Logos, Ethos, Pathos, Sustainabilitos? About the Role of Media Companies in Reaching Sustainable Development

Denise Voci

doi:10.3390/su14052591

Abstract

As producers of economic and cultural goods, media companies are subject to a double responsibility: regarding how they operate and how they represent reality in their products. Thus, their social responsibility is primarily the “brain print” they leave on their audience. Communication of, about, and for sustainability through mass media is therefore essential to create a shared understanding of societal values on sustainability, creating public engagement, and contributing to sustainable development. Accordingly, the present study aims at understanding how media (companies) take their responsibility as key communicators in the public sphere and analyze how they communicate and thus construct the sustainability discourse through their products. For this, sustainability-related content produced and broadcasted by the two largest commercial media companies in Germany (RTL and ProSiebenSat1; n = 50 online articles and n = 89 videos, 601 min in total) was analyzed by qualitative content analysis and rhetoric text analysis to understand what and how media communicate sustainability. Results show that most media sustainability-related content addresses food issues, followed by issues regarding resources and the environment, thus contributing to the achievement of some of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Namely: SDG#2 (zero hunger), #6 (clean water and sanitation), #13 (climate action), #14 (life below water), and #15 (life on land). These issues are primarily communicated logically, appealing to the audience’s reason (logos, 76%), while the ethical appeal ethos (22%) and the emotional pathos (2%) scarcely occur. The analysis also leaves room for discussion regarding the responsibility of media companies in their role as communicators of, about, and for sustainability; about how they fulfill their responsibility in accordance with the SDG Media Compact, and about the opportunities and risks of applying different rhetorical appeals.

Highlights

Sustainability has increasingly occupied a prominent role in our society in recent years, moving beyond its buzzword status
The social responsibility of media companies is not primarily their physical footprint but the “brain print” they leave on their audience since mass media play a decisive role in the construction and the communication of risks and crises [4,5,6], and in how the public responds to these threats [7,8,9,10]
If we understand their communication as an attempt to contribute with their media products towards sustainable development, the analysis showed that the two media groups RTL and ProSiebenSat1 try to contribute in relation to seven out of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Summary

Introduction

Sustainability has increasingly occupied a prominent role in our society in recent years, moving beyond its buzzword status. The social responsibility of media companies is not primarily their physical footprint but the “brain print” they leave on their audience since mass media play a decisive role in the construction and the communication of risks and crises [4,5,6], and in how the public responds to these threats [7,8,9,10] Due to their complexity, sustainability issues are often not perceived as direct experiences but reach people rather through communicative means [3].

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion