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Rhetorical orientations for promoting sustainable travel behavior: A perspective

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  • Sunio, Varsolo
  • Cortes, Robert Z.
  • Lactao, James

Abstract

We introduce eleven orientations underpinning the rhetoric for promoting (or impeding) sustainable travel behavior. These orientations are: convenience, status, health, privacy, safety-security, economic, environmental, impact, justice-equity, geographical, and problem-solution. Using a novel and systematic method, we perform the study in three stages. First, using online media as data source, we apply concordance and Gioia methods to identify the rhetorical orientations underpinning these texts. Second, we cluster the orientations according to the direction (pro- or anti-sustainability) being generally pushed by each orientation. Convenience, status, health, privacy, safety-security orientations, in general, push towards anti-sustainability direction. On the other hand, economic, environmental, impact, justice-equity, and geographical orientations generally push towards pro-sustainability direction. Meanwhile, problem-solution orientation appears equally in both clusters. Finally, we extract the semantics of each rhetorical orientation using collocation analysis to differentiate their vocabularies. Our findings show the discursive struggle and contestation in relation to mobility, which manifest not only in the differences in rhetorical orientations appropriated but also the vocabularies deployed. One important implication is that any attempt to render the messages promoting sustainable travel behavior more persuasive necessitates the de-legitimation of contrary rhetorical orientations (convenience, status and health, privacy and safety-security) by addressing the issues associated with them.

Suggested Citation

  • Sunio, Varsolo & Cortes, Robert Z. & Lactao, James, 2022. "Rhetorical orientations for promoting sustainable travel behavior: A perspective," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:retrec:v:91:y:2022:i:c:s0739885920302249
    DOI: 10.1016/j.retrec.2020.101026
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Rhetoric; Orientation; Persuasion; Environmental communication; Global south;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise
    • R40 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - General

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