How the TV Show River Monsters Can Help Us Understand Water

Water is studied among numerous academic journals with most of the attention given to science and management perspectives. However, there is a growing movement which attempts to understand the ways that water is imbued with cultural values. The importance of this insight in water studies and adjacent disciplines is growing clearer. When practitioners interact with the public and each other, it is important to consider and understand the cultural values that are being assigned to water. 

Using case studies, such as technical & public facing documents produced by the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization and Friends of the Mississippi, an analysis of the television show River Monsters, and other relevant academic or non-traditional sources, this talk tries to:

1. Illustrate the pervasiveness of cultural values associated with water, not only in art or traditional cultural objects, but also technical communications 
2. Show how insights from the social studies of science might be applied to water studies
3. Demonstrate the importance of understanding how water is cultural and apply it to useful situations