ABSTRACT
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the controversial genetic modification (GM) technologies and related food safety debates, and the global Not in the MY Back Yard (NIMBY) movement are all representative cases of this landscape. Since the early 1990s, the state has adopted a series of measures to improve environmental quality, strengthen its environmental governance capabilities, and promote eco-friendly development. The most well-known environmental risk issue in recent years has been centered on a series of large-scale protests triggered by the project to produce the chemical paraxylene. The rapid development of industry is indispensable to China’s rising economy. Environmental communication is the means by which public acceptance and recognition of environmental information is constructed. The cornerstone of environmental communication, as an emerging discipline, arose from a group of communication scholars who used rhetorical criticism to study environmental conflicts.
