Advocacy for Sustainability Communication: Unseen Potential of Queer Communicators in Environmental, Climate Change and Sustainability Science

Abstract

The story of climate change, of destruction and loss, is well represented in mass media around natural hazards and new scientific data (i.e., the newest IPCC report); in contrast, new concepts of restoration, eco-cultural identities, social change and sustainable development are not picked up in public discourses—similarly to how the voices of NGO communicators, activists or queer communicators are not heard in the media. Additionally, the growth of digital publishing technologies and related audience behavior not only influence public communication processes, but also challenge professional communicators, including journalists and PR professionals to scientists, artists and activists. With a series of explorative interviews in different cultural settings (Central Europe, Australia, New Zealand), we can show that queer communicators have the potential to cultivate a new understanding of sustainability communication as social conversation about sustainability, and thus, overcome the very visible old story about climate change and rather propagate the new story of sustainability and transformation. The interviews show that queer communicator advocacy focuses on mobilizing and initiating dialectic conversations, which includes community building and queering existing norms, thus choosing new pathways for communication for sustainability. The findings and the developed concept of advocacy for sustainability communication are discussed at the end of the paper, including a reflection on the limitations of the explorative character of the analysis and future research potential.

The Impact of Climate Change on Environmental Sustainability and Human Mortality

“…In the United States, using or avoiding the term climate change may be necessary to maintain audience engagement by different political parties [65]. Communication also plays an important role in finding new pathways to communicate facts and insights from climate change research with stronger sustainability solutions [66].…”

Explaining and approaching eco-anxiety: A theoretical and auto-ethnographic exploration of minds in climate crisis

“…The second article, by Weder and Samanta (2021), was an empirical study that considered the value of queered perspectives in science communication about the climate crisis. Weder and Samanta propose that we are locked in a binary that stifles the development of thought and communications around the climate crisis.…”