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Papers
61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Framing pollution
ClearTelling stories about (micro)plastic pollution: Media images, public perceptions and social change
This paper examines how microplastic pollution has been framed in media reporting and how the public understands the issue, finding that culturally embedded ideas about risk and health shape people's responses. Understanding media framing and public perception is important for designing effective communication strategies around microplastic contamination.
Next steps for research on society and microplastics
This perspective paper outlined priority directions for social and behavioral science research on microplastics, building on the established contributions of social sciences to understanding policy, stakeholder views, and public behavior around plastic pollution. The authors called for greater integration of social science methods to address governance gaps and support effective microplastic management.
Next steps for research on society and microplastics
This perspective paper assessed the contributions of social and behavioral sciences to microplastics research, covering policy analysis, public education, and stakeholder engagement. The authors argue for greater integration of social science methods to understand and reduce plastic pollution at the human systems level.
Understanding the Risks of Microplastics: A Social-Ecological Risk Perspective
This chapter examines microplastics as a textbook example of a modern global risk — produced by everyday industrial society, distributed worldwide by ocean currents, and difficult to regulate because the harm is diffuse and slow. The authors analyze scientific, social, and political dimensions of microplastic risk, arguing that policy responses like the US Microbead-Free Waters Act address symptoms rather than the underlying systemic problem.
How plastic is our plastic culture? Reducing our consumption of single-use plastics
This paper examines the cultural and economic forces that have made single-use plastics so embedded in modern life, making them difficult to reduce despite known environmental harms. Understanding the social dimensions of plastic consumption — not just technical solutions — is essential for effectively reducing the microplastic pollution they ultimately generate.
The human dimension: how social and behavioural research methods can help address microplastics in the environment
This paper outlines how social and behavioral science research methods — including surveys, interviews, and behavioral experiments — can be applied to understand human dimensions of the microplastic pollution problem. Addressing plastic pollution requires not just environmental science but also understanding why people produce, use, and dispose of plastics as they do.
On the Creation of Risk: Framing of Microplastics Risks in Science and Media
This study analyzes how microplastic risks are framed in scientific literature and media coverage, finding that scientific uncertainty is often amplified into public alarm through media framing, and examining the social construction of environmental risk in the absence of definitive toxicological evidence.
Accountability in the environmental crisis: From microsocial practices to moral orders
This paper is not relevant to microplastics — it is a sociological theory paper examining how accountability works in micro-level social interactions within the broader context of the environmental crisis.
Framing for action? Assessing microplastic-related threat potential for planetary health as a political participation catalyzer
This study analyzed how microplastic-related threats to planetary health are communicated as a political issue, finding that framing microplastics as a systemic health risk increases public concern and may serve as a catalyst for environmental policy action.
Science-society-policy interface for microplastic and nanoplastic: Environmental and biomedical aspects
This review proposed a new conceptual framework for addressing microplastic and nanoplastic pollution at the science-society-policy interface, covering detection methods, environmental and health impacts, and regulatory approaches.
Navigating regulatory complexity: Challenges and shifting problem framings in turning microplastics into a European policy object
This paper analyzed the regulatory challenges posed by micro- and nanoplastics, examining how ambiguous definitions and material heterogeneity have made it difficult for policymakers to establish stable regulatory frameworks. The study traced how problem framing has shifted in policy debates and identified key obstacles to effective governance of plastic particle pollution.
Constitutive and Material: An Empirical Analysis of the Two Dimensions of the Communication on Microplastics in Japanese Journals
This study analyzed how microplastic communication has been framed in Japanese academic journals, examining both content and material dimensions of how science about plastic pollution is produced and shared. The research provides insight into how public understanding of microplastics developed in Japan as a scientific and social concern.
Environmental sustainability from the perspective of political economy
Not relevant to microplastics — this book chapter takes a political economy perspective on environmental sustainability, discussing climate change, biodiversity loss, and plastic pollution at a broad policy and philosophical level rather than conducting original microplastics research.
Agential cuts of regulatory science practices – the case of microplastics
This sociological analysis examines how the choice of risk assessment framework — threshold-based versus persistence-based — shapes whether regulators act on microplastic pollution. Threshold approaches effectively permit continued industrial emissions because harmful concentrations in the environment are rarely reached, while persistence-based frameworks better justify precautionary action, making the choice of scientific method a deeply consequential regulatory and ethical decision.
Our life with plastic, a review of plastic product abuse in the age of consumerism
This review examines the psychology, sociology, and culture of plastic consumerism alongside the scientific evidence for microplastic health harms, arguing that social sciences should complement natural science research by promoting rational product choices and awareness.
On the issue of microplastics in the environment
This paper examines the origins of microplastic pollution, arguing that its emergence is not solely attributable to polymer chemistry advances and cannot be explained simply by physicochemical degradation processes acting on plastic materials.
Navigating regulatory complexity: Challenges and shifting problem framings in turning microplastics into a European policy object
This paper analyzed the challenges regulators face in governing micro- and nanoplastics, examining how shifting problem framings, ambiguous definitions, and material heterogeneity have destabilized regulatory efforts. The study traced how disputes over whether microplastics are a safety or environmental issue have complicated the development of coherent international regulatory frameworks.
Acknowledging that Science Is Political Is a Prerequisite for Science-Based Policy
This commentary argues that acknowledging the political dimensions of science is necessary for effective evidence-based policy, pointing to how values and assumptions shape research questions and conclusions. This is relevant to microplastic research, where scientific findings have major implications for industry regulation.
Societal Relations to Nature in Times of Crisis—Social Ecology’s Contributions to Interdisciplinary Sustainability Studies
This review article examined how social ecology — an interdisciplinary field — approaches the crisis of societal relationships with nature, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. It provides theoretical frameworks relevant to understanding why plastic pollution persists despite growing awareness of its harms.
Capitalist Social Relations and the Environment: A Hyena—Baby Gazelle Acquaintance
This analytical paper argues that the root causes of the global environmental crisis, including plastic pollution and microplastic contamination, lie in capitalist social relations and modes of production rather than individual consumer behavior. The author calls for structural economic analysis in environmental problem-solving.
Superficial or Substantial: Why Care about Microplastics in the Anthropocene?
This viewpoint paper argues that microplastics represent a genuinely significant environmental threat rather than a superficial concern, examining the scientific evidence and social dimensions of the issue. The authors make the case for treating microplastic pollution as a priority environmental challenge in the Anthropocene.
Introduction to Part II
This is an introductory chapter in a social science book framing how invisible toxicants and pollution are embedded in everyday modern life. It is a humanities perspective piece rather than an empirical study of microplastics.
Solutions to Plastic Pollution: A Conceptual Framework to Tackle a Wicked Problem
This review proposed a conceptual framework for organizing the diverse technological, governance, and societal solutions to global plastic pollution, mapping the value-laden issues that drive different actors' preferences for particular approaches.
Review: Global perceptions of plastic pollution: The contours and limits of debate — R0/PR3
A review of 39 studies on public perceptions of plastic pollution found that research has clustered around marine ecosystems, single-use plastics, and recycling barriers, while underexploring systemic production reduction and connections to climate change or broader biodiversity loss. The paper emphasizes that terminology choices — 'marine debris' vs. 'microplastics' vs. 'plastic pollution' — frame public understanding differently and should inform policy communications.