The shaping of environmental information in social media : affordances and technologies of self-control

This article studies environmental information as it circulates in social media, specifically in personal blogs and microblogs. It rests on a thematic analysis of a selection of Swedish language, personal, everyday life environment blogs active during 2011 and 2012 and the social media applications connected to these blogs. Gibson’s concept of affordances and Foucault's notion of governmentality are brought together to work out how material and technological affordances of social media and the structures of governmentality work together to engender a type of information on environmentally friendly living that is rooted in the conditions of the web and in a view of society, which is structured around choice and individual responsibility. The article argues that information is woven into the texture of the social on every level, including everyday life practices, and hence social media, as tools in such practices, contribute to shaping the way in which information on environmentally friendly living is articulated, shaped and filled with meaning.