Rematerializing Electronic Communication through the 'Green My Apple' Campaign

• In Event: Top-Ranked Papers in Environmental Communication

Abstract

This essay examines the a-material narrative surrounding electronic communication as an indication of the tactile fallacy that associates materiality with directly perceivable objects. Because the environmental impacts of electronic communication are removed in space and time, its physical environmental materiality cannot be immediately sensed. An analysis of Greenpeace’s 2006-2007 “Green My Apple” campaign demonstrates how the affective capacity of electronic communication may rematerialize the practice by creating an embodied awareness of physical environmental concerns.

Author

• Lisa Slawter Volkening, University of Georgia