Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The internet has changed the way we communicate. Through blogs it is now possible for everyone to
raise a voice that can be heard. Sustainable lifestyle bloggers provoke an opportunity to spread environmental
knowledge and encourage individuals to embrace a sustainable lifestyle. However, when
discussing the relation between citizenship and blogs, particular types of blogs such as lifestyle, fashion
and online diaries are often not considered relevant in studies (Sinanan, 2014). The social practice of
sustainable lifestyle bloggers is likely to influence the citizens' values, perception and assessment of
the problem. Hence, it is significant to understand how sustainable lifestyle bloggers appoint responsibility
and how they frame the citizens' role and their responsibility towards causing environmental
threats through everyday activities and consumption habits. This thesis aims to investigate how sustainable
lifestyle bloggers ascribe responsibility to themselves in the role of sustainable lifestyle bloggers.
The material for the analysis was obtained through five structured written interviews with five sustainable
lifestyle bloggers as well as through four blog posts from each blogger. As the method of analysis
a qualitative structured content analysis based on Mayring (2010) was chosen. Further, this research is
based on the epistemological view of social constructionism. This thesis concludes that the bloggers
assign a high individual responsibility to citizens for making sustainable consumption choices and that
sustainable lifestyle bloggers hold the power to create a space where a dialogue and deliberation can
occur. In this space online communities are created and citizenship can be practiced and exercised individually
(Luck & Ginanti, 2013).