Today, we are learning from Franzisca Weder.
As a communication and media scholar, Franzisca Weder knows that storytelling and the arts must sit alongside science, technology, business, and other disciplines to solve the challenges of sustainability and climate change.
Throughout her 20-year career in tertiary education, she has focused on using various communication strategies and forms of creative disruption to bring about individual and organisational change.
Her work turns the motto ‘all talk no action’ on its head, demonstrating instead the idea that ‘talking is action’. Communication, language, and stories are essential tools to help humans make sense of the world, question their reality, and develop new norms that create a socio-ecological transformation process.
Univ. Prof. Dr. habil Franzisca Weder, is researching, writing, and teaching in the areas of Organizational Communication and Public Relations with a specific focus on Sustainability Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility.
Franzisca Weder is the outgoing Chair and now Education Fellow of the International Environmental Communication Association (IECA).
Let’s get started…
In this conversation with Franzisca, I learned:
- 0:00 Intro
- 02:20 a short overview of where she has been living and teaching.
- 04:15 Difference between Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Communication
- 07:35 Sustainability is a very much Western concept.
- 10:45 Cultural differences and corporate communication
- 13:55 No room for an alternative story to our market-driven capitalistic system.
- 15:20 Looking at sustainability from an intercultural perspective can create a new understanding of what sustainability means.
- 18:25 Her biggest passion is to make students curious and courageous, authorship for change, and spark conversations.
- 26:30 The easy way to spark a conversation.
- 30:40 Sustainability is such a peaceful and harmony-creating term.
- 32:40 Create touching points between the stories. There is a lot of energy in there.
- 36:55 Find the hidden champions in your organisations and let them be the communication pioneers in their networks.
- 38:25 Find the issues that are very relevant for the people within my organisation and tell different stories.
- 43:50 Stereotypes in PR and communication jobs.
- 46:15 Using the Inner Development Goals with students and in the classroom.
- 57:05 Don’t call it the IDGs or the SDG’s for sustainability, due to the overuse of the term. It is key to changing behavior.
- 58:25 The quality of the sustainability question, What do you care about? What you care about, then you care for it.
- 1:03:25 Learn from local philosophers.
- 1:11:30 Professional communication had a good boost and they learned a lot from all the communication and reactions during the pandemic.
More about Franzisca Weder:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/franzisca-weder-491b9257/
- https://www.youtube.com/@franziscaweder8046
- At the Vienna University of Business & Economics: Franzisca Weder — Vienna University of Economics and Business (wu.ac.at)
- Some creative / disruptive work with students: finaltrashtination (youtube.com)
- Podcast „Sounds like Sustainability”: SoundslikeSustainability – YouTube
Books: (102 publications) and 28 projects
- Reimagining the sustainable consumer: Why social representations of sustainable consumption matter
- Career, Covid‐19, and Care: (Gendered) Impacts of the Pandemic on the Work of Communication Scholars
- CSR and Media Management
- CSR Communication and Cultures of Sustainability
- Cultivation of sustainability in a discourse of change: Perspectives on communication for sustainability as new “norm” and principle of action in socio-ecological transformation processes
- on Sustainability Communication: THE SUSTAINABILITY COMMUNICATION READER
- on integrated CSR Communication: INTEGRATED CSR COMMUNICATION
- or (in case you speak German..) on Organizational Communication and PR
- CSR Communication and Cultures of Sustainability. – Weder, Franzisca and Erikson, Marte (2023). Brisbane, QLD Australia: The University of Queensland. doi: 10.14264/428d81b
- Die CSR-Debatte in den Printmedien: Anlässe, Themen, Deutungen. Weder, Franzisca (2012). Vienna, Austria: facultas.wuv.
- Organisationskommunikation und Public Relations. Weder, F. (2009). Vienna, Austria: UTB facultas.
- Organisationskommunikation und CSR. Karmasin, Matthias and Weder, Franzisca (2008). Vienna, Austria: Lit-Verlag.
- Gesundheitsöffentlichkeit: die Entwicklung eine Netzwerkmodells für Journalismus und Public Relations. Weder, Franzisca (2006). Konstanz, Germany: UVK.
Other resources:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbVBzydg5_Y ‘inaugural lecture’ (#Antrittsvorlesung) at WU (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien)
- Katherine Hayhoe – TED talk The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it
- Inner Development Goals
- Sustainable Development Goals
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sYv_8O8Ocs (mybloodywaste eco-culture jam)
- finaltrashtination https://youtu.be/xjQdKJqf6YI
- Katja Diehl – Autokorektur
- Samen werken naar het happy 2050 scenario – Babette Porcelijn
- Nul afval met positieve psychologie – Elisah Pals
- Hidden Champions van de 21e eeuw #boekencast afl 25
- 116. Resilience, Joy & Perseverance In The Face Of Adversity / Amy Hopper – podcast episode with Nathalie Nahai
Video of the conversation with Franzisca Weder
Watch here https://youtu.be/PdVG1YWQrX4
