustainable, especially if they used chemical inputs; they distrusted state-sanctioned guidance and regulations as insufficient and misguided. Most environmental professionals instead invoked principles from ecology (including permaculture) and heralded sustainability standards prescribed by famous ecologists and other scientists. They discussed their roles as stewards in broader terms than farmers, often through a lens of a collective human identity to protect land from development and biodiversity. Finally, interviews revealed that these two professional groups relate to nature differently. Overall, results demonstrated a host of shared sentiments and connection to nature, but they paint a picture of different life experiences and distinct cultural worldviews. Understanding this, communicators may draw on shared emotional connections to nature and stewardship identities across groups, recognizing that meanings and operationalization of common concepts are diverse across groups and deeply rooted in culture and life experience. Communication efforts would benefit from targeted messages and formats that reduce misinterpretation and garner trust.

The process of deliberation – of presenting options and engaging people in discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of each – has a history of being a cornerstone of democratic decision making. The process incorporates research-based information (e.g., documents) as a baseline for discussion, yet, through dialogue, the format exposes participants to diverse perspectives and validates alternative ways of knowing.

We created deliberative discussions about the challenges of land-groundwater interactions in North Florida and the potential policy options. We facilitated these dialogues with groups of undergraduate students who attended classes, were enrolled in majors, or participated with organized student groups related to natural resources or agriculture. By assigning students to discussion groups composed of either all like-interest (e.g., all natural resources students) or mixed-interest (natural resources students and agriculture students) students, we explored the nature of the group and the degree to which the ensuing discussion could promote learning about water issues and consideration of others’ perspectives. Observations of dialogue sessions showed signs of transformational thinking about the multiple perspectives represented in the written materials (the framed policy options) and perspectives of participants present. However, even in discussions composed of like-interest participants, students engaged in perspective-taking and demonstrated gains in appreciation for the complexity of the issue and stakeholder positions different than their own. With this in mind, communicators should consider two-way interactive formats like deliberative dialogue in situations where stakeholder identities contribute to conflict, misunderstanding, or misperceptions of issues or other stakeholders. Sometimes, getting groups together in the same room is a challenge (logistically or otherwise); but potentially, discussion and engagement with materials that incorporate the pros and cons of multiple stakeholder perspectives together may be one way to improve understanding and defuse stakeholder tensions.