Rethinking the meaning of “landscape shocks” in energy transitions: German social representations of the Fukushima nuclear accident

Publikation: Beiträge in ZeitschriftenZeitschriftenaufsätzeForschungbegutachtet

Authors

Sociotechnical sustainability transitions are understood to involve changes in cultural meaning, alongside a wide variety of other changes. One of the most popular conceptual models of such change, the multi-level perspective, exogenously locates slow-changing cultural factors in the ‘sociotechnical landscape’, viewing this landscape as periodically subject to ‘shocks’ that may support the break-through of niche innovations. Here we emphasise that shock to a sociotechnical system has social psychological dimensions, including meaning-related correlates. Accordingly, we apply social representations theory, as a theory of meaning, to provide a social psychological account of energy landscape shock and associated policy change. For illustration we take newspaper representations of the 2011 German social and policy response to the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan. The study illustrates the inter-related role of affect, identity and symbolic meaning-making in the public response to a sociotechnical landscape shock.

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Aufsatznummer101710
ZeitschriftEnergy Research and Social Science
Jahrgang69
Anzahl der Seiten12
ISSN2214-6296
DOIs
PublikationsstatusErschienen - 11.2020

DOI

Zuletzt angesehen

Publikationen

  1. Positive intercropping effects on biomass production are species-specific and involve rhizosphere enzyme activities
  2. “It shouldn’t look aggressive”
  3. Just another buzzword?
  4. Immediation as process and practice of signaletic mattering
  5. Drugs in the Environment
  6. §§ 1–13 Hohe-See-Einbringungsgesetz (HSEG)
  7. Red and green loops help uncover missing feedbacks in a coral reef social–ecological system
  8. PISA, SINUS, Bildungsstandards
  9. Characterization of dissimilar friction stir welded lap joints of AA5083 and GL D36 steel
  10. Family firm identity and capital structure decisions
  11. CSR management and reporting between voluntary bonding and legal regulation
  12. Does it pay off? Integrated reporting and cost of debt
  13. Article 76 CISG
  14. Synergistic cooperation between wastewater-born algae and activated sludge for wastewater treatment
  15. Modeling the Quarter-Vehicle
  16. Relating to water, spaces, and other agents. On the journey behind Juliane Tübke’s project Weathering
  17. Material circularity and the role of the chemical sciences as a key enabler of a sustainable post-trash age
  18. The influence of images on organizational attractiveness
  19. What Do We Know About Modernization Today?
  20. Emotion understanding and cognitive abilities in young children
  21. Creating leadership collectives for sustainability transformations
  22. Effects of plant diversity on invertebrate herbivory in experimental grassland
  23. Climate-neutral and sustainable campus Leuphana University of Lueneburg
  24. Public Value and Happiness
  25. Multi-trophic guilds respond differently to changing elevation in a subtropical forest
  26. Artistic Research on Anonymity
  27. Leveraging Architectural Thinking for Large-Scale E-Government Projects
  28. Of housewives and feminists
  29. Energiepolitik
  30. The Problems of Modern Societies — Epistemic Design around 1970