Page 108 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

8 Communication Theory and Sustainability Discourse 91

of human coexistence and the communicative forms of the cooperation, mutual
support and conflict are culturally and historically given. They are taught, learned
and then shape our plans, our expectations of others and the possibility of under-
standing others and expressing ourselves. On the other hand the institutionalised
uses of signs, social communication forms, socio-cultural structures and situational
rules are not only confirmed and maintained, but also continually changed, extended
and optimised. In short, communication changes communication. This means (and
this validates its regulative and normative claims) that sustainability communication
also changes communication and so society.
Through the joint stocks of signs, language(s), values and norms that are produced
and reproduced in communication and transmitted through it, social order is built up.
The more successful the communicative understanding the more stabile the social
order – and vice versa. Nevertheless, successful understanding is not the same as con-
sensus and consensus is not the primary goal or the condition of and for communica-
tion. Dissensus is also particularly important for the continuation of communication.
Ultimately each communicative act doubles the world and reality towards a yes/no
form. “Every communication invites protest. As soon as something specific is offered
for acceptance, one can also negate it. The system is not structurally bound to accep-
tance, not even to a preference for acceptance. Linguistically, the negation of every act
of communication is possible and can be understood. It can be anticipated and circum-
vented by avoiding corresponding communication (…)” (Luhmann 1995: 173).
For sustainability communication both this autonomy from psychic systems and
from human intentions as well as the social momentum of orientation and value
schemes, consensus/ dissensus and recursive communication sequences is reveal-
ing. Sustainability discourse is relatively independent from its many actors who are
saying or proposing something. In fact these are interchangeable. It is more decisive
what and how communication takes place. Each act of communication refers to
prior acts of communication (accepting or rejecting them) and prestructures at the
same time future acts of communication. No longer can everything be said.
Expectations arise. This factual-temporal bonding is created by the distinction
between theme and contribution (Luhmann 1995).
The social (as well as the non-social) environment enters into communication
through themes, which reduce the complexity of the environment to something
more specified. In the factual dimension an example would be how the marketing
of organic food is concerned with this one particular theme, and nothing else.
Communication relationships are ordered by themes, which are, or can be, referred
to by various contributions by individuals to communication; and contributions in
turn confirm or change themes. In a social perspective themes regulate who can
make a contribution, and who is allowed to. And finally the temporal dimension
forces a one-by-one sequentialization of the contributions to themes. This tempo-
ral order allows for continual stream of new references to be made, as well as for a
remembrance of past acts of communication and their corresponding system histo-
ries. Themes thus take on a memory function. In the 1980s ‘sustainable develop-
ment’ began its career as a political semantic and ecological term, and has since
served as a reference point for countless discussions, studies and structural changes.