Contesting electric vehicles: agonism, antagonism and conjunctural politics in digital participatory media
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: According to the IEA, 14 million new electric vehicles (EVs) were registered worldwide in 2023. Yet despite their growing popularity, views on the environmental, technological and economic significance of EVs can diverge radically. Drawing upon economies of quality research, this article examines the distinctive character of qualifications in a contested emergent category. While qualification theory suggests that the social attribution of qualities to goods results in contingent, potentially unstable patterns of meaning, most studies stress how market exchange is facilitated by stabilization of these patterns. In this case, where the production of meanings is distributed between numerous policymakers, journalists, consumers, motoring enthusiasts, environmental advocates, automakers and opinion leaders, dissensus prevails. A case study by the Australian Electric Viking – an Australian YouTuber and car enthusiast – shows how advocacy for EVs is tied up with political contestation in participatory media. For ‘the Viking’, being a cultural intermediary and influencer is a reflexive endeavour that includes analysis of the information sources that construct the meaning of EVs and their legitimacy, the creation of counterdiscourses, and negotiating conjunctural tensions around climate change, disruptive technology and misinformation. The final section interrogates the resulting cultural politics of engagement with diverse views.
Source: Continuum
Author: Guy Redden
Institution: The University of Sydney
Language: English
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4411295382