This study content analyzed 3,300 user comments from the 11 most-viewed YouTube videos about climate activist Greta Thunberg. The analysis reveals that about 4 in 10 comments contained some form of ...incivility. Moreover, 40% of the uncivil comments reflected ageism, slightly more than one third sexism, and just less than one quarter ableism. The analysis suggests that uncivil comments about Thunberg on YouTube were far from deliberative in nature, ignored her positions on climate change altogether, and focused on her youth, gender, and Asperger’s syndrome.
The cultural salience of generational categories is on the rise: the large and powerful Baby-Boom generation continues to dominate electoral politics while younger Millennials' and Gen Zers' fluency ...in digital communication technology lets them voice their frustrations. We demonstrate that these three generational groups show many signs of being-or becoming-collective political actors. Majorities identify with their generation, they find these identities salient in their everyday lives, and younger generations especially demonstrate high levels of generational linked fate. Generations have distinct political agendas, and many express a willingness to support candidates who prioritize the interests of their generation. These findings force us to reconsider the treatment of generations as only ascriptive groups and instead see them as composed of self-conscious members, capable of acting as collective actors on the political stage. If the patterns we show sharpen further, generations may become defining points of cultural and political cleavage.
In this paper, we offer a childist reading of school strikes for climate in an overheated world. We argue that school strikes can be understood as offering a dynamic counterweight to formal ...education, by providing opportunities for children to self-educate, and for others, especially adults, to learn from them. We suggest that taking school strikes seriously as sites of political appearance-which highlight interdependencies and vulnerabilities in the face of crises in Anthropocene neoliberalism requires rethinking the boundaries of democratic participation and education. In particular, we highlight that school strikes for climate serve as an invitation for adults to let children contribute to their own ongoing formation. A childist philosophical attitude that emphasises mutual teaching-i.e. the adult capacity to see and hear what children show and say-can expand through an engagement with, rather than against school strikes. Children's political appearance on streets to influence political priorities from an intergenerational global justice point of view is a gift for adults and adultist structures. It is a passage to grasp deep interdependence and to assume appropriate responsibility. If 'education' is a beacon of hope in times of overheated despair, then the hope is in educational philosophies that have room for mutual teaching. The philosophical assumption that it is adults who must always, and necessarily, teach children to prepare them for a better future would have to be discarded.
Abstract Global policymaking often seeks to create processes for the effective delivery of public goods and services. What happens when individuals critique or dissent such policies? In this paper, ...we examine the case of two activists—Greta Thunberg and Disha Ravi—who have been mobilizing attention toward climate change since their teenage years, and who have been both celebrated and vilified for it. While climate change policies emphasize the importance of gender mainstreaming and youth participation, reactions garnered by these two activists are instructive in highlighting the narrow notion of “participation” that undergirds climate policy. Specifically, we show that Greta and Disha’s tactics do not readily jive with the postfeminist, neoliberal conceptualization of youth participation that emphasizes apolitical exercise of citizenship; valorizes girls’ activism only insofar as it enhances national economic growth; and views girls as symbols of hopeful futurities. Greta and Disha are instead what we call, “policy dissidents,” whose activism creates “tactical crevices.” We theorize tactical crevices as tentative and fleeting interruptions by the powerless that puncture prevailing logics through strikes and protests, and through consumption of discourses and materials in ways that those in power do not intend. The paper contributes to the study of girl activism broadly, and to notions of youth engagement (or disengagement) specifically, within the spheres of local and global politics.
This essay examines three instances where Eadweard Muybridge’s motion studies have been referenced and reused in present-day visual culture—a scientific experiment that encoded a GIF of a galloping ...horse into bacterial DNA (2017); a project where multiple frames from the horse-in-motion series were tattooed onto eleven different people (2014); and an activist video that used images of animals from the series to argue for the urgency of species extinction and environmental catastrophe (2019). The author’s central argument is that, in addition to the more or less clearly stated intentions of this image-use, these transmediations of Muybridge’s historical photographic images also activate and extend questions and concerns from recent media theory: contributing to notions such as image ecology and image liveness, and proposing challenges to established distinctions between new/old media, still/moving images, and material/immaterial media qualities. A further suggestion is that their ability to carry out complex theoretical work relating to present-day media practices can help explain why these images have come to have such staying power in visual culture a century and a half after they were first made.
Ce travail imagine un dialogue fictif entre Hannah Arendt et Greta Thunberg au sujet de la place de l’écologie politique à l’université. Ainsi, l’objectif de notre travail est d’interroger le cadre ...théorique nécessaire à l’inscription à l’université d’une éducation à l’écologie politique. Dans un premier temps, nous interrogeons ce qui empêche pour l’heure de développer une véritable pédagogie universitaire sur ce sujet. Plus spécifiquement, nous prenons l’exemple de la pensée de Hannah Arendt pour illustrer les dualismes conceptuels entre l’enfant et le monde, l’éducation et la politique, l’éducation et l’instruction, qui, selon nous, nous empêchent de penser pédagogiquement et politiquement la place de l’écologie au sein des universités. Les dégâts de ces dualismes sont ensuite illustrés à partir de notre façon d’appréhender l’éco-anxiété. Enfin, nous proposons quelques pistes prospectives et générales pour inscrire l’écologie comme cadre épistémologique de recherche, d’enseignement et de formation universitaires.
This work invents a fictional dialogue between Hannah Arendt and Greta Thunberg on the topic of the place of political ecology in the university. The aim of this work consist of examining the theoretical framework necessary for the inclusion of political ecology education in the university. First, we focuse on the obstacles to the development of an authentic academic pedagogy on this subject. More specifically, we take the example of Hannah Arendt's philosophy to illustrate the conceptual dualisms between the child and the world, education and politics, education and instruction. In our opinion, these dualisms prevent us from thinking pedagogically and politically about the place of ecology within universities. Their damage is then illustrated by our understanding of eco-anxiety. Finally, we propose some prospective and general approaches to include ecology as an epistemological framework for university research, teaching and training.
Imaginationen von Nachhaltigkeit entwerfen unterschiedliche Möglichkeitsräume eines sozial-ökologischen Wandels. Als positive oder negative Vorstellungswelten tauchen Katastrophenängste und ...Endzeitszenarien, Normalitätsbeschwörungen und ökologische Ignoranz, Technikglaube und Fortschrittsoptimismus, aber auch utopische Bilder eines guten Lebens im Zukunftsbewusstsein der Gegenwart auf. Welche Spannungen und Konfliktlinien entstehen, wenn sich moderne Gesellschaften von derart konträren Imaginationen von Nachhaltigkeit leiten lassen? Mit Beiträgen von Frank Adloff, Gerard Delanty, Benno Fladvad, Martina Hasenfratz, Eva Horn, Albrecht Koschorke, Sighard Neckel, Heike Paul und Peter Wagner. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
AbstractThis study focuses on the analysis of Greta Thunberg’s speeches, from the early mobilizations of Friday for Future (Thunberg, 2019) to the latest Conference of the Parties in 2022. We explore ...her use of metaphors, their contribution to the construction of discourse frames and their role in persuasive argumentation. The overall analytical approach is guided by the principles of Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA), and the theoretical and philosophical background of Ecolinguistics. As one of the most significant environmental voices on the current global scene, Thunberg’s underlying ideologies are positively viewed, especially as they are expressed in climate related predictions. The analysis critically and diachronically examines Greta’s linguistic choices, identifying how they contribute to promote a positive perspective that highlights the interconnection between social groups and the natural world. As well as a positive dimension, which recognises the importance of Thunberg’s contribution to modern environmental movements (Bullon-Cassis, 2024), the paper critiques her use of these linguistic resources. It is suggested that at least part of her talismanic impact as a speaker relates to a familiar discourse of generational conflict among young audiences, a dimension which her use of framing is found to target.
Las movilizaciones climáticas de 2019 han supuesto una novedad en la acción climática. Una nueva generación de adolescentes y jóvenes han logrado llamar la atención de la sociedad sobre el reto del ...cambio climático, requiriendo a los gobernantes valentía para tomar medidas suficientes para cumplir con El Acuerdo de París, señalando a la ciencia como referente. Este hito histórico ha tenido a Greta Thunberg como rostro del movimiento estudiantil Fridays For Future junto a otras organizaciones. El objetivo general del presente artículo es estudiar la representación que ofrecen los medios de comunicación del activismo ambiental llevado a cabo por los jóvenes frente a la emergencia climática. La metodología empleada ha sido el análisis de contenido en televisión y en prensa a partir de un muestreo estructural. Entre los efectos de las movilizaciones juveniles, apoyadas por ciudadanía adulta, se pueden encontrar: un volumen inaudito de movimientos ciudadanos por el clima a nivel mundial, europeo y nacional; la identificación de la causa ambiental por parte de toda una generación; y haber logrado uno de sus objetivos: que se declarara institucionalmente la emergencia climática.
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