Page 110 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

8 Communication Theory and Sustainability Discourse 93

case, but as a physical, chemical or biological fact it will not create any social
resonance until it is communicated. Fish may die or human beings; swimming in
lakes and rivers may cause illnesses; no more oil may come from the pumps; and
average temperatures may rise or fall, but as long as this is not communicated it
does not have any effect on society” (1986: 62f.).
Communication and media technology are thus the necessary conditions of
sustainability discourse and its social resonance, but this is not to say anything about
its typical form and inner structure. In the following some of the characteristics
found in sustainability discourse will be discussed and at the same time an analytic
framework for its study will be created.

Reflexivity

News about environmental problems or unjust living conditions and research about
the destruction of nature and attendant risks to humans have led to public and scien-
tific reaction and reflection, which in turn observes these observations, makes these
phenomena and their interrelationships themselves a theme and searches for ways
to understand, explain and cope with them. The traditional self-understanding of
mankind’s currently successful domination of nature and of the evolution of tech-
nology is critically examined – and is introduced from society back into society.
With this self-referentiality, environmental analysis and sustainability issues become
an analysis of society as well as a critique of modern social order (Brand et al. 1997: 37).
A further effect of reflexivity is communication about sustainability communi-
cation. Sustainability discourse does not just discuss the environment and a better
life, but also, and repeatedly, it discusses itself.

Sustainability as an Intrinsic Social Value

Each value is and means a certain preference with universal validity. Something ought
to be, something else ought not; this ranking is fundamentally positive and has a desir-
able connotation. It stands to reason that we have a preference for freedom, justice,
peace, health, conservation etc. and it seems obvious that we have attitudes or make
assumptions in favour of them. At the same time values have universal or general
validity because they remain, whatever their actual ineffectiveness or non-inclusion,
something positive and are (or can be) something that we expect or demand. Their
function consists of an action or situation orientation that is neither questioned nor
calls for reasons to be provided – this is rarely explicit, much more likely per implica-
tionem. “Values remain, in other words, relevant through their allusive nature and that
is the source of their infallibility. (…) Values are thus persuasive then because in com-
munication there is a lack of objections; not because one could give reasons for them.
(…) Values are the medium for the commonly held assumptions that limit what can be