IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v25y2017i6p610-624.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Does the Media Mean by ‘Sustainability’ or ‘Sustainable Development’? an Empirical Analysis of Sustainability Terminology in German Newspapers Over Two Decades

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Fischer
  • Franziska Haucke
  • Anna Sundermann

Abstract

There is broad agreement that the regulative idea of sustainability needs to be specified in public deliberation so that it can contribute to sustainable development policies and practices. The media plays a critical role in this endeavor. However, journalists commonly criticize the terminology of ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ as blurred, fuzzy and ambiguous. The vibrant controversy over how journalists should engage with the sustainability terminology is however facing an apparent lack of research on how sustainability terminology actually has been embraced and used in the media. This study aims to close the aforementioned research gaps in providing a twofold account of the field in Germany. First, in a trend analysis, it sketches the usage of sustainability terminology in six major German newspapers from 1995 to 2015. Second, in an in†depth analysis for the three years 2001, 2007 and 2013, more than 16 000 usages of sustainability terminology have been coded according to their underpinning meaning. The findings show that sustainability terminology in major German newspapers is used in about twice as many articles in 2015 compared with 1995. What changes is not only the frequency, but also the meanings, with which sustainability terminology is used. There is an apparent tendency towards a ‘semantic consolidation’ of sustainability terminology in the post†2000 years. The meaning thereby moves away from a non†specific and replaceable fashion word towards a more sophisticated and elaborated reflection of the concept of sustainable development. Data analysis finds that political alignment of the newspaper plays a critical role in this. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Fischer & Franziska Haucke & Anna Sundermann, 2017. "What Does the Media Mean by ‘Sustainability’ or ‘Sustainable Development’? an Empirical Analysis of Sustainability Terminology in German Newspapers Over Two Decades," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(6), pages 610-624, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:25:y:2017:i:6:p:610-624
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.1681
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1681
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sd.1681?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Julia Szulecka, 2019. "Towards Sustainable Wood-Based Energy: Evaluation and Strategies for Mainstreaming Sustainability in the Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-21, January.
    2. Thomas Bausch & Tilman Schröder & Verena Tauber & Bernard Lane, 2021. "Sustainable Tourism: The Elephant in the Room," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-19, July.
    3. Sabina Krsnik & Karmen Erjavec & Marija Klopčič, 2022. "Impact of Citizens’ Personal Values, Knowledge, Awareness, Informing, Advertising, and Truth of Environmental and Climate Challenges in Support of the Sustainable Development Goals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-11, June.
    4. Franzisca Weder & Stella Lemke & Amornpan Tungarat, 2019. "(Re)storying Sustainability: The Use of Story Cubes in Narrative Inquiries to Understand Individual Perceptions of Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-15, September.
    5. Anna Sundermann & Daniel Fischer, 2019. "How Does Sustainability Become Professionally Relevant? Exploring the Role of Sustainability Conceptions in First Year Students," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1, September.
    6. Jing Shao & Cedric Aneye & Alyona Kharitonova & Wei Fang, 2023. "Essential innovation capability of producer‐service enterprises towards circular business model: Motivators and barriers," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(7), pages 4548-4567, November.
    7. Olav Muurlink & Elizabeth Voneiff Marx, 2023. "Out of Print: What the Pandemic-Era Newspaper Crisis in Australia Teaches Us about the Role of Rural and Regional Newspapers in Creating Sustainable Communities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-12, March.
    8. Ellen Lee & Franzisca Weder, 2021. "Framing Sustainable Fashion Concepts on Social Media. An Analysis of #slowfashionaustralia Instagram Posts and Post-COVID Visions of the Future," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-17, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:25:y:2017:i:6:p:610-624. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.