Week 9: Cultural Values & Cognitive Frames in Environmental Communications

Week 9 Reading notes:

 McCollough, J, Bayramoglu, MF & He, M 2018, ‘Transitioning into a ‘throwaway planet’’, International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 131–140.

This article tells us the reason why the United States becomes a throwaway society and why other developing countries are in transition to a throwaway society, that is, why consumers tend to replace products rather than repair them. In addition, it also demonstrates the methods of investigating the causes of this social phenomenon and the results obtained after the investigation and proposes some solutions to how to solve the growing problem of a throwaway society.

Reasons:

1.New production methods, new production techniques, outsourcing of manufacturing, reduction of trade barriers, improvement in transportation efficiency, and other efficiency improvements reduce the cost of new products.

2.The average wage of American workers has increased.

3. Manufacturing plants move to places where there is cheap labor and production costs are reduced

4. Education and a social stigma attached to blue-collar work have led to students' reluctance to take up blue-collar positions, which has led to fewer maintenance workers and higher maintenance fees.

5. Higher-earning individuals are more likely to give up on repairs, which in most cases take time. This means either waiting for the repairman to show up and finish the repair, or staying home and trying to fix it yourself. It may be a waste of time.

6. Many consumers find the repair product to be time-consuming, inconvenient, expensive and frustrating. In addition, the product may not be repairable or repaired incorrectly.

7. More and more companies are demanding less quality from their products, and consumers think the products are at the end of their lives and don't need to be repaired.

8. Per capita GDP growth, consumers have more money to buy new products (For Developing countries).

9. Many emerging markets have moved from command and control to more liberal market economies. In the past, these consumers had limited access to many household products, making them unaffordable. But as emerging markets shed their command and control of the economy, demand for household products rose.

10. The growth of unsecured credit (i.e., credit cards), the popularity of credit cards has enabled more Americans to satisfy their desire for instant gratification.The increase in credit card use has made it easier for consumers to replace products rather than repair them (McCollough, 2010).

As the rest of the world grows, more and more nations will join the ranks of the United States as an abandoned society. If this phenomenon is not stopped in time, the environmental consequences will become more serious. To solve this problem, this article integrates some solutions proposed by experts.

1. Forcing companies to design products that are easy to repair. But that may prompt some companies to move to places that don't have it, but if consumers demand it in conjunction with the government's policy of charging citizens to dispose of large appliances and other products, enterprises are likely to respond.

2. Manufacturers could also offer longer lasting warranties on their products which would entice consumers to repair the appliance if it malfunctions. Manufacturers might have to charge a fee to extend a warranty beyond that which is common. To increase the length of time for a warranty, governments could reduce or alleviate the sales tax on a warranty (Transitioning into a ‘throwaway planet’, 2017).

3. Governments, especially in developed countries, subsidize the cost of vocational education. This could increase the supply of young maintenance technicians and thus reduce the wage rate of maintenance technicians.

But at the end of the article, the author notes that as global GDP per capita is growing, new production technologies are making production costs lower, more people can afford new products, and repair workers' wages are rising. This means that there will be more countries in transition to become a throwaway society, which is a very unsustainable event.

Week 9 Lecture notes:

Cultural values, cognitive frames and Identity

The use of cultural values, cognitive frames and communication affect our behaviours, choices and our sense of who we are. In the context of environmental communications and in particular cultural values, cognitive frames can either reinforce narratives of consumption and self-interest by standing in the way of pro-environmental outcomes. On the other hand they can reinforce our ability to care and protect the things we value most and the world around us.  

Looking at the 5 examples at the beginning of the lecture we see images projecting a narrative that tells a story. These are just more than ads showing a product. By using design rhetoric they serve to steer our choices, behaviours and aspirations and in doing so shape who we think we are. Sometimes this can be a force for good where design enables self-awareness, self-expression, the formation of one's own views and the creation of authentic caring relationships. But another consequence of this is where design narratives damage, hurt and even alienate people. The middle ground is where sophisticated marketing stimulates consumption using communication narratives that appear to be doing one thing while appearing to support the other.

Desire + Individualism + Narrative = Identity (of product and consumer)

We express ourselves narratively not only in word and action but also with the objects and spaces we surround ourselves with. Our human identity is a narrative construct and the modern act of consuming is connected with identity.

Currently the world’s natural ecology is jeopardised by the influence of human design and as we are all designers of our fate we must understand that the designs that we design have greater, far reaching consequences than intended.

So how do we engage concern about irresponsible human behaviour? Fear Appeal is a very common tool used and in some instances it works as it may promote donation or support for the cause it is promoting however this is generally ‘preaching to the converted’ and the result will pull heartstrings of the already concerned. Where Fear Appeal fails is that by evoking anxiety in people we cause a ‘turning away affect’ where people divert their conscious away from the subject in order to get relief or avoid discomfort. So positive action becomes negated as anxiety becomes a tool to provoke unconscious tactics of denial in order to protect the individual’s mental wellbeing.

The same effect can be seen with information campaigns and where the human interaction with the infographic or graph may not seem personal. The information is easily diverted and does not achieve its goal in creating change as no personal connection is made, more knowledge may not necessarily mean more action.

Looking at marketing narratives to green consumerism it is positive to see that alternative eco products are on offer in the marketplace however the subtext that comes with their marketing can easily imply that environmental protection and sustainably are just a matter of purchase choice rather than habit or lifestyle choice. Having the market dictate environmental action can be dangerous in a few ways. 

1. Placing responsibility on the individual shoppers and seeming to divert responsibility from corporate entities.

2. Insulates consumers from the real-world consequences of their decisions.

3. The scale of effort need only be small while keeping lifestyle intact but the opposite is more likely if the general consumption lifestyle isn’t changed.

4. Green consumerism misleads us into feeling that we are being green. Products that embody behaviour change are acting in place as a proxy of change itself.

A problem of this is summed up by Tim Jackson “…it is quite possible to have a rapidly expanding marketplace for ‘sustainable’ products, produced by increasingly efficient production processes, and yet for resource consumption and the associated environmental impacts to grow.” (Tim Jackson 2006) This can have unintended negative feedback loops that undermine the original goal of protecting the environment even if the short term help seems good.

How can design help?

Design needs to bring about universalism and care through connecting as a whole the environment around the users. Generally design communicates in an individual singular approach but by connecting it with the world around us we can come about better cultural values, communication framing and concepts of human identity. Values shape our beliefs which are tied to our emotions and motivate our behaviour. Of the 10 basic values we possess two groups are significant to pro environmental behaviour. Extrinsic and intrinsic.

Hedonism, Achievement and Power v Universalism Benevolence

When one set is engaged two results happen cognitively in the user.

1)    See-saw effect: When one set of values is engaged the opposite set diminishes.

2)    Spillover effect: When a value is engaged, those related to it can also become engaged. 

Cognitive frames: Prime our thinking with metaphors describing one thing in terms of another even before we have made a choice. This is how particular beliefs become normalised even sometimes unconsciously.

Communications framed by extrinsic values engage the subconscious on personal gain whereas Communications engaging intrinsic values brings about a bigger-than-self-concept where we feel more connected and fulfilled i.e.: family, culture & love.

Taking the famous EarthRise photograph as an example it reframes the human importance of through the context of us floating alone thus giving us a bigger than self-value.

The way we communicate our relationship to the world has a deep effect on how we see ourselves. Human identity is shaped by our cultural values and how they are expressed, so do we continue to look at ourselves in material terms or can we validate ourselves to bring about positive behaviour towards environmental ethics.

Week 9 Tutorial notes:

Framing is the way we think about things, is learned by frequency of notion, and is used in design to define the problem. Cultural framing influences self-identity, childhood experiences, what we like and decisions we make.

Throwaway society is a norm in developed countries where people have no feel of where things are made and disposed of, and have short term thinking when purchasing. The consumers have the power to change the system by not buying designed-for-landfill products and push companies to change. Change could be made at the individual level to change the market demand, but big companies have more power in the system. Individuals are susceptible to the advertisement of companies such as to eat delicious fast food although they know they should eat more healthily. It is human nature to want convenience, comfort, and to look good, hence causing the throwaway society.

Big companies frame their business as to make profits, hence losing the relationship with customers that small and medium businesses have. They focus on financial return instead of return in human relationships or community. This is also due to the structure of society that values GDP not GPI, hence the government focuses on “rebooting the economy” instead of “the community” when deciding on policies for the Covid situation. 

The sentimental value and build quality of product, price of repair versus getting a new one, and time and convenience affects people’s decisions whether to throw or repair a product. To reverse the throwaway society, instead of relying on the consumer’s moral and ethics to pay the higher repair cost, the government could increase tax on new products, or implement a higher standard for quality of goods that are manufactured offshore and imported into the country, so that the imbalance between new product price and repair cost could be solved. The government had put fundings in vocational courses which is a good policy because service prices could be reduced once more people are qualified to repair stuff. As a designer we definitely have a role in reversing the throwaway society by designing products that are repairable, but first there has to be a shift in the market demand to opt for repair instead of buying new products.

Group Reflection and Discussion:

The amount of cheap items that shuyun has and will not use and get thrown away later is concerning. Yilu’s sister always makes impulse purchases which causes overconsumption.

We are engrossed in a throwaway society. Andew has already thrown away hundreds of nappies and will throw away hundreds more, is it ok to be sold these nappies. Why is it up to me to make the moral choice when human nature will usually result in the easy way out. Why isn’t there a law making all nappies biodegradable? Why is huggies allowed to fill landfill?