Publications
Science v. Story: Narrative Strategies for Science Communicators is available now with the University of California Press.
Uncovering common threads across types of science skepticism to show why these controversial narratives stick and how we can more effectively counter them through storytelling.
Science v. Story analyzes four scientific controversies—climate change, evolution, vaccination, and COVID-19—through the lens of storytelling. Instead of viewing stories as adversaries to scientific practices, Emma Frances Bloomfield demonstrates how storytelling is integral to science communication. Drawing from narrative theory and rhetorical studies, Science v. Story examines scientific stories and rival stories, including disingenuous rival stories that undermine scientific conclusions and productive rival stories that work to make science more inclusive.
Science v. Story offers two tools to evaluate and build stories: narrative webs and narrative constellations. These visual mapping tools chart the features of a story (i.e., character, action, sequence, scope, storyteller, and content) to locate opportunities for audience engagement. Bloomfield ultimately argues that we can strengthen science communication by incorporating
storytelling in critical ways that are attentive to audience and context.
Watch an interview about the book with the International Environmental Communication Association here.
Listen to an interview with Dainel Shea of New Books Network here.
Communication Strategies for Engaging Climate Skeptics examines the intersection of climate skepticism and Christianity and proposes strategies for engaging climate skeptics in productive conversations. Read my write-up of the book's main arguments in The Conversation.
-Book of the Year, Argumentation and Forensics Division, National Communication Association
-Outstanding Book Award, Spiritual Communication Division, National Communication Association
-Book Award Honorable Mention, Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine, National Communication Association
-Reviewed in Argumentation & Advocacy
-Reviewed in The International Journal of Communication
-Reviewed in the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture
Rather than thinking of religious skeptics as a single unified group, this work breaks skeptics down into three main types: "separators," "bargainers," and "harmonizers." The book questions monolithic understandings of climate skepticism and considers how competing narratives such as religion, economics, and politics play a role in climate communication. This book provides both a theoretical examination of the rhetoric of religious climate skeptics and concrete strategies for engaging the religious community in conversations about the environment.
Order your copy in hard copy, paper back, or e-book from Independent Book Stores through BookShop. Also available through Routledge or Amazon.
Listen to an interview with Lee Pierce of New Books Network here.
Selected publications
For a full list of publications, please see my CV. Feel free to reach out via email (Emma.Bloomfield@unlv.edu) for copies of any of my publications.
Analysis of tweets posted after Derek Chauvin's trial and conviction for murdering George Floyd. Forwards the concepts of "rhetorical fractals" to expand on Burke's redemption cycles based on Afrocentric rhetoric, published in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies
Narrative analysis of climate movement campaigns related to the relative abstractness of their temporal and spatial scales in the Journal of Language and Politics
Analysis of rhetorical strategies used by digital anti-vaccine groups to mimic religious institutions in the Western Journal of Communication
Analysis of storytelling opportunities in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Summaries for Policymakers in Climatic Change
Multimethodological analysis of a climate skeptic Facebook group's use of hyperrationality and ideological arguments in Technical Communication Quarterly
*Winner of the Christine L. Oravec Journal Article Award in Environmental Communication, NCA, 2022
Analysis of biography collections of women scientists using themes of space and place in Women's Studies in Communication
Analysis of nuclear experts' perceptions of public-technical relationships and their role as scientist citizens in Frontiers in Science and Environmental Communication
*Winner of the 2022 Innovations in Nuclear Energy Award in the Energy Policy category awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy
Analysis of the eco-horror film mother! about its representation of environmental catastrophe in Environmental Communication
Analysis of the public memory sites in Dayton, Tennessee commemorating the Scopes Monkey Trial in American Behavioral Scientist
Analysis of the metaphor of "Energy Darwinism" and how it restricts environmental ways of thinking in Rhetoric Society Quarterly.
*Honorable Mention for the 2020 Article of the Year Award from the Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine, NCA
Analysis of the strategies used to spread misinformation about climate change online in Environmental Communication
Analysis of intimacy-building in small group climate change deliberations in Science Communication
*Winner of the 2021 Dennis Gouran Research Award from the Group Communication Division, NCA
*Honorable Mention for the 2021 Article of the Year Award from the Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine, NCA
*Featured in SciCommBites
Ch. 1: Divergent Weatherlore in Christian Hermeneutics: Climate Change and Vernacular Rhetoric in Our Current Environmental Crisis
Ch. 12: The reworking of Evangelical Christian ecocultural identity in the creation care movement
*The Handbook won the 2020 Tarla Rai Peterson Book Award from the Environmental Communication Division
Ch. 14: mother! and the horror of environmental abuse