Page 45 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

28 M. Adomßent and J. Godemann

Considering the increasing relevance of sustainability communication, as for
example debates of and reports on climate change in the media clearly show, it is
necessary to find a theoretical foundation that would help locate sustainability com-
munication, show its relationships to proximate discourses and specify its objec-
tives. Sustainability discourse arises out of a number of different discourses, whose
similarities include that they look back on relatively short histories, have been able
to stimulate intensive discussions and will certainly also continue to do so in the
future. The most important of these discourses are environmental communication,
risk communication and science communication. Their different approaches are
characterised by different foci, both at a theoretical and content level.

Environmental Communication

Environmental communication – and this is demonstrated by studies from Germany,
Great Britain and other countries (BMU 2009; Defra 2008; Swanwick 2009) – has
become a part of everyday communication. “Research and theory within the field
are united by the topical focus on communication and human relations with the
environment” (Milstein 2009). The discussion of various types of private, profes-
sional and social perception and the processing of complex environmental problems
influences the public perception of the environment. “As we engage others in con-
versation, questioning, or debate, we translate our private concerns into public mat-
ters and thus create spheres of influence which affect how we and others view the
environment and our relation to it” (Cox 2010: 26). Environmental communication
includes every type of communication, whether delivered directly or by media, by
individuals or institutions. This multi-facetted character of environmental commu-
nication makes it extremely difficult to find a unified definition. Within the scientific
community it is also known as ‘ecological discourse’, with the sustainability con-
cept being the most recent communicative ‘framework’.
It was not until the beginning or the middle of the 1990s – or almost 10 years
after the ‘birth’ of environmental communication in the United States with a publi-
cation ‘Conservationism vs. Preservationism’ in 1984 by Christine Oravec – that
during a period of reflection following the earth summit meeting in Rio an aware-
ness grew that the ideas from Agenda 21 had, in addition to their more global character,
considerable importance for individuals (Oravec 1984). A decisive role in the gradual
acceptance of the term environmental communication was surely also the coopera-
tive potential in the concept of communication. Finally environmental communica-
tion is much more than just information or the transfer of knowledge. It is defined
by neither consensus nor conflict. Instead it can be understood as a discursive place
or possibility in which both poles can be formed (Coenen et al. 1998; Depoe et al.
2004). This potential to shape or optimise developments is a constitutive element of
environmental communication, which is understood as a controllable process or
single action resulting from an institution and addressed to either the population at
large or a specific group of individuals.