Framing and bias in CO2 capture and storage communication films: Reflections from a CO2 capture and storage research group.

There has been a growing trend towards incorporating short, educational films as part of research funding and project proposals. Researchers and developers in CO2 capture and storage are using films to communicate outcomes, but such films can be influenced by experiences and values of the producers. We document the content and presentation of seven online CO2 capture and storage films to determine how framing occurs and its influence on the tone of films. The core frame presents CO2 capture and storage as a potential solution to an imminent crisis in climatic warming and lack of a sustainable energy supply. Three subsidiary frames represent CO2 capture and storage as (1) the only option, (2) a partial option or (3) a scientific curiosity. The results demonstrate that an understanding of the nuanced explicit and implicit messages portrayed by films is essential both for effective framing according to one's intention and for wider public understanding of a field.

A transdisciplinary account of water research.

Water research is introduced from the combined perspectives of natural and social science and cases of citizen and stakeholder coproduction of knowledge. Using the overarching notion of transdisciplinarity, we examine how interdisciplinary and participatory water research has taken place and could be developed further. It becomes apparent that water knowledge is produced widely within society, across certified disciplinary experts and noncertified expert stakeholders and citizens. However, understanding and management interventions may remain partial, or even conflicting, as much research across and between traditional disciplines has failed to integrate disciplinary paradigms due to philosophical, methodological, and communication barriers. We argue for more agonistic relationships that challenge both certified and noncertified knowledge productively. These should include examination of how water research itself embeds and is embedded in social context and performs political work. While case studies of the cultural and political economy of water knowledge exist, we need more empirical evidence on how exactly culture, politics, and economics have shaped this knowledge and how and at what junctures this could have turned out differently. We may thus channel the coproductionist critique productively to bring perspectives, alternative knowledges, and implications into water politics where they were not previously considered; in an attempt to counter potential lock-in to particular water policies and technologies that may be inequitable, unsustainable, or unacceptable. While engaging explicitly with politics, transdisciplinary water research should remain attentive to closing down moments in the research process, such as framings, path-dependencies, vested interests, researchers' positionalities, power, and scale. WIREs Water 2016, 3:369-389. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1132 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.