Actor, intermediary, and context: media in home renovation and consumption practice

ABSTRACT

Home renovations demonstrate the interplay between economic transactions and cultural values that shape consumption practice and consumer markets. The academic disciplines of environmental and social sciences and spheres of environmental policy and practice have taken interest in renovations because of their implications for improved environmental outcomes. However, a considerable blind spot in this work has been an out-of-step, largely one-dimensional, or peripheral engagement with media. This paper draws on interdisciplinary, mixed-method empirical research to explore the contribution of media studies to environmental policy, research, and practice. I develop a theoretical framework by synthesising across the functions of (i) actor, (ii) intermediary, and (iii) context to account for the role of media in the processes of change related to household consumption and sustainability. The paper concludes with some implications based on the framework.

KEYWORDS:

• Renovation
• consumption
• environmental sustainability
• media influence
• intermediary

Acknowledgement

Thanks to my collaborators at CSIRO who led the project, Magnus Moglia and James McGregor, and also colleagues at the NSW Government Office of Heritage and Environment, especially Charles Xu. I would like to acknowledge my co-researchers on a related CRC LCL project, Kath Hulse, Esther Milne, Tomi Winfree and Gavin Melles; as well as PhD candidates Shae Hunter, Aggeliki Aggeli, and Sarah Fiess. Thanks to Peter Newton for the initial encouragement to pursue cultural and media research in the space of domestic energy efficiency; and also to Stephen White, CRC LCL Program III Leader for support. Dr Michael Niemann and Nicolette Snowden provided valuable research assistance at different stages of the research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. However, for the political economy critique of interventions that target individual consumption without enlisting global commercial interests, see Conca (2001).

2. For further details on methods, see (Hulse et al., 2015).

3. The social practice theory’s framework of ‘practice’ with constitutive elements such as meanings, materials, and competences lends itself well, arguably, to the inclusion of media (symbolic / material). Our colleague Shae Hunter is developing this line of analysis in her doctoral thesis.

4. This refers to the example of the development of Nordic walking as a popular practice (Shove & Pantzar, 2005).

5. Insert related comment after blind review.

6. There is an emergent interest in scholarship and applied research work in the role that social media can play in communication and public engagement by local councils in Australia; some studies highlighting the challenges local councils face (Omar, Scheepers, & Stockdale, 2012).

7. For details, see Podkalicka et al., (2016).

8. See the framework by Burke and Ralston (2015, p. 19) that captures the significance of ‘media and information systems’ alongside ‘systems of governance’, ‘education and information’, ‘regulation’, etc. as ‘a wider institutional environment’ affecting the market and household consumption.

9. Although the ABM framework developed by our project collaborators proposes ways of approximating this influence.

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by the CRC for Low Carbon Living Ltd supported by the Cooperative Research Centres program, an Australian Government initiative. It is also co-funded by CSIRO and the NSW Government’s Office of Environment and Heritage.

Notes on contributors

Aneta Podkalicka

Aneta Podkalicka is a cultural and media researcher working in the areas of social inclusion, consumption, economic and environmental sustainability. She is an author of Using media for social innovation (with Ellie Rennie) and Grand Designs: Consumer markets and home-making (with Esther Milne and Jenny Kennedy).