Abstract

The power or visual communication as a tool to inform, express viewpoints, and create engagement is broadly recognized by science communication scholars. This study investigates how young climate activists use memes to communicate about climate change on Instagram, and how other users engage with them. A corpus of memes and comments was collected, and a qualitative content analysis was used to observe the memes’ topics and references. Moreover, the interactions between activists and their audiences was observed to identify potential principles for effective climate change communication through memes. The results of these analyses shed light on the new tools and platforms that users engage with to discuss this urgent issue in both local and global communities, and on the importance of addressing the social, political, and economic dimensions involved in climate change for younger generations.

Presenters

Lucia Casiraghi
PhD Candidate, French and Italian, Indiana University, Indiana, United States

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

2023 Special Focus—Images Do Not Represent Us, They Create Us: The Image and its Transforming Power

KEYWORDS

Climate Change, Social Media, Memes, Gen-Z, Activism

Digital Media

Videos