Assessing How We Assess Environmental Risk: Kathrin Röggla’s Documentary Film The Mobile Future

Abstract

Kathrin Röggla’s 2012 made-for-TV documentary The Mobile Future examines the rhetorical strategies at work in articulating threats to the environment, the linguistic and visual imagery we conjure up in the process, as well as the realities of those who make a living in the field of risk management. Born in Salzburg in 1971 and now residing in Berlin, Röggla has made a name for herself as a writer and an essayist on contemporary topics. Drawing attention to the importance of rhetoric and communication for effective ecocriticism, her self-reflective film emphasizes the complexities contained in the assessment of environmental danger and the challenges involved in the delivery of nuanced messages to the public.