Greening 'The Block': Sustainability in mainstream lifestyle TV (original) (raw)
Residential renovations have become commonplace in westernised societies. Homeowners’ expectations can be affected by environmental concerns and energy efficiency. However, it is unclear if these concerns influence homeowners’ aspirations. Renovations occur more frequently and often without a clear rationale such as the repair or maintenance of a house (C. J. Maller and Horne 2011). The scale of renovation ranges between minor improvements to major alterations (Thuvander et al. 2012), the carbon impact of which is often difficult to determine. However, the waste produced, presents a quantifiable measure which can be used to determine the environmental impact of projects. Meanwhile, mass media and television programmes in particular are increasingly penetrating people’s lives, promoting reality shows, in which ordinary people are taken through transformative narrative of their daily lives (Lewis 2008a). Television, as a domestic media, represents the ‘normality’ of a household while programmes often relate to the triviality of everyday life(Ellis 1992). Property ‘makeovers’ have been promoted and amplified by media since the 1990s as part of a desirable lifestyle and have been turned into a perpetual activity (Goodsell 2008). More recently, there has been an attempt to ‘green’ such lifestyle television shows, introducing issues such as ethical consumption, environmental awareness while presenting and reflecting on the challenges that climate change brings to daily lives (Craig 2010). Using The Block as an example, the paper discusses whether there is evidence of sustainable practices, particularly to do with managing waste in the renovation process in mainstream television shows and investigates whether the show can act as a kind of ‘popular education’, promoting viewers’ (pro-environmental) choices when conducting similar real-life projects.
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