Page 103 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

86 C. de Witt

Regarding Web 2.0, Geert Lovink (2007) has a more critical view of internet
culture. “It is true that the internet questions authority and power in new ways. The
old sources of knowledge and taste are – let us put it carefully – threatened. But, first
of all, the decline of the position of the critic is part of the history of the twentieth
century, and the network has only accelerated it. Secondly, the need for information
of an assured quality is enormous, especially today. Thirdly, the journalistic per-
spective on the channels of communication distracts from what interests me most on
the social web. A new virtual space has been created, one in which I can position
myself beyond family, work, business” (Lovink 2007).
It is not the news and opinions in the net that are important, but the special way
of representing oneself. A typical example is the blogger. “Blogging sustains a cult
of the individual in a situation hostile to individualism and to this extent it is the
successor of the diary. However it is a completely new diary culture, one that is
neither public nor private, but takes place in an intermediary place. Although blog-
ging is writing, it has something informal to it. Like a rumour it pales and fades very
quickly” (Lovink 2007). Nevertheless individual self-expression and opinions are
immediately available for reading world-wide. Given these new users and global
social movements, it is thus only consequent that media theories should be devel-
oped to be more “cross-disciplinary” (Ekecrantz 2007: 177), both theoretically (e.g.
Rossiter 2003) as well as qualitative (e.g. Gauntlett 2007).

Media and Sustainability Communication

Communication about media is a possibility to further the vision of sustainable
development. This chapter is not about which medium is more sustainable (but see
here Carli 2009). It is an investigation of media from a number of theoretical
perspectives, which should make clear that media have a social orientation function.
However communication strategies and processes must be scrutinised from a
perspective of medial structures. It can be seen that individual communication as
technologically transmitted is gaining increasingly in importance. It can be held that
• media theory would like to explain communication through social conditions
• knowledge about the effects and use of new media enhances participation in
changing communication processes
• media communication must take into account both communication culture prob-
lems in local, regional and national areas as well as new social ties across national
borders, involving new communication culture opportunities as well as problems
for humankind
• global communication about new media opens opportunities for individuals to
communicate across national borders about how the ecological basis of human
life or distributive justice across synchronous and asynchronous communication
spaces can best be secured
• media communication has become global communication.