Award Date

May 2025

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Communication

First Committee Member

Emma Bloomfield

Second Committee Member

Rebecca Rice

Third Committee Member

Laura Martinez

Fourth Committee Member

Denise Tillery

Number of Pages

116

Abstract

This thesis explores “environmental ghost stories,” a term created to represent narratives that blend emotions and memories of ecological loss to make sense of environmental change. This project utilizes a mixed-methods approach that blends narrative theory, environmental rhetoric, and qualitative interviews to examine the narratives of chronic and acute changes experienced by long-term residents of Las Vegas, Nevada. Participants (N = 15) were required to have resided in the Las Vegas valley for a minimum of twenty years in order to have had the opportunity to witness both chronic and acute changes to their environment. Using a phronetic iterative approach to analyze the gathered interviews, I found two prevalent ghost stories including the loss of the natural environment and the loss of connection. These stories reflected the acute and chronic changes locals witnessed in relation to both their human and nonhuman environment. Additionally, participants expressed similar emotions when discussing the past and present state of the Las Vegas environment, but differing emotional reactions when contemplating its future. Together, these findings deepen our understanding of how stories convey experiences of environmental loss and change over time and may be used as a point of unity by intertwining narrative and emotion.

Keywords

Communication; Emotions; Environmental Change; Environmental Rhetoric; Narrative Theory; Phronetic Iterative Approach

Disciplines

Communication | Environmental Sciences

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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