Time for Climate Action? Political Actors’ Uses of Twitter to Focus Public Attention on the Climate Crisis During the 2019 Danish General Election

Authors

  • Julie Uldam Copenhagen Business School
  • Tina Askanius Malmö University

Keywords:

climate crisis debate, mediation opportunity structure, Twitter

Abstract

This article examines civil society uses of Twitter to promote the climate crisis as an issue in the 2019 national election campaign in Denmark. Theoretically, we draw on Cammaerts’s notion of the mediation opportunity structure and Wright, Nyberg, De Cock, and Whiteman’s notion of climate imaginaries. Methodologically, we draw on Bennett and Segerberg’s approach to studying networked interactions on Twitter. Our findings show that neither the legacy press nor MP candidates used climate-related hashtags promoted by civil society actors. MP candidates did frequently use climate-related hashtags. Nonetheless, these were mainly center-left candidates who mostly called for climate action to be propelled by green growth and technological solutions, while civil society actors called for climate action to be propelled by solidarity and systemic change. We discuss how these articulations of the climate crisis have implications for climate imaginaries and, ultimately, possibilities to act.

Author Biographies

Julie Uldam, Copenhagen Business School

Julie Uldam is Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business School. Her research explores the interrelations between political participation and digital media, especially social movements and social media. Julie’s work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including New Media & Society and International Journal of Communication. Her book Civic Engagement & Social Media was published in 2015. Julie has been chair of ECREA’s Communication & Democracy section and the network on Social Innovation and Civic Engagement, funded by the Danish ministry of social affairs. She is currently PI on the research project Imagining Digital Power and the Power of Imagination.

Tina Askanius, Malmö University

Tina Askanius is Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies at the School of Arts and Communication, Malmö University, where she is also the co-director of the interdisciplinary research platform Rethinking Democracy. Her research concerns the interplay between social movements, online media and processes of mediation and her published work span topics such as media practices in social justice movements, including gender justice and climate justice activism and the role of online media in extreme right movements including neo-Nazi mobilisations in the Nordic countries.  

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Published

2022-01-01

Issue

Vol. 16 (2022)

Section

Articles

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