Under Pressure

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Under Pressure

   • Jen Schneider, Steve Schwarze, Peter K. Bsumek, Jennifer Peeples

   Pages 1-24

3. Industrial Apocalyptic

   • Jen Schneider, Steve Schwarze, Peter K. Bsumek, Jennifer Peeples

   Pages 25-50

4. Corporate Ventriloquism

   • Jen Schneider, Steve Schwarze, Peter K. Bsumek, Jennifer Peeples

   Pages 51-76

5. The Technological Shell Game

   • Jen Schneider, Steve Schwarze, Peter K. Bsumek, Jennifer Peeples

   Pages 77-103

6. The Hypocrite’s Trap

   • Jen Schneider, Steve Schwarze, Peter K. Bsumek, Jennifer Peeples

   Pages 105-133

7. Energy Utopia

   • Jen Schneider, Steve Schwarze, Peter K. Bsumek, Jennifer Peeples

   Pages 135-165

8. Coal and the Contradictions of Neoliberalism

   • Jen Schneider, Steve Schwarze, Peter K. Bsumek, Jennifer Peeples

   Pages 167-180

9. Back Matter

   Pages 181-189

   PDF

This book examines five rhetorical strategies used by the US coal industry to advance its interests in the face of growing economic and environmental pressures: industrial apocalyptic, corporate ventriloquism, technological shell game, hypocrite’s trap, and energy utopia. The authors argue that these strategies appeal to and reinforce neoliberalism, a discourse and set of practices that privilege market rationality and individual freedom and responsibility above all else. As the coal industry has become the leading target and leverage point for those seeking more aggressive action to mitigate climate change, their corporate advocacy may foreshadow rhetorical strategies available to other fossil fuel industries as they manage similar economic and cultural shifts. The authors’ analysis of coal’s corporate advocacy also identifies contradictions and points of vulnerability in the organized resistance to climate action as well as the larger ideological formation of neoliberalism. 

• Apocalyptic rhetoric
• clean coal
• coal
• climate change communication
• climate change communication
• coal industry
• corporate advocacy
• corporate communication
• corporate rhetoric
• divestment
• energy
• energy policy
• energy poverty
• energy studies
• environmental communication
• fossil fuels
• neoliberalism
• war on coal
• Climate change management
• climate change

“This book is engagingly written. It is the result of a methodical and exhaustive research process and should represent an example of the best practice in scholarly inquiry. As for the content, it could be interesting for European audience, who are stressed not only by economic and environmental worries, but by a looming energy crisis.” (‪Violeta Stojičić, Language & Ecology, 2023)

“This volume addresses rhetorical strategies employed by the coal industry to resist regulatory efforts by the government and environmental groups. … This book is of interest not only to environmental communication scholars and students, but also to those studying integrated marketing communication approaches to advertising and public relations. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.” (J. H. Fritz, Choice, Vol. 54 (5), January, 2017) 

• Public Policy and Administration, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA

  Jen Schneider

• Communication Studies, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA

  Steve Schwarze

• School of Communication Studies, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA

  Peter K. Bsumek

• Languages, Philosophy and Communication Studies, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA

  Jennifer Peeples

Pete Bsumek is Associate Professor in the School of Communication Studies at James Madison University, USA. His research and teaching focus on rhetoric, advocacy, and processes of decision-making, with a specific emphasis in environmental communication. He is the 2014 recipient of the J. Robert Cox Award in Environmental Communication and Civic Engagement. 


Jennifer Peeples is Professor of Communication Studies at Utah State University, USA. Her area of research is environmental rhetoric with a focus on the discourse and images used in the construction of environmental controversies. She has won a number of awards for her research and is on the editorial board for Environmental Communication and the Quarterly Journal of Speech. 


Jen Schneider is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Administration at Boise State University, USA. Her work examines the communication of scientific, technological, and environmental controversies. She is particularly interested in controversial or contested energy development and practices, such as hydrofracturing, coal mining, and nuclear power, and the role of rhetoric and expertise in defending such practices. 


Steve Schwarze is Professor and Chair in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Montana, USA. His research examines the rhetoric of environmental controversies. His research appears in prominent outlets for rhetoric and environmental communication, such as the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs and Environmental Communication. 

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