DRAFT
Component for Module "Interpreting Critical Resource Issues and Controversy"

Component:
Interpreting Critical Resource Issues

Objectives:

• Identify critical resource issues;

• Determine appropriate strategies for interpreting critical resource issues;

• Effectively interpret critical resource issues.

Approach:

Effective interpretation of multiple points of view requires mastery of the techniques and applications in Module 340: Advanced Research and Resource Liaison and Module Draft—Interpreting Multiple Points of View.

Content Outline:

1. What

1. All interpretation is critical resource issue interpretation in that it attempts to raise levels of care about and care for the resource.
2. Critical resource issues are imminent threats to the resource as determined by management and resource management.
3. Effective critical resource issue interpretation raises awareness of issues and attempts to provoke care about and for the resource by presenting agency perspectives accurately and honestly in the same manner as any other perspective
4. Effective interpretation is not "interpreganda."
1. Interpreganda’s primary goal is to convince the audience of the singular validity of a particular ideological or agency perspective.
2. Interpreganda does not recognize the right of audience members to have and maintain their own perspectives.
3. Interpreganda communicates in one direction by discouraging dialogue.
5. Interpreganda assumes the audience is uninformed and ignores the multiple meanings of the resource.
1. Intepreganda oversimplifies facts and skews information to a forgone conclusion.
2. Interpreganda is often well intentioned, but is often manipulative, didactic, and fails to provide the audience with the skills to make informed decisions in the future.
3. Interpreganda fails to connect the audience to the resource in a personal way.

II. Why

1. Many audiences want to know about threats, resource management, and opportunities to care for the resource.
2. Agencies often make controversial decisions in the interest of preserving the resource and interpretation can facilitate their discussion and articulate agency and other perspectives.
3. Interpretation can use the agency perspective as one of multiple perspectives to facilitate connections between the meanings of the resource and the interests the visitor.
4. Interpretation has the task of protecting the resource through promoting audience compliance of protection and safety regulations.
   

III. How

1. Interpreters coordinate with resource management and site management to:

Assess the level of threat to resources;

1. Minimal – may one day be threatened
2. Medium – currently threatened, but in a general and non-direct manner
3. Immediate – resource is being lost or directly impacted

2. Determine effective interpretive response;

1. Minimal threat requires standard interpretive approach that:
2. Respectfully connects multiple meanings to multiple audience interests and perspectives, and;
3. Interprets multiple points of view, and;
4. provides opportunities for audiences to make personal connections to the meanings of the resources, and;
5. elevates audiences’ level of care about the resource so that they may support care for the resource.

3. Medium threat may require an interpretive response that includes all of the above and:

1. Elevates audiences’ knowledge of threats to the resource, and;

2. Skillfully identifies NPS perspective as one of several perspectives and;

3. Does not proscribe behavior or solicit action.

4. Immediate threat to the resource may require interpretive response that includes all of above but may also suggest behavior or solicit action.

Resources

TBD

Developmental Exercises

Through discussions with your supervisor and resource managers, identify a critical resource issue that might be interpreted. Research both the subject as well as the potential audiences. Connect resource meanings to audience interests and perspectives and develop an interpretive product that accurately and without manipulation articulates multiple resource meanings and audience perspectives, establishes a mutual environment of respect, provokes a greater understanding multiple perspectives, and identifies, explains the reasons for, and presents agency perspectives and actions as one of many perspectives.

Editor: STMA Training Manager Interpretation