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Sociological Perspectives on Sustainability Communication

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Sustainability Communication

Abstract

From a sociological perspective, social communication has a key role in the stabilisation and change of institutional practices as well as in sustainability communication. As this promotes the development and dissemination of new institutional practices oriented towards a vision of sustainability, the analysis of the relationship between public communication and institutional change is of particular importance. This chapter attempts to answer four questions: What can be learned about this relationship from a number of sociological approaches? What special frames characterise sustainability discourse in Germany? What institutional practices are thus advantaged? And what role does the social embedding of everyday actions in lifestyle milieux have for the implementation of widely accepted environmental norms?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    To the extent that the term ‘sustainable development’ is known at all in Germany (roughly 20%), it is associated with ideas of ‘ecological economizing’ or ‘responsibility for future generations’ (Kuckartz and Rheingans-Heintze 2006: 16f.).

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  1. Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    Karl-Werner Brand

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  1. Karl-Werner Brand
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Correspondence to Karl-Werner Brand .

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  1. Nottingham University Business School, International Centre for Corporate Socia, Wollaton Road, Nottingham, NG8 1BB, United Kingdom

    Jasmin Godemann

  2. Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Institute for Environmental and Sustaina, Scharnhorststraße 1, Lueneburg, 21335, Germany

    Gerd Michelsen

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Brand, KW. (2011). Sociological Perspectives on Sustainability Communication. In: Godemann, J., Michelsen, G. (eds) Sustainability Communication. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1697-1_5

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