Communication and urban air quality governance in Germany: Discursive framing by selected national environmental NGOs and the Automotive Industry Association (VDA) and its potential impacts

Abstract

It is presented and contrasted through a framing analysis how selected environmental NGOs and the German Automotive Industry Association (VDA) engaged in the national German debate on urban air quality governance during the height of the emission scandal between 2015 and mid-2019. For this, frames of communication applied to communicate organizational priorities and conceptualizations of air quality governance to the public are discussed and their potential impact on public perception of different approaches to air quality governance assessed. It is shown that the presented frames provide opposing and competing conceptualizations of air quality impacts and related governance propositions, including health, environmental, economic, and regulatory issues. They align with the interests of the communicating actor groups and are supported by selected scientific knowledge. This, it is argued, can be linked to an interest group led capturing of public debate as identified for other politically charged topics, and structurally resembles a public negotiation on urban air quality governance. Such an approach to public discourse, it is argued, can have negative impacts on public engagement and openness to embrace sustainability led governance reforms, as it can reinforce existing attitudes and create opposition to governance change.