This article explores children’s resistance in relation to the climate emergency through a thematic analysis of climate activist Greta Thunberg’s speeches. Two themes, new to the literature, are ...identified: (1) need for political and social change focusing on the climate emergency, resistance towards laissez-faire behaviour and exhortations, and (2) resistance targets including the political leaders, capitalist ideologies and older generations. This illustrates the power of children in expressing abstract progressive resistance.
Dyskurs ekologiczny w XXI wieku zmienia się nie tylko pod wpływem pogłębiającego się kryzysu klimatycznego i innych niekorzystnych zmian w środowisku przyrodniczym, ale także wraz z dynamicznym ...rozwojem technologii komunikowania. Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie fenomenu nowomedialnego Grety Thunberg w kontekście proponowanej przez nią retoryki środowiskowej. W tym celu najpierw zostanie przedstawiona charakterystyka komunikacyjna nowych mediów, a następnie publiczne wystąpienia szwedzkiej aktywistki zostaną poddane analizie retorycznej. Materiał badawczy obejmuje 11 mów umieszczonych w zbiorze No one is too small to make a difference (Penguin Books, 2019) oraz transkrypcję słynnej mowy nowojorskiej „How dare you!” Konkluzje dotyczą zestrojenia przekazu ekologicznego Grety Thunberg z komunikacyjnymi uwarunkowaniami nowych mediów.
Climate change is a critical global problem that requires immediate action to mitigate its effects. In recent years, youth climate activists have mobilized worldwide protests to demand action, using ...social media platforms to communicate and broadcast their message. This study examines Greta Thunberg's rise to global prominence through an analysis of her first year and a half of Instagram posts from June 2018 to January 2020, including visual and textual elements. First, we explore how climate change is communicated on social media by youth activists, and then examine these concepts through the unique case of Thunberg’s Instagram. Then, through qualitative content analysis, this study elucidates her communication strategy by applying the concept of framing to unpack how she frames climate change as a moral and ethical issue, uses an emotional appeal of hope, and visually frames motivational collective action to mobilize her audience. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings to explore the complexities of communicating climate change through social media and how Thunberg's activism on Instagram may provide an example for future generations.
Greta Thunberg, the champion of the school strike for climate, is well-known for her declarations at the COP24 or in front of various assemblies and parliaments. From the moment a member of ...parliament invited her to speak at the French National Assembly on Friday, July 23rd, 2019, with other French climatologists among whom Valérie Masson-Delmotte, many people have publicly produced negative comments and sceptical discourses about her. Such utterances have been published in French speaking media such as newspapers, magazines, pureplayers and blogs, to name but a few. In this context, I propose to examine how the opponents to the Swedish activist have structured their viewpoints within the discourses they produce, to study their opinions and counter-discourses, and to understand the argumentative structures underlying them.
In December 2019, a Swedish climate activist was appointed Person of the Year by Time Magazine. Greta Thunberg was only 15 when she inspired a wave of school strikes and protest marches. She stole ...the media attention at a series of global summits, until public gatherings and international travels were interrupted by the pandemic. The aim of this article is to highlight a short but intense celebritisation process with culture-bound responses. First, I will establish Thunberg's deep roots in a Nordic children's culture, which defends bio-diversity with 'superhoney' and science. Then, I will compare the strong impact of an ecological Wunderkind in the EU with the polarised reactions in the US. In the conclusion, I will relate Thunberg's activist strategy and persona to other types of eco-celebrities and discuss the significance of diverging time horizons.
Linda Zagzebski's exemplarist moral theory has gained traction in recent years as a valid approach to moral education. Insufficient attention has so far been paid to questions about who we should ...count among exemplary people to be emulated. In this paper, we make the case for considering the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg as one moral exemplar for the contemporary world. Since Thunberg is a controversial figure, we not only argue in positive terms why Thunberg would make a good exemplar, but also respond to a number of objections that could be made to her exemplarity based on popular discussions. Our argument is however not limited to showing why Thunberg should be considered a moral exemplar. Through our discussion, we also exemplify the kind of critical discussions that in our view should be part of how exemplarism is utilized as a theory of moral education.
In the 16 months before TIME magazine naming Greta Thunberg its Person of the Year, as her influence grew, so too did the news media’s attempts to make sense of her. This project analyzes profiles of ...Greta Thunberg to understand how journalists constructed the persona that has become “Greta.” We argue the paradoxical framing of Thunberg as exceptional and fierce and childlike contributes to an alternative construction of girlhood grounded in the positive portrayal of her Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis. While featuring ASD as her “superpower” is potentially progressive, we argue foregrounding Thunberg’s whiteness and age cements her construction as the iconic voice of the climate crisis movement, potentially downplaying the need for collective action to end climate change.
Young climate activist Greta Thunberg was Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2019. In this study, the authors examine the role of social media in Thunberg’s rise to prominence by investigating ...Twitter communications over 14 months, analyzing tweet contents and user profiles. The changes in sentiment revealed on Twitter are examined, along with four major events from the period. The paper also compares Swedish and American user characteristics in relation to Thunberg. The findings reveal that celebrities and public figures played an essential role in amplifying the influence of the activist. To categorize the influencer group, the authors identified each user’s occupation, organization, location and position on other social issues. The results show that some people held a negative attitude toward Thunberg, not only because of their skepticism about climate change but also because of their views on other social issues, such as gender and age.
The growing popularity of Greta Thunberg has led an increasing number of pundits and scholars to consider her message to be an instance of ‘climate’ or ‘environmental’ populism. Following a ...qualitative content analysis of key speeches by the young activist, this paper challenges this view, and argues that her message is far from being a case of populism. On the contrary, it abides by a substantially different set of ideas that can be defined as technocratic ecocentrism. In particular, it is argued that rather than people‐centrism, anti‐elitism and vox populi, Greta Thunberg’s message is grounded on three different core ideas: ecocentrism, technocracy, and on the exaltation of the vox scientifica. However, whereas Thunberg’s technocratic ecocentrism is at odds with the foundations of the populist set of ideas, it shares a similar emphasis on monism, moralisation, a Manichean vision of the world, a critique of key features of the metapolitical status quo, and a tendency to personalisation.
This article examines some of Greta Thunberg’s life writing as an example of the creativity and ingenuity with which some young people engage with the identity category of ‘youth’ in their life ...writing. It argues that Thunberg’s activism uses personal testimony in order to amplify expertise testimony as an epistemic source that demands action on climate change. This strategic use of life writing produces a paradoxical, but seemingly effective, form of life writing in which Thunberg provides personal testimony to the future. The article analyses how this paradoxical form of testimony is produced by situating Thunberg’s life writing in the context of the social and political investment in youth as an identity genre central to understanding of the human life course, and to how political responsibility is figured in contemporary western democracies. Drawing on theories of new media as an affective site in which life unfolds, rather than being represented, the paper concludes by reflecting on how Wendy Chun’s argument that networks involve the twinning of habituation and crisis mirrors Thunberg’s argument that action on climate change demands that habitual ways of living and acting must be rethought in response to the climate crisis.
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