5. The Culture of Nature: The Environmental Communication of Gardening Bloggers

This chapter analyzes approximately fifty Swedish and German gardening blogs to examine “ordinary” people’s media communication about environmental issues. The “difference-theoretical approach” that frames this study is described. The author finds that the communicative reactions of the garden bloggers to ecological concerns cohere around two ideas: domination over or partnership with nature. Blog entries generally concentrate on two main topics: consumption in terms of goods, and production in terms of gardening. These are topics with a high potential of connectivity. The chapter includes numerous quotes from the blogs as well as summarizations of the comments in response to blog posts. The topic of consumption can be addressed from several different perspectives; it is possible to argue for more or even less consumption without being aware of ecological consequences. However, topics concerned with production in home gardens are generally dominated by arguments for sustainable gardening, at least in text-based blogs. The author concludes that blogging is not so much about convincing people with different opinions as it is about coordinating the network of people who share similar interests and opinions.