(Re)storying Sustainability: The Use of Story Cubes in Narrative Inquiries to Understand Individual Perceptions of Sustainability

Franzisca Weder, Stella Lemke and Amornpan Tungarat
Additional contact information
Franzisca Weder: Department of Media and Communication Studies, University of Klagenfurt, 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria
Stella Lemke: Institute for Social Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Lübeck, 23562 Lübeck, Germany
Amornpan Tungarat: Department of Media and Communication Studies, University of Klagenfurt, 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 19, 1-15

Abstract: Narratives represent storied ways of knowing and communicating. Therefore, storytelling, framing and narrative analyses have always been a key feature in media and communication research. In this paper, an innovative approach to narrative inquiries is introduced to capture reflections on individual experiences of sustainability over time. Storytelling is perceived as an act of problematization and, at the same time, as method of analysis. Using Rory’s Story Cubes ® (dices with pictograms), we stimulated 35 interviewees from various cultural backgrounds (Asian, European, Anglo-American) to story life events that they relate to sustainability and put it into order and meaning. Our analysis and evaluation of the interviews focused on the story as a whole, which was then linked to the individual biographical background to understand motives and the moral frame(work) for problematizing (un)sustainable behavior. In particular, we focus on problematization as core process of storytelling and complement existing approaches coming from actor-network theory and Foucault’s discourse analysis with Entman’s concept of framing. In this paper, this innovative form of a narrative inquiry is put up for discussion for environmental communication research in order to create a better understanding of individual perceptions of sustainability and sustainability related issues.

Keywords: sustainability communication; storytelling; framing; problematization; narrative interviews; triangulation (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 (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/19/5264/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/19/5264/ (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:19:p:5264-:d:270564

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 ().