COMMUNICATIONS & MEDIA

Group registration and membership

Group name	Barrier Reef Bleaching Alliance
Group topic/issue	Great Barrier Reef Bleaching
Type of organisation	Science promotion team
Group member 1	A
Group member 2	B
Group member 3	C
Group member 4	ME
Group member 5	D
Group member 6	E

A2 Task allocation - what roles will each student take – TWO students per task

No.	Component	Student A	Student B
1	Identify the team's chosen health/science issue (discovery, problem, or debate)	E	F
2	Present credible evidence from recent scholarly research publication on this issue (minimum two research sources per team)	E
3	Identify one recent example of lay communication about the issue and note evidence offered within this	D	ME
4	Critically appraise items 2 and 3 using resources provided	D	ME
5	Present a stakeholder map -- your team should role play as a name type of organisation - please avoid using real organisational names -- you can style yourself as a comms unit pitching to a real world organisation WHO are the stakeholders? See Macnamara 2012	A	B
6	Present summaries of community views (analysis of online comments, or interviews or consultation, or survey or document analysis, etc.). NB: FASS ETHICS process needed for interactions with the public	A	B
7	A brief statement of relevant elements of codes of ethics* or practice (PRIA, MEAA, etc.)	A	B
8	Include a brief communication strategy (dot points)	F
9	Plans for narrative strategies & individual contributions to A3 A3 is an INDIVIDUAL assignment. For A3 EACH student needs to submit a 1000-word health/science communication AND a 500-word reflection	All students	All students

1. Chosen health/science issue

Our team decided to focus on the Great Barrier Reef Coral Bleaching. This expansive reef has global and natural significance as it is home to various marine species, including the endangered dugong and the large green turtle (UNESCO, n.d.). However, the environmental changes brought by global warming have resulted in coral bleaching, which can make various marine species suffer and can affect the livelihood of concerned communities.

The Great Barrier Reef is 2,300 kilometres (1400 miles) long and is recognized as a World Heritage Site for its enormous scientific and intrinsic importance. (BBC,2020) However, according to a BBC report (2020), marine scientists at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Queensland found that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of its corals since 1995. Especially after 2016-2017 large-scale bleaching. This world heritage is now gradually dying out due to global climate change and ocean warming. This is one of the reasons why our group chose this topic, hoping to arouse more people to pay attention to climate warming.

2. Evidence from recent scholarly research publication

When corals become stressed, they start to eject the symbiotic algae, zooxanthellae, in their tissues (Loya, et al. 2001). These algae are responsible for the colours of the corals, and once they are ejected, the corals turn very pale which is why the result is named coral bleaching (Doyglas 2003). Wide-scale coral bleaching is often triggered by increasing seawater temperature and high solar irradiation (Doyglas 2003). Thus, the concerns towards climate change are becoming more prominent since it is also negatively affecting marine life.

Apart from the paling of their color, bleaching also has negative consequences on the coral’s life. The tissues of the corals may die if the symbiotic relationship is not recovered after a few weeks (Doyglas 2003). Corals were also noted to be more susceptible to disease when they are subjected to high-water temperatures (Miller, et al. 2009). Bleaching also poses long-term negative impacts since it can also lead to the mass mortality of corals in established reefs, such as the Great Barrier Reef (Doyglas 2003).

To combat coral bleaching, various scientific endeavours are being conducted to improve the resilience of the Great Barrier Reef. Some of the potential solutions that were included in the report were using biodegradable surface films to prevent excess light and heat from entering the water or looking into coral genomes that can help the corals survive higher temperatures (Great Barrier Reef Foundation 2016).

Plans

For our team, I am in charge of Part 1 and 2. For these parts, I searched for relevant environment sites and databases concerning the cause and effect of coral bleaching. To supplement the science issue that my team focused on, I plan to create a poster or a brochure that can educate the laypeople concerning coral bleaching. I think it would be best to present a simple narrative while also adding a bit of emotion through prioritizing the care of marine species.

3. Recent example of lay communication

In December 2020, a new report has found that due to the increasing influence associated with climate change, the conservation status of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has been downgraded from "significant concern" to "serious", and according to a report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Coral reef destruction is a result of ocean warming, acidification and extreme weather. Since coral is an important habitat for marine life, the decline of them has serious knock-on effects. (Jacobo J 2020) In addition to the effects of climate change, the impacts of invasive alien species and human activities cannot be ignored, either. According to Lofaso A (2019), sewage pollution, in addition to pollutants such as sunscreen, chemicals and plastics, is the leading cause of coral die-offs on offshore reefs. Due to the harsh state of our natural heritage, the IUCN Director General said in a statement that we must urgently work together globally to address environmental challenges and protect species diversity. (Jacobo J 2020) After the large-scale bleaching of coral reefs in 2016 and 2017, the scale of coral reef bleaching this year reached a peak again. Therefore, researchers also reminded that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is already very urgent (Prof Hughes, 2020). The rise in ocean temperature has caused the living space of coral reefs to be further compressed, and even the largest coral reef communities are also reduced by the influence of the greenhouse climate (Prof Hughes, 2020). The United Nations warned that if the ocean temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius, 90% of the world’s corals will be wiped out. Therefore, if we do not control the emission of greenhouse gases, the bleaching of coral reefs will not be controlled, and we will eventually lose coral reefs.

4. Critically appraise items 2 & 3

In the research article Research with Impact 2016, the purpose, aims and research questions have been stated clearly and the goal was to focus on the current status of the Australian Great Barrier Reef and the causes of this status. This is important because the destruction of coral reefs is a sign of the deterioration of the Earth's environment. Based on past literature on coral reef studies, researchers made long-term observation of coral reef changes and use experiments to investigate the characteristics of coral reefs. Data collection was used in the introduction to the Great Barrier Reef and the presentation of research results, and data analysis was also applied to make the research results more visual and credible. The research establishes a real-time reef condition tool to detect the dynamics of the Great Barrier Reef and concludes that ocean acidification and other chemical effects are the primary cause of bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, and the conclusion provides a theoretical basis for further research into the protection of the Great Barrier Reef.

At the same time, the article 《Coral bleaching––how and why?》also elaborated on the causes and details of coral reef bleaching. The goal is to find specific methods to protect coral reefs, and the specific causes of coral reef bleaching, namely microorganisms, are found through field research and laboratory data. It has a symbiotic relationship with coral reefs, which has caused biological damage to coral reefs. Next, the article also found a way to avoid bleaching of coral reefs by studying other relevant literature and comparing experimental data. Similar to the method of coating the coral reef, but the long-term effective solution is to solve the greenhouse effect and reduce the harm caused by climate change.

The scientific news found also clearly showed the harm caused by coral reef bleaching, that is, we may lose coral reefs forever, and we also obtained expert opinions through interviews, and listed a small amount of data, but did not give specifics data and Budget.

5. Stakeholder map

Macnamara suggests the term stakeholder is best used to describe a target researchers seek to engage (Macnamara, 2012). To best understand who our organisations key stakeholders are that we should target, we created a stakeholder map which allows us to establish the appropriate level of communication with our stakeholders relative to their influence and interest in your project (Lucid, 2021).

6. Summaries of community views

· Summarising online comments

Our group looked to summarise what the public consensus was in regards to the bleaching situation at the Great Barrier Reef. We first dissected two different news articles on the Great Barrier Reef’s decline in health that were shared by ABC news and by WWF Australia.

Due to the ABC NEWS’ audience generally left leaning politics the responses to the shared article ‘Half of the Great Barrier Reef’s coral has died since 1995’ (Houlbrook-Walk, 2020), had a tone of anger towards the lack of government intervention and support by the current Liberal government in protecting the Great Barrier Reef (as seen below).

Along with the directed blame at Government policies, there were also comments directed at ‘Boomers’, as people were blaming old age thinking that climate change is not as serious as people believe. Overall this comment section had a tone of anger and people were looking to point fingers in an attempt to blame the downfall on.

The next comment section we assessed was WWF’s shared article by the Guardian ‘Great Barrier Reef found to be in failing health as world heritage review looms’ (Readfern, 2021). As WWF is a non-governmental organisation the comment section was less political compared to ABC NEWS’, rather the comment section had a tone of sadness and unity in regards to coming together to help support the Great Barrier Reef and advocate for change to occur.

· Analysing public documents - containing public opinion

To further our understanding of community views we conducted an analysis of public documents. The first piece we looked was an opinion piece written in The Australian ‘Great Barrier Reef now needs our help more than ever’ by Prof. Ove Hoegh-Guldber. This piece gave us insight into the intrinsic value of the Great Barrier Reef and what it provides to Australians as it was sighted that it provides economic activity worth $6.4 billion each year and over 64,000 Australians have jobs as a result (Hoegh-Guldberg, 2018).

We also analysed a survey where participants (tourists) were asked about their sentiments and perceptions following mass coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. Results saw participants have a rise in climate anxiety from 2013 to 2017, on top of results showing awareness/fear of coral bleaching is rising and becoming a forefront of climate change awareness. (Curnock, 2019). This report also brought to our forefront that while the biological process of coral bleaching can be hard for the general public to understand, the devastating imagery of coral bleaching is very effective in conveying its destruction.

7. Codes of Ethics Statement

The most relevant code of ethics for our group as science promoters liaising with the general public will be Public Communication (PRIA). One main point is centered around honesty and with science promotion this will be reflected in how we communicate relevant research. Not making inadvertent claims not made by the research, but presenting the facts clearly and easily understandable for the public so that research is unlikely to come into disrepute. This also means being honest about our intentions as an education group partnering with Tourism Operators to provide tourists with the correct scientific information on coral bleaching as they go and visit the reef and see the effects firsthand. There is a careful balance between satisfying our Tourism Operator partners with good quality resources for their customers, and providing engaging but scientifically accurate content. As we are pitching creating content for different age groups, there is an ethical obligation to consider the appropriate information is being presented for children of different ages.

Also consulting the Society for Conservation Biology code of ethics also asks practitioners to use “reliable information” using “rigorous scientific methodology” and by following these guidelines our communications should adhere to the communication and the science code of ethics we are following.

8. Communication strategy

· Communication goals

Our communication goal is to let more people understand the negative impact of climate warming on the planet’s ecology through the Great Barrier Reef Coral Bleaching. Try to evoke the interest and attention of people to marine ecosystems and climate warming.

· Target audience

Our main target audience is the students, teachers and staff inside UTS, especially those who were not interested in marine ecology and climate issues in the past. The reason for choosing this target audience is the most easily accessed and influenced by our group.

· Plan and Channels

Promote the event of coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef through UTS internal social platforms such as Facebook. Our contents will be including pictures and video to explain further the relationship and the impact of climate change and the Great Barrier Reef coral bleaching.

At the same time, print some paper content such as posters and post them on campus to help spread.

9. Plans for narrative strategies & individual contributions to A3

I (A) am responsible for part 1 and 8 of this group assignment. For A3, I’m considering writing a blog to elaborate on the impact of climate warming on coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. Blogs can better disseminate events and influences to target groups. The blog will call on people to pay attention to climate warming and environmental protection. Climate change not only affects marine ecology but also protects our homes.

(B) Being involved in investigating the stakeholders has made me consider the role that tourism operators play in providing access to the Great Barrier Reef and the opportunity for education there. I’m thinking of creating an information booklet for a specific age group of tourist to help the reader understand the coral bleaching context of the reef that they are seeing.

(C) I was responsible for working on the stakeholders map and community views. While working on these sections of A2 it came apparent that certain stakeholders and target audiences were maybe misinformed about the risks towards the Great Barrier Reef, to combat this I'm thinking of creating an information leaflet to help spread the message across to our stakeholders.

(D) For our team, I am in charge of Part 1 and 2. For these parts, I searched for relevant environment sites and databases concerning the cause and effect of coral bleaching. To supplement the science issue that my team focused on, I plan to create a poster or a brochure that can educate the laypeople concerning coral bleaching. I think it would be best to present a simple narrative while also adding a bit of emotion through prioritizing the care of marine species.

（E) For Assessment 2, I was working on part 3 and part 4 with Dong. Since I looked up a lot of recent news about the coral reef bleaching and realized the tragic status of them, as well as the other natural heritages, I would like to write a press release about this topic, and the target audience should be everyone who cares about environmental and natural heritage protection.

(ME) I am responsible for completing part 3 and part 4 with D in the assignment of A2. For a3, I will make a one or two page community poster to spread the cause and scientific information of coral reef bleaching. And the posters will show the miserable status of coral reefs and their urgent need for human protection. And provide a more detailed introduction for the poster, and introduce the information points in the poster more comprehensively.

Reference List

BBC News, 2020. Great Barrier Reef suffers third mass bleaching in five years. [online] Available at: <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-52043554>

BBC News, 2020. Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its corals since 1995. Available at: < https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54533971 >

Doyglas, A., 2003. Coral bleaching––how and why?. Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume 46, p. 385–392.

Great Barrier Reef Foundation, 2016. Research with Impact 2016, Queensland: Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

Loya, Y. et al., 2001. Coral bleaching: The winners and the losers. Ecology Letters, Volume 4, pp. 122-131.

Miller, J. et al., 2009. Coral disease following massive bleaching in 2005 causes 60% decline in coral cover on reefs in the US Virgin Islands. Coral Reefs, Volume 28, p. 925–937.

UNESCO, n.d. Great Barrier Reef. [Online]

Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/154/

[Accessed 26 April 2021]

BBC News. 2021. Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its corals since 1995. [online] Available at: <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54533971> [Accessed 29 April 2021].

Jacobo J 2020 Great Barrier Reef has deteriorated to 'critical' level due to climate change ABC viewed 29th April 2021

https://abcnews.go.com/International/great-barrier-reef-deteriorated-critical-level-due-climate/story?id=74569794

LoFaso A 2019 Dire state of coral reefs highlighted by first-ever World Reef Day ABC viewed 29th April 2021

https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/dire-state-coral-reefs-highlighted-world-reef-day/story?id=63351823

Society for Conservation Biology Code of Ethics: https://conbio.org/about-scb/who-we-are/code-of-ethics

Macnamara, J. 2012 "Stakeholders; Community Relations (2 extracts)" In Macnamara, J. Public Relations: Theories, practices, critiques. Pearson Australia, Frenchs Forest, NSW. Pp: 169-175; 286-289

Lucid, 2021, How to perform a stakeholder analysis, Lucidchart, accessed 4th May 2021, <https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/how-to-do-a-stakeholder-analysis>

Houldbrook-Walk, M. 2020, ‘Great Barrier Reef coral halved by bleaching, climate change, report finds’, ABC NEWS, <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-14/great-barrier-reef-coral-halved-in-25-years-report-says/12766444?utm_medium=social&utm_content=sf238834628&utm_campaign=fb_abc_news&utm_source=m.facebook.com&sf238834628=1&fbclid=IwAR3O42UpDIvv5ANI98k_1ZpVIjB2n_TIYYrd2LySNSpFkvRlbUg-iS5UsWA>

Readfern, G. 2021, ‘Great Barrier Reef found to be in failing health as world heritage review looms’, The Guardian, <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/18/great-barrier-reef-found-to-be-in-failing-health-amid-calls-for-urgent-action?fbclid=IwAR1w--FassTShA8eVoRn0I3WUD8sO8FYHcll5HhhW1R_r_rb4Y6XxpY3BSM>

Hoegh-Guldberg, O. 2018, ‘Opinion – Great Barrier Reef now needs our help more than ever’, Great Barrier Reef Foundation, accessed 4th May 2021, <https://www.barrierreef.org/news/news/opinion-great-barrier-reef-now-needs-our-help-more-than-ever>

Curnock, M. 2019, Shifts in tourists’ sentiments and climate risk perceptions following mass coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, Fear, Grief, Hope and Action, 535-541.

Appendix

A Worksheet for critical appraisal health or science research publications (draws on Letts, Young, Kitto and Gastel)

No.	Criteria for evaluation	Research Article 1	Research article 2
1	Was the purpose, aims and/or research question stated clearly? What was the goal? Why is it important?	At the beginning of the article, the purpose of studying coral reef bleaching is clearly stated. The goal is to study whether interventions can reduce coral reef bleaching. It is very important because coral reef bleaching is the biggest crisis facing coral reefs.	Yes The goal was to focus on the current status of the Australian Great Barrier Reef and the causes of this status. This is important because the destruction of coral reefs is a sign of the deterioration of the Earth's environment.
2	Was RELEVANT previous literature discussed – such as previous studies of a similar kind and a) what they found and/or b) what method they used and/or c) what theoretical approach they took; previous work which demonstrates the importance of the topic – i.e. there are 500 million users of Facebook or Facebook has been analysed using uses and gratifications theory	In the article, some emerging articles are often cited and researched. At the same time, the theory and related information of these documents are frequently used.	Yes. The research is based on past literature on coral reef studies
3*	Was the study design clearly described? Was the design appropriate to the question? i.e. an analysis of content of advertising websites can’t tell you about the impact/ influence/effect of the website [unless the website happens to include user-generated content which the researcher analyses] – analysing impact/influence/effect should involve survey/ interview/other investigations of people	The article's description of the research design is relatively clear, and there are clear sub-headings to study.	Yes. The results of the research provide good evidence of the crisis the Great Barrier Reef is facing and offer solutions to it
4	Are the methods clearly described? Are the methods appropriate? Methods can include interviews, surveys [questionnaires +/- open ended questions] observation and ethnography, focus groups, document analysis, other [mapping settings, photography, biography etc.]	The article does not have a clear method, dividing each plan that may affect the bleaching of coral reefs into paragraphs. The method is closer to investigation and document analysis.	The methods are clearly described. The researchers made Long-term observation of coral reef changes and use experiments to investigate the characteristics of coral reefs
5	Is the sample described? Is the sample appropriate? For example: This study of users’ understandings of the news involved recruiting 100 people using Facebook, 17 people were considered ineligible because they were not news consumers, two did not complete the questionnaire leaving 81 respondents.	not applicable	not applicable
6	Ethics – is an ethical statement present? i.e. This study was approved by the institutional ethics committee [approval number xxxx] or this study did not involve human participants thus no ethics clearance was required.	The study did not involve substantive tests on coral reefs, nor did it involve human tests, so it conforms to ethical standards.	This research does not relate to human participants.
7	How were the data collected? Is this clearly described?	Data are obtained from laboratories and other literature.	Data collection is used in the introduction to the Great Barrier Reef and in the presentation of research results
8	How were the data analysed? Is this clearly described?	The data comes from field research and experimental data, some of the data in the article clearly describe the source.	Data analysis was used to explore the use of seagrass cultivation to mitigate ocean acidification, and it was aimed to make the research results more visual and credible.
9	Theory - Was a theory identified? And/or did the research report describe how new theory was generated in response to the findings?	The basic theory is that the bleaching of coral reefs is related to the increase in ocean temperature, and the most direct way is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pay attention to climate change.	Research establishes a real-time reef condition tool to detect the dynamics of the Great Barrier Reef and concludes that ocean acidification and other chemical effects are the primary cause of bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef
10	Conclusions and implications – Do the findings support the conclusions? Have they explained the significance of their findings? Have the findings been discussed in terms of previous research? [i.e. Unlike Bloggs et al. 2009, this study found that most Facebook users believe their Facebook friends are real.]. This is also known as the ‘So what?’ question – why should we care about these findings?	The conclusion is that the main reason for the large-scale bleaching of coral reefs is the greenhouse effect through research and experiments. Therefore, humans need to pay attention to and change climate change, otherwise the coral reefs will become extinct. Question: If people don't care about these discoveries, the coral reefs will disappear.	The results of bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef due to changes in ocean chemistry provide a theoretical basis for further research into the protection of the Great Barrier Reef

* See Gastel list BELOW for types of study design.

Try to make a statement about the originality of the article and its contribution to the academic conversation about the topic explored.

Worksheet B for critical appraisal health or science reporting or lay communication (draws on Wilson et al. , Moynihan & Payer)

Item		Yes	No	Not clear	Not applicable
1	Does the article quantify the benefits?			Y
2	Are harms or potential harms mentioned?	Y
3	Is it clear who might benefit?	Y
4	Is it clear how new the intervention/treatment is?	Y
5	Is it clear whether it is available now?	Y
6	Did the story include other choices of therapy, test or intervention?		Y
7	Are the main sources quoted also the makers/ promoters/ owners of the treatment/intervention	Y
8	Did the reporter seek comment from other experts (not involved in the treatment/research)	Y
9	Is evidence supporting the treatment/ intervention clearly presented?	Y
10	Does the description of the evidence allow you to judge the strength of the evidence?	Y
11	Did the report clearly explain the costs of the treatment/intervention?		Y
12	Does the text offer more than relevant media releases?	Y
13	Does the story avoid disease mongering?*	Y

*