FROM SCIENCE TO TIME TO VANITY FAIR: SEXING UP SUSTAINABILITY AND HOW IT HAPPENED

The May 2006 Vanity Fair magazine featured on its cover hugely popular movie stars Julia Roberts and George Clooney, and politicians Al Gore and Robert Kennedy, Jr. A stylist had dressed the four in complementary shades of green and set designers posed them Hollywood-style in front of a mossy, ivied backdrop for star photographer Annie Leibovitz's lens. Vanity Fair's “Special Green Issue,” including its cautionary headline warning that global warming is a threat graver than terrorism and its ecological call for “A New American Revolution,” clearly attempted to use sex and stars to sell sustainability to a moderately interested public. What led to this “eco-power pinup,” as Vanity Fair itself labeled its cover? And what's been the public response to this and other recent examples of a Madison Avenue approach? Using traditional qualitative methods, including interviews with editors and authors, research into public response, and a review of past lay-oriented journalistic efforts, I will explore whether this star-studded campaign could possibly reshape public opinion and interest or be, as history tells us, but a star-studded flash in the pan.