Climate-conscious citizenship in a digital urban setting

Authors

  • Sophie Esmann Andersen ASB Centre for Corporate Communication
  • Anne Ellerup Nielsen ASB Centre for Corporate Communication

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/mediekultur.v27i50.2723

Keywords:

Climate change, Socially responsible consumer, Citizenship,

Abstract

Climate change has challenged urban life, and as an omnipresent force, Nature sets the agenda for urban living. Using stakeholder theory to conceptualise urban life, we approach Nature as both an omnipresent stakeholder and an issue to be continuously addressed and related to. Adapting the stakeholder focus to relations, stakes and values, we conceptually analyse the digital installation entitled CO2mmitment/CO2nfessions, which was a prominent part of the Aarhus CO2030 exhibition launching the vision of the Danish city of Aarhus to become carbon neutral by the year 2030. In the analysis, we explore how the citizen is framed and invited to enact his/her responsibilities to the natural environment in an urban setting and how the digital mediation facilitates various forms of relations and climate conscious positions, incorporating both narcissistic desires, universal anxiety, moral obligations, ethical virtue and image performance. Statements from the actual confessors/committers exemplify this. Thus, the paper provides insight into understanding the complexity of climate-conscious citizenship as a complex configuration of paradoxical, co-existing ethics and arguments.

Author Biographies

Sophie Esmann Andersen, ASB Centre for Corporate Communication

Sophie Esmann Andersen is an assistant professor, PhD at the Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University, Denmark. She is affiliated with the ASB Research Centre for Corporate Communication, and her research and teaching areas include corporate branding, market cultures and consumption studies

Anne Ellerup Nielsen, ASB Centre for Corporate Communication

Anne Ellerup Nielsen is an associate professor, PhD at the Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University. She is affiliated with the ASB Research Centre for Corporate Communication, and her research and teaching areas are management communication, corporate branding and corporate social responsibility communication. She has been published in international journals such as “The Business & Society Review”, “The European Journal of Business Ethics” and “IT and People”.

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Published

2011-06-27

How to Cite

Andersen, S. E., & Nielsen, A. E. (2011). Climate-conscious citizenship in a digital urban setting. MedieKultur: Journal of Media and Communication Research, 27(50), 24 p. https://doi.org/10.7146/mediekultur.v27i50.2723