Comfort: Political Macroenvironments and Cultural Information Protection

Digest

Apr 18

In Political Macroenvironments & Cultural Information Protection: The Challenge of Communication in Native American Environmental & Natural Resource Management, Ryan N. Comfort (Media School, Indiana University) expands existing theory of government communication and natural resource management to include agencies run by Native American nations.

Prior research has focused on the communications of inter- and intra-governmental agencies at the local, state, and federal levels; however, tribal nations in the United States have not yet been accounted for in government communication models. To accurately analyze the status of communication within tribal governments, Comfort asks three main questions: (1) Who do Environmental and Natural Resource Management (E&NRM) professionals communicate with, and through which channels? (2) What attitudes, beliefs, and concerns do E&NRM professionals hold about communicating environmental information, particularly via social media? and (3) How might Native nations improve their communication efforts around environmental and natural resource management?

In other areas of study, Comfort acknowledges that Indigenous peoples have a long and often conflicted history with mass communication. Mass communication outside of Indigenous control has often been a conduit for perpetuating stereotypes, undermining Indigenous voices, and facilitating cultural appropriation. In this study, Comfort interviewed seventy-one E&NRM professionals working for Native nations and found consistent concerns over what could and should be communicated and how, with particular concerns about sharing traditional ecological knowledge and cultural information. Comfort also acknowledged that layered relationships among Native Nations, states, and federal agencies create a complex political environment in which to operate.

Comfort asserts that further work is needed to develop better government communication models in this political macroenvironment.

Ryan N. Comfort, Political Macroenvironments and Cultural Information Protection: The Challenge of Communication in Native American Environmental and Natural Resource Management, 35 Soc'y & Nat. Res. 1258 (2022)