Abstract
This chapter takes the discursive character of sustainability as a point of departure for arguing that what sustainability means is mediated and refracted by the interactive technologies used to engage the public with it. Four such meanings are introduced: from the perspective of technologies designed to promote sustainable behaviour sustainability is practiced as a balance to restore. Through gaming and simulation media sustainability is addressed as a complex problem to solve. With immersive technologies sustainability is felt as a deep relation to the world. And with speculatively designed media sustainability emerges as a social imaginary. The chapter concludes by suggesting that some of sustainability’s meanings lend themselves to systemic policy innovation and management – the kind of interventions sought by those pursuing sustainability transitions – while other meanings are more conducive to the kind of radical, open-ended changes associated with deep social transformation.
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Notes
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For a more detailed account of the methods used here see Bendor (2018b, pp. 14–15).
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Bendor, R. (2021). Transition or Transformation? The Mediated Meanings of Sustainability. In: Weder, F., Krainer, L., Karmasin, M. (eds) The Sustainability Communication Reader. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-31883-3_5
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