Mass Communication Research in Sustainability Science: Moving Toward an Engaged Approach to Address Society’s Sustainability Dilemma

Mass communication scholarship provides invaluable insight into how discursive trends in media reflect, produce, and obscure society’s most pressing sustainability issues, yet too often this research falls short of creating action, interventions, or change. In this article, we argue that mass communication should be considered a cornerstone discipline for sustainability science research, particularly within transdisiciplinary sustainability science teams. We contend that mass communication researchers can advance sustainability efforts by moving toward a more engaged approach. In an effort to support scholars’ transition to such engagement, we consider how traditional mass communication theories can add value to action-oriented transdisciplinary sustainability science efforts and provide examples of engaged, transdisciplinary mass communication scholarship.