Abstract
Over the years, research highlighted the importance of how environmental issues are communicated and how the public perceives them. Scholars have also focused on social movements’ use of visuals, examining how visual expression and representation contribute to these movements. However, little has been said about the social movements’ strategic visualisation of issues. This research compares the visual strategies employed by Italian climate movements to uncover how environmental topics are addressed through different visual narratives on Instagram. The analysis explores how these movements leverage visual media to frame their causes and inspire action. The investigation followed a triangulation of methods: expert interviews, visual content analysis and narrative analysis. Experts explained how communication management works by addressing specific aspects, which uncovered movements’ logic and expertise in communication. The visual content analysis contributed to understanding how social actors narrate themselves and the world through online content considering both the object of study -images and texts- as explicit and implicit linkages to a larger political story. The research also looked at the manifest contents of images, the symbolic level and the latent level of meaning. Results show the representation of the environment in the visual expression on social media shifted away from the melting icebergs. Instead, the number of references to the environment decreased but steadily maintained their relevance in the climate movements’ identity. However, movements differ in the representation of the environment as part of claims or identity.
Presenters
Costanza AzzuppardiPhD Candidate, Sociology and Political Science, Scuola Normale Superiore, Firenze, Italy
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
VISUAL, SOCIAL MOVEMENT, POLITICAL COMMUNICATION, INSTAGRAM, CLIMATE JUSTICE
