IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/anture/v79y2019ics016073831930132x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Celebrities, air travel, and social norms

Author

Listed:
  • Gössling, Stefan

Abstract

The year 2018 saw the rise of a new global youth movement, Fridays for Future. The organization underlines the importance of personal accountability for greenhouse gas emissions, specifically in the context of air travel. This position is in stark contrast to views associating aeromobility with status. Celebrities in particular maintain personal brands based on frequent flying. This paper assesses the aeromobilities of celebrities, for which it develops a netnography-based methodology that tracks spatial movement on the basis of social media posts. Data is analyzed to determine travel patterns, distances flown, and fuel consumed. Findings are discussed in terms of the energy-intensity of celebrity lifestyles and the struggle over moral and social norms regarding personal accountability for contributions to climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • Gössling, Stefan, 2019. "Celebrities, air travel, and social norms," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:anture:v:79:y:2019:i:c:s016073831930132x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2019.102775
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016073831930132X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.annals.2019.102775?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brand, Christian & Boardman, Brenda, 2008. "Taming of the few--The unequal distribution of greenhouse gas emissions from personal travel in the UK," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 224-238, January.
    2. Stead, D., 1999. "Relationships between transport emissions and travel patterns in Britain," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 247-258, October.
    3. Gill, Bernhard & Moeller, Simon, 2018. "GHG Emissions and the Rural-Urban Divide. A Carbon Footprint Analysis Based on the German Official Income and Expenditure Survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 160-169.
    4. Gössling, Stefan & Hanna, Paul & Higham, James & Cohen, Scott & Hopkins, Debbie, 2019. "Can we fly less? Evaluating the ‘necessity’ of air travel," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    5. Stefan Gössling & Iliada Stavrinidi, 2016. "Social Networking, Mobilities, and the Rise of Liquid Identities," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(5), pages 723-743, October.
    6. McCracken, Grant, 1989. "Who Is the Celebrity Endorser? Cultural Foundations of the Endorsement Process," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 16(3), pages 310-321, December.
    7. Scott Prudham, 2009. "Pimping Climate Change: Richard Branson, Global Warming, and the Performance of Green Capitalism," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(7), pages 1594-1613, July.
    8. Hares, Andrew & Dickinson, Janet & Wilkes, Keith, 2010. "Climate change and the air travel decisions of UK tourists," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 466-473.
    9. Wang, Stephen W. & Kao, Grace Hsiu-Ying & Ngamsiriudom, Waros, 2017. "Consumers' attitude of endorser credibility, brand and intention with respect to celebrity endorsement of the airline sector," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 10-17.
    10. Brand, Christian & Preston, John M., 2010. "'60-20 emission'--The unequal distribution of greenhouse gas emissions from personal, non-business travel in the UK," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 9-19, January.
    11. Anand, Sudhir & Segal, Paul, 2017. "Who Are the Global Top 1%?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 111-126.
    12. Anand, Sudhir & Segal, Paul, 2017. "Who are the global top 1%?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101816, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Büchs, Milena & Schnepf, Sylke V., 2013. "Who emits most? Associations between socio-economic factors and UK households' home energy, transport, indirect and total CO2 emissions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 114-123.
    14. Girod, Bastien & de Haan, Peter, 2009. "GHG reduction potential of changes in consumption patterns and higher quality levels: Evidence from Swiss household consumption survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5650-5661, December.
    15. Alison Anderson, 2011. "Sources, media, and modes of climate change communication: the role of celebrities," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 2(4), pages 535-546, July.
    16. Peters, Glen P., 2008. "From production-based to consumption-based national emission inventories," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 13-23, March.
    17. Abernathy, William J. & Clark, Kim B., 1985. "Innovation: Mapping the winds of creative destruction," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 3-22, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Huihui Wang & Weihua Zeng, 2019. "Revealing Urban Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 ) Emission Characteristics and Influencing Mechanisms from the Perspective of Commuting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-22, January.
    2. Pu Lyu & Yongjie Lin & Yuanqing Wang, 2019. "The impacts of household features on commuting carbon emissions: a case study of Xi’an, China," Transportation, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 841-857, June.
    3. Pottier, Antonin, 2022. "Expenditure elasticity and income elasticity of GHG emissions: A survey of literature on household carbon footprint," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    4. Pottier, Antonin & Combet, Emmanuel & Cayla, Jean-Michel & de Lauretis, Simona & Nadaud, Franck, 2021. "Who emits CO2 ? Landscape of ecological inequalities in France from a critical perspective," FEEM Working Papers 311053, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    5. Leroutier, Marion & Quirion, Philippe, 2022. "Air pollution and CO2 from daily mobility: Who emits and Why? Evidence from Paris," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    6. Ottelin, Juudit & Heinonen, Jukka & Junnila, Seppo, 2014. "Greenhouse gas emissions from flying can offset the gain from reduced driving in dense urban areas," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 1-9.
    7. Kristian S. Nielsen & Kimberly A. Nicholas & Felix Creutzig & Thomas Dietz & Paul C. Stern, 2021. "The role of high-socioeconomic-status people in locking in or rapidly reducing energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 6(11), pages 1011-1016, November.
    8. Liu Yang & Yuanqing Wang & Yujun Lian & Xin Dong & Jianhong Liu & Yuanyuan Liu & Zhouhao Wu, 2023. "Rational planning strategies of urban structure, metro, and car use for reducing transport carbon dioxide emissions in developing cities," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(7), pages 6987-7010, July.
    9. Bel, Germà & Rosell, Jordi, 2017. "The impact of socioeconomic characteristics on CO2 emissions associated with urban mobility: Inequality across individuals," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 251-261.
    10. Theine, Hendrik & Humer, Stefan & Moser, Mathias & Schnetzer, Matthias, 2022. "Emissions inequality: Disparities in income, expenditure, and the carbon footprint in Austria," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    11. Bäuerle, Max Juri, 2022. "Striving for low-carbon lifestyles: An analysis of the mobility patterns of different urban household types with regard to emissions reductions in a real-world lab experiment in Berlin," Discussion Papers, Research Group Digital Mobility and Social Differentiation SP III 2022-601, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    12. Yuanqing Wang & Liu Yang & Sunsheng Han & Chao Li & T. V. Ramachandra, 2017. "Urban CO2 emissions in Xi’an and Bangalore by commuters: implications for controlling urban transportation carbon dioxide emissions in developing countries," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 22(7), pages 993-1019, October.
    13. Hasan, Iftekhar & Horvath, Roman & Mares, Jan, 2020. "Finance and wealth inequality," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    14. Sean Higgins & Nora Lustig & Andrea Vigorito, 2018. "The Rich Underreport their Income: Assessing Bias in Inequality Estimates and Correction Methods using Linked Survey and Tax Data," Working Papers 1808, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    15. Rory Horner & David Hulme, 2019. "From International to Global Development: New Geographies of 21st Century Development," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 50(2), pages 347-378, March.
    16. Liu Yang & Yuanqing Wang & Yujun Lian & Zhongming Guo & Yuanyuan Liu & Zhouhao Wu & Tieyue Zhang, 2022. "Key Factors, Planning Strategy and Policy for Low-Carbon Transport Development in Developing Cities of China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-14, October.
    17. Branko Milanovic, 2022. "After the Financial Crisis: The Evolution of the Global Income Distribution Between 2008 and 2013," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(1), pages 43-73, March.
    18. Burdín, Gabriel & De Rosa, Mauricio & Vigorito, Andrea & Vilá, Joan, 2022. "Falling inequality and the growing capital income share: Reconciling divergent trends in survey and tax data," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    19. Diego Winkelried & Bruno Escobar, 2022. "Declining inequality in Latin America? Robustness checks for Peru," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(1), pages 223-243, March.
    20. Facundo Alvaredo & Lucas Chancel & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2020. "Towards a System of Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Global Inequality Estimates from WID.world," Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), issue 517-518-5, pages 41-59.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:anture:v:79:y:2019:i:c:s016073831930132x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/annals-of-tourism-research/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.