How can we create change for a more sustainable world? Despite the increasing urgency of this issue, why are communications failing, and how could they be improved?

In this module you will address these questions by combining the study of sustainable development with the study of futures. You will examine how sustainable development and futures are approached in contemporary discourse and go on to propose how these approaches could be improved.

Utilising critical discourse analysis, you will work individually and collaboratively, pooling the qualitative findings of your research to enable broader analysis and critiques, and finally creating ideas for promoting change.

On successful completion of the module you will be able to:

Identify and critique key approaches to sustainable development
Identify and critique key approaches to futures
Apply a Critical Discourse Analysis to a text of your own choosing
Collaborate effectively with others to perform analyses and present your results using a video format
Create a new text (written/image/video or otherwise) to promote future sustainable development

In this module, you will investigate sustainable development discourse and practice. You will be introduced to theories related to sustainable development and futures, contextualised through the consideration of historical and contemporary discourse. You will explore examples of communications on issues related to these themes with other students, before providing Critical Discourse Analyses on case studies of your own choosing. You will ultimately create a communications piece that promotes future sustainable development more effectively.