Page 74 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

5 Sociological Perspectives on Sustainability Communication 57

ritual staging of the implicit idée directrice (M. Hauriou), the ideas governing a
given institution. If the validity and stability of institutions depend to a large extent
on how these ‘governing ideas’ resonate with the beliefs and practices of everyday
life, then the possibility of institutional change depends on a loss of their practical
plausibility in the face of changing life contexts and new, problematic situations.
Institutional change does not, however, happen on its own. Institutions are closely
connected with power relations. It is only the active questioning of the governing
ideas of institutions in public debate and the successful mobilisation of competing
interpretive frames, myths and symbols that can withdraw their legitimation.
Whether and to what extent this is successful is a question of the discursive power
of the competing collective actors. This also holds true for a transformation toward
sustainability (Alexander 2009; Dingler 2003; Feindt and Oels 2005; Hajer 1995;
Hajer and Versteeg 2005).
It is therefore interesting to examine sustainability communication from the
perspective of discourse theory. There are roughly two versions of this approach
(Jørgensen and Philipps 2002; Keller et al. 2001; Keller 2004; Phillips and Hardy 2002),
a post-structuralist and a symbolic-interactionist or phenomenological version, in
both of which the interrelationship of discourse and institutional practices plays a
central role.
Post-structuralist approaches (Fairclough 2003; Howarth 2000; Laclau and
Mouffe 1985) examine – often with reference to Foucault – the rule-bound structures
of knowledge that discourses are based upon. In a Foucauldian sense, discourses are
constitutive of reality, not only in a symbolic but also in a practical, material way.
This productive, reality-constituting effect of discourses is the result of the power
present in all forms of social interaction. “The Foucauldian understanding of
discourse implies a conception of power as constitutive and productive. (…) Power
is understood as a web of force relations made up of local centres of power around
which specific discourses, strategies of power and techniques for the appropriation of
knowledge cluster” (Feindt and Oels 2005: 164). Post-structuralist approaches thus
move to the foreground the systematic interrelationship of power and the production
of knowledge, as well as the disciplining aspect of discourses. Discourses define the
kind of questions that may be posed; they determine the group of individuals that are
authorised to take part in certain discourses; they contain ways to discipline; and they
determine the conditions under which certain discourses can take place.
Symbolic-interactionist or phenomenological approaches (Gamson 1988; Hajer
1995; Gusfield 1981; Keller 2005), on the other hand, tend to highlight the interac-
tive dynamics of the communicative construction of reality. In this perspective, con-
flict discourses are understood as controversially structured fields of symbolic
interaction in which a variety of actors struggle to establish their respective interpre-
tation of problems, their causes and remedies. These discursive struggles usually are
structured by competing ‘frames’ (Gamson 1988) or organised around two compet-
ing ‘storylines’ which create order in the confusing array of arguments and allow
heterogeneous positions to rally into clear-cut ‘discourse coalitions’ (Hajer 1995).
In modern societies, the symbolic struggles for cultural hegemony are carried out
primarily in the arena of mass media. Taking the ecological debate as an example, a