Characteristics of the Digital Content about Energy-Saving in Different Countries around the World

Gabriel Valerio-Ureña and Richard Rogers
Additional contact information
Gabriel Valerio-Ureña: School of Humanities and Education, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Monterrey 64700, Mexico
Richard Rogers: Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam, 1012XT Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 17, 1-14

Abstract: Environmental sustainability is fundamental for human well-being, and energy-saving behaviors are fundamental for promoting environmental sustainability. This paper explores the types of information consumed on the Internet concerning the topic of energy-saving. The qualitative study used digital methods to analyze, from 17 different countries, one-year of Google searches, 170 webpages, and 6800 images. The results demonstrated that (a) most topics related to energy-saving involved commercial products; (b) in countries from North America, Europe, and Oceania, Google’s highest-ranked webpages were of a commercial nature, and in countries from Latin America, Africa, and Asia, webpages were of an educational nature; and (c) most images found in Google with the “energy-saving” query were related to lighting products. By and large, commercial interests were found to dominate the digital rhetoric around energy-saving, regardless of the countries’ region.

Keywords: energy-saving behavior; digital content; digital methods; Google Search; image analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/17/4704/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/17/4704/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:17:p:4704-:d:261977

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().