Micronarratives of eco-communication for sustainable mobility in intermediate cities
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Abstract
Active mobility and micromobility require communicative devices capable of translating sustainability and proximity goals into observable micro-habits, especially in Latin American intermediate cities where calls for behavioral change often circulate without explicit anchoring in verifiable environmental conditions. This study aimed to identify combinations of format, function, and framing that enhance operational clarity, traceability, and territorial anchoring, and to propose a replicable typology and scoring rubric for comparative assessment. A non-reactive qualitative design with abductive logic and
content analysis was applied to a verifiable corpus of N=14 public pieces (micro-videos, carousels,
short texts, and verification content) drawn from digital press, digital television, and institutional websites (02/04/2024-07/12/2025) in Bolivian intermediate cities (Cochabamba, Sacaba, Sucre, Oruro, and Tarija). Additionally, a Latin American reference corpus (Nref=24) was compiled for contextual purposes only and was not included in coding. The results identify five recurrent frames —health, road safety, justice, efficiency, and climate— and greater clarity when instructional micro-videos align with safety and health. Verification carousels articulate norms, evidence, and public benefit, while short texts require sources and spatial anchoring to avoid generic promises. The study concludes with a four-layer integrative model and operational rules to close the message-infrastructure-practice loop. Limitations
include the absence of inter-coder reliability estimation and lack of independent time series. Future steps include interrupted time series, non-reactive counters, and single-variable micro-experiments.
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