Page 111 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

94 A. Ziemann

said and what can be wanted, without determining what should be done” (Luhmann
1997: 343). Values compete, however, with each other and depend on particular needs,
situations and decisions. That is why they must be dynamically balanced and their
application must remain open, i.e. at a given point in time environmental protection
instead of freedom, at another welfare instead of intergenerational justice.
Sustainability discourse labours to establish sustainability itself as an intrinsic
social value and to gain acceptance for other short-term goals, e.g. securing human
survival, inter- and intragenerational justice, maintaining social production potential.
On the other hand its value dimensions do not enjoy – everywhere, all the time and
without limit – priority over social structures, cultural habits, individual intentions
and other values.
The communicated alternatives – of a better life, of anticipatory management, of
a just distribution of goods and resources, of a more responsible caring for nature
and mastery over nature etc. – are counter-productive when they are connected with
an implicit assumption that all too quickly limits or discredits other perspectives and
communication contributions, namely that alternatives are always better than what
is and what has come before. In addition, sustainability discourse is also labouring
to create common perceptions of problems and commitment in the first place, while
at the same time there are “a variety of actors struggling with each other to have
their own specific definition of sustainability, together with the resulting strategic
recommendations, accepted. Behind these disputes are assumptions about different
images of the world and nature, different concepts of society, different interests and
value preferences” (Brand 2000: 2).

Tendency to Normalisation

The widespread recognition of sustainable development is leading to a normalisation
of the concept. The time of ideologically laden struggles is over; objectives are still
without doubt being controversially discussed but in general this is being done in a
pragmatic fashion. To a great extent this is due to a de-moralisation of environmental
issues. This normalisation, de-moralisation and institutionalisation has brought sus-
tainability discourse into a paradoxical situation. The more people talk about and
demand sustainability, the less it is able to draw attention to itself or create pressure for
change, whether for individual consumers or for key political and economic actors.

Medialisation

Sustainability discourse attempts to resolve the normalisation paradox by linking it
with the mass media. It is after all the function of the mass media to generate recep-
tive attention, to inform society, to provide an integrative construction of reality so
that there is a reference to common – or at least those assumed to be common –
themes, values and knowledge. Through moralising (good vs. bad), the mass media