Weather Incorporated - Environmental Education, Postmodern Identities, and Technocultural Constructions of Nature

Oct 15, 2026

This essay examines how technocultural discourses textualize nature through satellite-based weather monitoring and digital imaging technologies in global consumer markets. It argues that these mediations do more than structure everyday weather experience: they help produce identities as worldly actors by regulating social and cultural practices for engaging with nature. The essay proposes critical readings of popular weather media as essential to environmental education.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time45 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Strange Weather

Ecocritical approach to weather texts

Four common sites of weather discourse

Weather maps and national identity

Weather™ Incorporated: Environmental Education, Postmodern Identities, and Technocultural Constructions of Nature Noel Gough, Deakin University, Australia Abstract In this essay I examine some of the ways in which nature is textualized in technocultural discourses, with particular reference to the incorporation of satellite-based weather monitoring and digital imaging technologies into global consumer markets of information and entertainment. I argue that these discourses not only construct and mediate our day-to-day experience of weather, but also help to produce our identities as actors in the world by regulating the social and cultural practices through which we interact with nature. I suggest that critical readings of popular media representations of weather, such as those I provide here, are a necessary part of an approach to environmental education that recognizes and problematizes our participation in the cultural narratives and processes that produce our understandings of “nature” and “culture” and mediate their interactions. Résumé Dans cet essai, l’auteur étudie quelques–unes des façons dont la nature est prise en compte dans les discours technoculturels, en se référant plus spécifiquement à l’introduction du monitoring de la météo par satellite et des technologies de l’imagerie digitale dans les marchésglobaux de consommation de l’information et du loisir. L’auteur soutient que non seulement ces discours construisent et influencent notre expérience quotidienne du temps qu’il fait, mais qu’ils contribuent également à développer nos identités en tant qu’acteurs du monde en régulant les pratiques sociales et culturelles à travers lesquelles nous interagissons avec la nature. L’auteur Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 2, Spring 1997 145 suggère de considérer la lecture critique des représentations du temps (conditions climatiques) véhiculées par les médias populaires, comme celles qui sont fournies dans cet article, comme une composante essentielle d’une éducation relative à l’environnement qui reconnaît et questionne notre participation dans les processus et les discours culturels qui produisent nos compréhensions de la “nature” et de la “culture” et influencent leurs interactions. Strange Weather All over the world Strangers Talk only about the weather (Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan,“Strange weather,” 1967) . . . aside from general elections, weather forecasting is the only time most of us see a national map (Andrew Ross, Strange Weather, 1991, p. 242) As an academic educator with unabashed ecopolitical commitments (see, for example, Gough, 1989, 1994) the standpoint from which I appraise many texts—including song lyrics and weather forecasts—might best be described as ecocritical. In a recent essay exploring a number of principles of ecocriticism, William Howarth (1996) describes an ecocritic as “a person who judges the merits and faults of writings that depict the effects of culture upon nature, with a view toward celebrating nature, berating its despoilers, and reversing their harm through political action.” While I share many of Howarth’s own reservations about the adequacy of this definition, it nevertheless serves my purpose here, which is to subject some contemporary popular discourses of weather broadcasting toecocritical scrutiny. I do this from a poststructuralist perspective which recognizes that the discursive networks to which we have access in our everyday lives are significant in producing our identities as actors in the world and regulating the social and cultural practices through which we interact with nature. I chose the quotations which open this essay not only because they come from different works with the same title (although I certainly hoped this would pique readers’ curiosity) but more particularly because, despite their brevity, they gesture eloquently towards the many different ways in which weather is implicated in the everyday transactions through

FAQs

What technologies does the essay focus on in relation to weather?

It focuses on satellite-based weather monitoring and digital imaging technologies used in global consumer information and entertainment markets.

How does the essay describe the role of weather discourse in identity formation?

Weather discourses construct and mediate everyday weather experience while regulating social and cultural practices that shape identities as actors in the world.

What four common sites of weather discourse are identified?

Conversational icebreaking, popular song, mass media weather forecasts, and academic texts.

Oct 15, 2026

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