Introducing the Idea of Communicative Sustainability

The final speaker in this IAMCR 2019 session is Irene Neverla, who introduces the concept of communicative sustainability. This may be a research perspective as well as an analytical tool for the study of mediatised societies.

Society is currently undergoing substantial transformative processes, driven by technological factors (digitalisation and artificial intelligence); economic factors (globalisation, turbo-capitalism, and neo-liberalism); political factors (the return of authoritarianism); sociological factors (especially the acceleration of change); and ecological factors (the overexploitation of naturals resources).

This might be understood as humanity reaching its limits, which generates a substantial amount of dystopia narratives to explain the present moment and its implications. Communication research should not just accept such dystopian perspectives outright, but reflect them from a critical perspective.

A counterpoint to them may be the concept of sustainability, which first emerged in the 18th century but has become substantially more prominent in recent decades. Sustainable development, in particular, is not a fixed state of harmony, but a process of change that is managed in order to be consistent with the needs of the present as well as with those of the future. How might this be translated to the field of communication research?

Sustainability here might mean that our thinking needs to be processual, complex, long-term, and assuming the adaptability of humans and their societies; this may address environmental, resource, and process dimensions. These should also always consider questions of power within these dimensions.

With respect to the environment, this should address the communicative figurations into which the individual is embedded; the organisations (especially media) that are present in the environment; and the systems (for instance, of media and journalism) that operate within it.

The resource dimension might address data (including datafication and data colonialism); time (and its de- or acceleration); space (including delimitation and elimination and the creation of non-locations); attention (which is constructed by news coverage and other communicative processes); and memory (both retrospective and prospective).

Finally, the process dimension might explore both interpersonal communication and its role in shared sense-making; and the development of (new) public spheres within which public communication can take place.