Books by William Kinsella
Taylor, B. C., Kinsella, W. J., Depoe, S. P., & Metzler, M. S. (Eds.) (2007, 2008). Nuclear legac... more Taylor, B. C., Kinsella, W. J., Depoe, S. P., & Metzler, M. S. (Eds.) (2007, 2008). Nuclear legacies: Communication, controversy, and the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Lanham, MD: Lexington.
• Christine L. Oravec Book Award, 2008, National Communication Association, Environmental Communication Division.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters by William Kinsella
This essay utilizes the perspective of articulation theory to examine how environmental advocates... more This essay utilizes the perspective of articulation theory to examine how environmental advocates, public interest organizations, and citizen-consumers have challenged the
nuclear industry’s expansion efforts, linking strategies at local and global levels. The industry has articulated a material and discursive formation including reactor
construction projects, financial and political arrangements, and an overarching narrative of nuclear necessity and inevitability. Opponents have responded by linking
organizations, individuals, histories, geographies, and expertise, re-articulating the place of nuclear power in the field of energy choices. This essay examines those opposing
articulations in the context of efforts to construct new nuclear power plants in the southeastern USA. There, opponents have challenged state-level regulatory approval of a corporate merger that would facilitate new nuclear construction and financing arrangements that would shift economic risks from the corporation to consumers. These local engagements have broader consequences: in challenging one corporation’s nuclear ambitions, opponents also challenge the global industry narrative of nuclear
necessity and inevitability.
Civil and commercial nuclear power production is a material and discursive phenomenon posing theo... more Civil and commercial nuclear power production is a material and discursive phenomenon posing theoretical and practical questions warranting further attention by communication scholars. We provide a brief discursive history of nuclear power, followed by a review of scholarship in communication and related disciplines. We then examine five areas for further research: 1) the fragmentation of technocratic and public discourses, 2) regulation and governance, 3) the politics of nuclear waste, 4) critical social movements, and 5) intersections of communication, rhetoric and nuclear risk. We provide a rationale and foundation for further work in these and other areas related to nuclear power.
In M. S. Meisner, N. Sriskandarajah, & S. P. Depoe (Eds.), Communication for the commons—Revisiting participation and environment: Proceedings of the Twelfth Biennial Conference on Communication and Environment (pp. 332-345). Turtle Island: International Environmental Communication Association.
This essay examines how environmental advocates, public interest advocates, and “citizen-consumer... more This essay examines how environmental advocates, public interest advocates, and “citizen-consumers” have challenged corporate efforts to construct new nuclear power plants in the
southeastern United States. The merger of Duke Energy and Progress Energy has produced the nation’s largest electric utility, with a stronger capital base for costly nuclear construction, while the merged company seeks financing arrangements that would shift costs and risks from shareholders to electricity consumers. Opponents have challenged state-level regulatory approval of the merger and the financing plan, with mixed success. Linking insights provided by articulation theory with an argument for strategic intervention made by Cox (2010), we examine these efforts to articulate the economic and environmental risks of nuclear construction. We argue that these local engagements have broader consequences: in challenging one corporation’s
nuclear ambitions, opponents also challenge a global narrative of nuclear necessity and inevitability.
This study examines the efforts of individuals and advocacy groups seeking to influence a state u... more This study examines the efforts of individuals and advocacy groups seeking to influence a state utilities commission’s decisions regarding a large corporate merger and a nuclear
power construction project. Such local engagements have wider significance as the nuclear industry attempts to expand its role in the global energy economy. Utilizing
participatory field work and analysis of public documents, we extend the concept of rhetorical boundary work by examining two challenges faced by opponents of the merger
and the nuclear project. First, the utilities commission’s regulatory mandate is limited to economic risks rather than environmental, health, and safety risks. Second, expert
authority is consistently privileged over local, vernacular arguments. We explore the rhetorical negotiation of these boundaries and the effects produced.
This essay revisits the literature on "high-reliability organizations," originated by researchers... more This essay revisits the literature on "high-reliability organizations," originated by researchers at the University of California-Berkeley, in light of the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station. Rather than focusing on the operational level of analysis as did the original literature, the essay expands the high-reliability concept to a more macro level by envisioning a "high-reliability communication system" incorporating a range of actors beyond nuclear operators, vendors, and regulators. Such a system can more effectively address the problem of requisite variety in perspectives, knowledge, and imagination, enhancing both nuclear safety and democratic risk governance. Drawing on a preliminary analysis of responses to the events at Fukushima by the U.S. nuclear community, the essay identifies thirteen rhetorical boundaries that currently structure communication within that system. ______________________________________________________________________________
The 2011 disaster at Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant poses important questions for ... more The 2011 disaster at Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant poses important questions for environmental communication scholarship and practice. This forum
examines questions that were emerging one month into the Fukushima crisis, when a panel examined its implications as part of North Carolina State University’s second annual research symposium on Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media (details available at http://crdm.chass.ncsu.edu/symposium2011/). Expanding those initial analyses, we identify implications across the contexts of environmental communication,
expert-public engagement, public discourses of nuclear energy, uses of new media, risk and crisis communication, and organizational and institutional communication. The
first essay (Kinsella) addresses some implications of Fukushima from the perspectives of constitutive communication theory, risk analysis, and risk communication. The second essay (Ionescu) examines an effort to foster dialog between technical experts and a
concerned public audience, made by a nuclear energy institute in Germany. The third essay (Binder) explores uses of Twitter by people in the USA as a tool for following the
rapidly evolving events at Fukushima. The final essay (Kittle Autry and Kelly) analyzes public discourse surrounding a proposed merger of two US energy companies with
substantial nuclear operations, before and after the onset of the Fukushima disaster.
This essay examines examples from the field of nuclear energy, including the 2011 disaster at Fuk... more This essay examines examples from the field of nuclear energy, including the 2011 disaster at Fukushima-Daiichi, through perspectives drawn from phenomenology, social
systems theory, and constitutive communication theory. The essay argues that although prevailing approaches to nuclear risk analysis and risk communication seek to represent
a world of preexisting phenomena, they also fundamentally constitute the world on which decision-makers, organizations, and communities act. Representations of nuclear risk are inevitably and problematically limited, with important implications for policy, practice, and communicative action.
Nuclear energy is a complex system with social, technical, economic, environmental, political, an... more Nuclear energy is a complex system with social, technical, economic, environmental, political, and cultural dimensions. It is also a globalized system involving international transfers of knowledge, materials, technologies, people, and products. Accordingly, it is important to examine nuclear energy as an international phenomenon using interdisciplinary analytical approaches. This paper describes a project by a U.S. researcher examining organizational, institutional, and public communication about nuclear energy in Germany as a first step toward a cross-national comparison. The approach taken differs from standard technology assessment methods, relying more on qualitative fieldwork and interpretive analysis. Preliminary results are presented comparing public and political discourses of nuclear energy, regulatory practices, and organizational and institutional strategies in the U.S. and Germany.
Despite movements towards more dialogic and rhetorical models, the field of risk communication re... more Despite movements towards more dialogic and rhetorical models, the field of risk communication remains rooted in foundational commitments regarding ontology, epistemology, authority and practice. In prevailing views of risk communication, risk is the primary phenomenon and communication is a secondary and subordinate process. Applying Heidegger’s phenomenological critique of the modern ‘world picture’, phenomenologically-grounded communication theory, and Luhmann’s model of autopoietic social systems, this essay proposes an alternative view in which communication constitutes, rather than represents, risks and explores the implications of such a view.
Minion, J., Kinsella, W. J., O’Neill, C., & Peterson, T. R. (2009). New media, new movement: Step It Up and online organizing. In D. Endres, L. Sprain, & T. R. Peterson (Eds.), Social movement to address climate change: Local steps for global action (pp. 255-279). Amherst, NY: Cambria.
The appearance of Steven Schwarze’s essay, ‘‘Environmental Melodrama’’ (Schwarze, 2006) as the le... more The appearance of Steven Schwarze’s essay, ‘‘Environmental Melodrama’’ (Schwarze, 2006) as the lead article in a recent issue of The Quarterly Journal of Speech marks an
important moment of recognition for environmental communication scholarship. Schwarze’s essay demonstrates how studies of environmental rhetoric can contribute to
rhetorical theory more generally, while addressing practical questions regarding the rhetorical aspects of environmental conflict. The contributors to this forum respond to Schwarze’s arguments, drawing in part upon their own case studies of rhetorical action and narrative in environmental conflict.
… Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture, Jan 1, 2007
This essay examines the potential of Heidegger’s phenomenology as a foundation for environmental ... more This essay examines the potential of Heidegger’s phenomenology as a foundation for environmental communication theory, emphasizing his critiques of modern science, technology, humanism, and metaphysics. A phenomenological approach to environmental
communication provides resources for recognizing metaphysical assumptions that endanger both humans and nature. The Hanford nuclear reservation serves as an
illustrative text, exemplifying Heidegger’s reading of nuclear energy as a culmination of both Western metaphysics and the instrumental stance that he calls ‘‘enframing.’’ In
Heidegger’s view, the ordering and control accomplished through enframing obscures the mutually constitutive relationship between humans and nature, and in doing so,
diminishes the possibilities for authentic human existence. The essay examines how both representational and constitutive models of communication contribute to those
conditions, and adopts a set of concepts from Heidegger’s phenomenology as a foundation for an alternative, ‘‘bounded constitutive’’ model.
… Legacies: Communication, Controversy, and the US …, Jan 1, 2007
Environmental communication yearbook, Jan 1, 2005
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Books by William Kinsella
• Christine L. Oravec Book Award, 2008, National Communication Association, Environmental Communication Division.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters by William Kinsella
nuclear industry’s expansion efforts, linking strategies at local and global levels. The industry has articulated a material and discursive formation including reactor
construction projects, financial and political arrangements, and an overarching narrative of nuclear necessity and inevitability. Opponents have responded by linking
organizations, individuals, histories, geographies, and expertise, re-articulating the place of nuclear power in the field of energy choices. This essay examines those opposing
articulations in the context of efforts to construct new nuclear power plants in the southeastern USA. There, opponents have challenged state-level regulatory approval of a corporate merger that would facilitate new nuclear construction and financing arrangements that would shift economic risks from the corporation to consumers. These local engagements have broader consequences: in challenging one corporation’s nuclear ambitions, opponents also challenge the global industry narrative of nuclear
necessity and inevitability.
southeastern United States. The merger of Duke Energy and Progress Energy has produced the nation’s largest electric utility, with a stronger capital base for costly nuclear construction, while the merged company seeks financing arrangements that would shift costs and risks from shareholders to electricity consumers. Opponents have challenged state-level regulatory approval of the merger and the financing plan, with mixed success. Linking insights provided by articulation theory with an argument for strategic intervention made by Cox (2010), we examine these efforts to articulate the economic and environmental risks of nuclear construction. We argue that these local engagements have broader consequences: in challenging one corporation’s
nuclear ambitions, opponents also challenge a global narrative of nuclear necessity and inevitability.
power construction project. Such local engagements have wider significance as the nuclear industry attempts to expand its role in the global energy economy. Utilizing
participatory field work and analysis of public documents, we extend the concept of rhetorical boundary work by examining two challenges faced by opponents of the merger
and the nuclear project. First, the utilities commission’s regulatory mandate is limited to economic risks rather than environmental, health, and safety risks. Second, expert
authority is consistently privileged over local, vernacular arguments. We explore the rhetorical negotiation of these boundaries and the effects produced.
examines questions that were emerging one month into the Fukushima crisis, when a panel examined its implications as part of North Carolina State University’s second annual research symposium on Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media (details available at http://crdm.chass.ncsu.edu/symposium2011/). Expanding those initial analyses, we identify implications across the contexts of environmental communication,
expert-public engagement, public discourses of nuclear energy, uses of new media, risk and crisis communication, and organizational and institutional communication. The
first essay (Kinsella) addresses some implications of Fukushima from the perspectives of constitutive communication theory, risk analysis, and risk communication. The second essay (Ionescu) examines an effort to foster dialog between technical experts and a
concerned public audience, made by a nuclear energy institute in Germany. The third essay (Binder) explores uses of Twitter by people in the USA as a tool for following the
rapidly evolving events at Fukushima. The final essay (Kittle Autry and Kelly) analyzes public discourse surrounding a proposed merger of two US energy companies with
substantial nuclear operations, before and after the onset of the Fukushima disaster.
systems theory, and constitutive communication theory. The essay argues that although prevailing approaches to nuclear risk analysis and risk communication seek to represent
a world of preexisting phenomena, they also fundamentally constitute the world on which decision-makers, organizations, and communities act. Representations of nuclear risk are inevitably and problematically limited, with important implications for policy, practice, and communicative action.
important moment of recognition for environmental communication scholarship. Schwarze’s essay demonstrates how studies of environmental rhetoric can contribute to
rhetorical theory more generally, while addressing practical questions regarding the rhetorical aspects of environmental conflict. The contributors to this forum respond to Schwarze’s arguments, drawing in part upon their own case studies of rhetorical action and narrative in environmental conflict.
communication provides resources for recognizing metaphysical assumptions that endanger both humans and nature. The Hanford nuclear reservation serves as an
illustrative text, exemplifying Heidegger’s reading of nuclear energy as a culmination of both Western metaphysics and the instrumental stance that he calls ‘‘enframing.’’ In
Heidegger’s view, the ordering and control accomplished through enframing obscures the mutually constitutive relationship between humans and nature, and in doing so,
diminishes the possibilities for authentic human existence. The essay examines how both representational and constitutive models of communication contribute to those
conditions, and adopts a set of concepts from Heidegger’s phenomenology as a foundation for an alternative, ‘‘bounded constitutive’’ model.
• Christine L. Oravec Book Award, 2008, National Communication Association, Environmental Communication Division.
nuclear industry’s expansion efforts, linking strategies at local and global levels. The industry has articulated a material and discursive formation including reactor
construction projects, financial and political arrangements, and an overarching narrative of nuclear necessity and inevitability. Opponents have responded by linking
organizations, individuals, histories, geographies, and expertise, re-articulating the place of nuclear power in the field of energy choices. This essay examines those opposing
articulations in the context of efforts to construct new nuclear power plants in the southeastern USA. There, opponents have challenged state-level regulatory approval of a corporate merger that would facilitate new nuclear construction and financing arrangements that would shift economic risks from the corporation to consumers. These local engagements have broader consequences: in challenging one corporation’s nuclear ambitions, opponents also challenge the global industry narrative of nuclear
necessity and inevitability.
southeastern United States. The merger of Duke Energy and Progress Energy has produced the nation’s largest electric utility, with a stronger capital base for costly nuclear construction, while the merged company seeks financing arrangements that would shift costs and risks from shareholders to electricity consumers. Opponents have challenged state-level regulatory approval of the merger and the financing plan, with mixed success. Linking insights provided by articulation theory with an argument for strategic intervention made by Cox (2010), we examine these efforts to articulate the economic and environmental risks of nuclear construction. We argue that these local engagements have broader consequences: in challenging one corporation’s
nuclear ambitions, opponents also challenge a global narrative of nuclear necessity and inevitability.
power construction project. Such local engagements have wider significance as the nuclear industry attempts to expand its role in the global energy economy. Utilizing
participatory field work and analysis of public documents, we extend the concept of rhetorical boundary work by examining two challenges faced by opponents of the merger
and the nuclear project. First, the utilities commission’s regulatory mandate is limited to economic risks rather than environmental, health, and safety risks. Second, expert
authority is consistently privileged over local, vernacular arguments. We explore the rhetorical negotiation of these boundaries and the effects produced.
examines questions that were emerging one month into the Fukushima crisis, when a panel examined its implications as part of North Carolina State University’s second annual research symposium on Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media (details available at http://crdm.chass.ncsu.edu/symposium2011/). Expanding those initial analyses, we identify implications across the contexts of environmental communication,
expert-public engagement, public discourses of nuclear energy, uses of new media, risk and crisis communication, and organizational and institutional communication. The
first essay (Kinsella) addresses some implications of Fukushima from the perspectives of constitutive communication theory, risk analysis, and risk communication. The second essay (Ionescu) examines an effort to foster dialog between technical experts and a
concerned public audience, made by a nuclear energy institute in Germany. The third essay (Binder) explores uses of Twitter by people in the USA as a tool for following the
rapidly evolving events at Fukushima. The final essay (Kittle Autry and Kelly) analyzes public discourse surrounding a proposed merger of two US energy companies with
substantial nuclear operations, before and after the onset of the Fukushima disaster.
systems theory, and constitutive communication theory. The essay argues that although prevailing approaches to nuclear risk analysis and risk communication seek to represent
a world of preexisting phenomena, they also fundamentally constitute the world on which decision-makers, organizations, and communities act. Representations of nuclear risk are inevitably and problematically limited, with important implications for policy, practice, and communicative action.
important moment of recognition for environmental communication scholarship. Schwarze’s essay demonstrates how studies of environmental rhetoric can contribute to
rhetorical theory more generally, while addressing practical questions regarding the rhetorical aspects of environmental conflict. The contributors to this forum respond to Schwarze’s arguments, drawing in part upon their own case studies of rhetorical action and narrative in environmental conflict.
communication provides resources for recognizing metaphysical assumptions that endanger both humans and nature. The Hanford nuclear reservation serves as an
illustrative text, exemplifying Heidegger’s reading of nuclear energy as a culmination of both Western metaphysics and the instrumental stance that he calls ‘‘enframing.’’ In
Heidegger’s view, the ordering and control accomplished through enframing obscures the mutually constitutive relationship between humans and nature, and in doing so,
diminishes the possibilities for authentic human existence. The essay examines how both representational and constitutive models of communication contribute to those
conditions, and adopts a set of concepts from Heidegger’s phenomenology as a foundation for an alternative, ‘‘bounded constitutive’’ model.
embeddedness problematizes received views of rhetorical action and agency, which must be reformulated to locate these principles within larger systems of power/knowledge. Three sets of resources are identified for this reformulation: theories of organizational rhetoric, Foucauldian studies of knowledge-intensive organizations, and Foucauldian approaches to the philosophy of science.