Camila Belizário Ribeiro, PhD pursuant in Linguistics (University of Lisbon)
Professor Dr. Maria Clotilde Almeida (University of Lisbon)
Abstract
Nowadays, the climate change issue, due to its very complex nature, involves a panoply of scientific domains. From the Cognition and Critical Discourse Analysis, two dyadic but complementary approaches viewing discourse as linked to the construction and dissemination of ideology and power (Fairclough, 2001; van Dijk 1997, 2010), some posts of Greta Thunberg's Instagram page, as well as the NGO Fridays for Future, will be analyzed here. Special attention is dedicated to the hashtag #uprootthesystem, widely used in cyberactivism environmental campaigns, with the intent of awakening public awareness and pressuring policymakers to reduce CO2 emissions, also addressing climate injustice, among other issues. Since hashtags are acknowledged as forms of activism in digital communication (Xiong, 2018; Medeiros 2020), it is no wonder that, in Greta Thunberg's cyberactivist communication on climate emergency, they aim at introducing controversial thematic discussions, in the form of polarized argumentation. So, she and many other young climate activists act upon public opinion by denouncing bad environmental practices worldwide, due to the lack of commitment from politicians in power, which contrasts with her inspirational participation in young activists' street rallies for urgent action measures to be taken by the population in different countries to preserve the environment. As it happens, technology per se cannot be considered a mechanism of social change but social networks are accounted as tools used for dissemination and (re)signification of "truths" and behaviours, as argued by Tagg (2015). Moreover, sequencing Nisbet (2009) and Lakoff (2010), we postulate that discussing climate emergency in social media by dissecting their conceptualization frames may change the way society thinks about the array of intricate and pressing environmental issues.
Keywords: Climate Emergency. Hashtag. Discourse and Power. Cyberactivism.
References:
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Thunberg, G. [@gretathunberg]. (n.d). Posts [Instagram profile]. Retrieved January 10, from https://instagram.com/ gretathunberg/.
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Xiong, Y., Cho, M., Boatwright, B. (2018). Hashtag activism and message frames among social movement organizations: Semantic network analysis and thematic analysis of Twitter during the #MeToo movement. Research Gate. DOI 10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.10.014.
