Communication Regarding Sustainability: Conceptual Perspectives and Exploration of Societal Subsystems
Abstract
:1. Introduction
Direction/mode of communication | Function | Measures of effectiveness | |
---|---|---|---|
Communication about sustainability (CaS) | Deliberative; horizontal, many to many | Deliberation; production of intersubjective/shared concepts/frames | Discourse oriented: quality of discourse; compatibility of concepts to sustainability |
Communication of sustainability (CoS) | Transmissive; sender-receiver, one to many | Transmission; transfer of information towards an objective | Sender oriented: achievement of sender’s communication objective |
2. Rationales and Perspectives
2.1. Rationales for Sustainability Communication
- (1)
- Sustainability issues are typically characterized by high levels of complexity and uncertainty. In conjunction with high decision stakes, scholars such as Funtowicz and Ravetz [12] call for new modes of science involving increased communication, dialogue, and the involvement of stakeholders to broaden the information basis, but also to include broader societal values.
- (2)
- Sustainability goals are typically ambivalent, involving conflicts of interests as well as of values. Communication is essential in order to reach a common understanding about societal values on sustainability and concrete goals that need to be pursued.
- (3)
- The capacities to govern sustainable development tend to be highly dispersed among a wealth of societal actors on multiple levels of decision-making, making implementation of measures to achieve those few goals that have been agreed on all the more difficult. Network-like forms of coordination that enable effective arguing, bargaining, and social learning are regarded as conducive to governing sustainable development in the face of distributed action capacity.
Communication counterproductive to sustainability | Neutral Communication on sustainability | Communication for sustainability (CfS) | |
---|---|---|---|
Communication of sustainability (CoS) | Greenwashing in sustainability reporting | Scientific communication of “facts” (“public understanding of science” model) | Educating students or the public |
Communication about sustainability (CaS) | Discourses oriented to impede genuine sustainable development | Scientific deliberation about sustainability-related phenomena | Participatory dialogues in Local Agenda 21 groups |
defensive >>>>>>> | >>>>>>>>>>>> | >>>>>transformative |
2.2. Two Plus One: Different Perspectives on Sustainability Communication
2.3. Communication about Sustainability
2.4. Communication of Sustainability
2.5. Communication for Sustainability
3. Sustainability-Related Communication in Societal Subsystems
3.1. Civil Society
3.2. Education
3.3. Mass Media
3.4. Science
3.5. Politics
3.6. Business/Economy
4. Discussion
Communication about sustainability (CaS) | Communication of sustainability (CoS) | Communication for sustainability (CfS) | Relevance of sustainability-related communication to achieving sustainable development | |
---|---|---|---|---|
CivilSociety | Discourses on SD in (alternative) media, assemblies, social networks | awareness and information campaigns, mass media marketing | political pressure, participation and cooperation in SD governance, self-organized cooperatives | introducing bottom-up concerns, ideas and solutions into society |
Education | Engagement with different interpretations of SD | Transfer of facts in traditional classroom settings | Competence-oriented approaches that encourage students to take action in their local surroundings | Enabling individuals to play an active role in SD |
Massmedia | Talk shows, letters to the editor, commentary, online-discussions | environmental journalism, edutainment, documentaries | Media initiatives and special issues with sustainability focus | Contribution to societal awareness of sustainability problems |
Science | Scientific discourse on theories and concepts of SD | Transfer of information on scientific results concerning sustainability issues (science communication, public understanding of science) | Transdisciplinary sustainability science (normative approach, promoting SD) | Contributions to the solution of sustainability problems and awareness of society |
Politics | Raising public awareness and initializing communication: Governments and their bureaucracies | Making people familiar with the political will of: Parties, governments, bureaucracies | Displaying own solutions. Parties, NGOs, Governments, bureaucracies | Contribution to raising public awareness of sustainability; highlighting different perceptions of SD (interests) |
Economy/industry | Workshops and conferences on SD and CSR | Transfer of information on sustainable behavior in order to improve reputation | Communication that goes beyond reputational aspects; effects (i.e., of stakeholder dialogues) on corporate behavior and management | Integrating sustainability related concerns of stakeholders |
Label of discourse | Core subsystem | “Opening up” towards other subsystems | Function |
---|---|---|---|
Trans-disciplinarity | Science | Politics, civil society, private business, education | Meet the uncertainty challenge by producing socially robust knowledge |
Societal deliberation | Mass media | Civil society, politics | Meet the ambivalence challenge by producing shared visions on sustainability |
Governance | Politics | Civil society, private business | Meet the implementation challenge by producing better accepted decisions |
- ■
- phenomena of communication and
- ■
- an opening up of societal communication subsystems.
5. Conclusions
Conflict of Interest
References
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Newig, J.; Schulz, D.; Fischer, D.; Hetze, K.; Laws, N.; Lüdecke, G.; Rieckmann, M. Communication Regarding Sustainability: Conceptual Perspectives and Exploration of Societal Subsystems. Sustainability 2013, 5, 2976-2990. https://doi.org/10.3390/su5072976
Newig J, Schulz D, Fischer D, Hetze K, Laws N, Lüdecke G, Rieckmann M. Communication Regarding Sustainability: Conceptual Perspectives and Exploration of Societal Subsystems. Sustainability. 2013; 5(7):2976-2990. https://doi.org/10.3390/su5072976
Chicago/Turabian StyleNewig, Jens, Daniel Schulz, Daniel Fischer, Katharina Hetze, Norman Laws, Gesa Lüdecke, and Marco Rieckmann. 2013. "Communication Regarding Sustainability: Conceptual Perspectives and Exploration of Societal Subsystems" Sustainability 5, no. 7: 2976-2990. https://doi.org/10.3390/su5072976