Special Issue "Communication for and about Sustainability"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Gerd Michelsen
Institute for Environmental and Sustainability Communication, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany
E-Mail: michelsen@uni.leuphana.de
Interests: sustainability communication; education for sustainable development; higher education

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Matthias Barth
Institute for Competence Development, University of Applied Science Ostwestfalen-Lippe, Germany
E-Mail: matthias.barth@hs-owl.de
Interests: sustainability communications; social learning; education for sustainable development

Dear Colleagues,

Twenty years after Rio what is needed more than ever is a search for ways to improve the social capacity to guide interactions between nature and society toward a more sustainable future. This is and needs to be a process of social learning in its broadest sense, in which communication plays a crucial role. Taking this into account, sustainability communication is a process of mutual understanding of the normative concept of sustainability as well as the individual and societal possibilities of taking action.
This special issue – to be published in 2013 - aims to take stock and map existing research on sustainability communication and to explore the role sustainability communication plays for a sustainable transition. We invite submissions that examine all aspects of communication related to sustainability in any setting and at any level of communication (such as interpersonal, group, intergroup, organizational, or mass communication). We particularly encourage contributions from different disciplinary perspectives employing a broad variety of research methods (philosophical/theoretical, conceptual or empirical).

Prof. Dr. Gerd Michelsen
Prof. Dr. Matthias Barth
Guest Editors

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 800 CHF (Swiss Francs).

Title: Communication regarding sustainable development-Conceptual perspectives and review of societal subsystems
Authors: Jens Newig, Daniel Schulz, Daniel Fischer, Katharina Hetze,Norman Laws, Gesa Lüdecke and Marco Rieckmann
Abstract:Communication is essential in order to cope with mounting sustainability challenges of complexity, ambivalence and implementation. The previous debate on sustainability communication has largely focused on how to communicate sustainability issues to others. Sustainability communication, however, involves more than persuading others (‘communication of sustainability’) but also embraces processes of dialogue and discourse (‘communication about sustainability’). Based on this distinction, we develop a typology of communication modes, including communication for sustainability. Inspired by the notion of functional communication systems, we review sustainability communication in six societal subsystems, applying the typology of communication modes. Drawing mostly on examples from Germany, we find a shift from ‘communication of’ towards ‘communication about’ sustainability in most subsystems. While communication subsystems tend to operational closure, a variety of interlinkages exist. We discuss three key areas of ‘opening up’ communication subsystems, leading to transdisciplinarity, societal deliberation and governance, each meeting one of the core challenges to sustainability.
Keywords: Sustainability communication, typology of communication, communication of, about and for sustainability, transdisciplinarity, deliberation, governance.