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Chapter 8
            Communication Theory and Sustainability

            Discourse



            Andreas Ziemann









            Abstract  Ecological  and  sustainability  discourses  are  communicative  processes.
            This chapter focuses on communication theory in order to explore the communicative
            and social aspects of sustainability discourse, in particular reflexivity, commitment
            and normalisation. Consequences for sustainability communication are discussed.

            Keywords  Communication theory • Communicative process • Functional differen-
            tiation • Characteristics of sustainability discourse • Sustainability communication


            The interpretation of ‘sustainable development’ is as multi-facetted as its strategic
            realisation. There are few communication theoretical analyses of this term, of its
            discourse coherence and operationalisation. Research into sustainability and sus-
            tainability communication often assign communication a secondary status – as if it
            were possible to first discuss sustainability, then plan and implement it, and finally
            communicate it. The opposite is the case. As soon as something has become an
            issue – and individuals have made a series of specific contributions to that issue –
            then communication is taking place. Neither sociality nor social structures, neither
            technology nor ecology are independent of the communication of either given or
            thinkable situations. It is only through and as communication that an event or an
            object receives social relevance and meaning. And every event that is well known
            today has already been through the selection and production machinery of the mass
            media. The discourse of sustainability is also – as is ecological discourse in general –
            above all a communicative process event within society. If an awareness of eco-
            logical problems and sustainability is not communicated, then it is socially irrelevant,
            even non-existent.




            A. Ziemann (*)
            Bauhaus-Universitaet Weimar, Fakultaet Medien, Bauhausstr. 11, D-99423 Weimar, Germany
            e-mail: andreas.ziemann@uni-weimar.de


            J. Godemann and G. Michelsen (eds.), Sustainability Communication: Interdisciplinary   89
            Perspectives and Theoretical Foundations, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1697-1_8,
            © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
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