Featured researcher: Alison Anderson

Professor in Sociology in the School of Society and Culture

Professor Alison Anderson is Professor of Sociology in the School of Society and Culture at the University and Adjunct Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Monash University. She is an internationally leading scholar in environmental communication and an Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Media politics and environmental debates

Alison’s research expertise is in the area of science communication including mass media and culture, risk, nanotechnologies, marine pollution and environmental sustainability.

In her most recent book, Media, Environment and the Network Society, Alison discusses the news media and how it has become a key stage for environmental conflicts. Through a series of examples from climate change to oil spills, this book provides an analysis of media politics and environmental debates.

Alison Anderson, Professor of Sociology at the University

External memberships

Alison holds various roles on external bodies including:

Past Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Communication, the official journal of the International Environmental Communication Association (2014-2017)
Editorial Board Member of Environmental Communication
Founding Board member for the International Environmental Communication Association
Member of the International Advisory Board for theInternational Journal of Climate Change: Impacts and Responses
Editorial Board member of Journal of Environmental Media.

Plymouth study demonstrates potential support for ban on microbeads in cosmetics

Research published in Marine Pollution Bulletin explored attitudes regarding the presence of microplastic particles within readily available cosmetics.

This study involved social scientists, marine scientists and psychologists and was funded by the University’s Sustainable Earth Institute.

Find out more about the study

How does culture, community and society impact sustainability?

Alison Anderson talks about the role of the media communicating climate change, and the increasingly important role they play in shaping public attitudes about the climate change debate. Alison also discusses how the media contribute to cultural predispositions towards sustainability.

Climate Science in the Media - Richard Black and Alison Anderson

Richard Black, Director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, and Professor Anderson present on climate science in the media. Richard talks from a practitioners point of view of how the media works, and why it can be difficult to communicate climate science, and Alison talks about the research and academic challenges.