On the Field of Environmental Communication: A Systematic Review of the Peer-Reviewed Literature

The field of environmental communication has reached several milestones since the 1990s, particularly the establishment of environmental communication-related divisions at professional associations and the founding of the journal Environmental Communication in 2007. This systematic review characterizes the peer-reviewed literature on environmental communication to date, examining methods, geography, top-cited articles, and analyzing keyword and titles. Drawing on the Web of Science Core Collection, which archives the Social Sciences Citation Index and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, the review finds that attention to environmental communication has exploded in recent years and that the field is methodologically open-minded. Scholars have shifted focus from general environmental risk to specifically climate change in the last decade. Implications for the field are discussed.