Bringing the future into the present: the notion of emergency in the youth climate movement

ABSTRACT

In 2019, after decades of attempting to raise awareness of the need to take action, the climate movement saw a surge in its ability to mobilize citizens and influence the political agenda. A younger generation leading the movement has given renewed vigour to the movement’s discourse by emphasising the need to act immediately by expressing the idea of emergency. This article suggests that this notion, one that is central to the current youth climate movement, includes an acceleration of time and a discourse based on hope. These ideas have worked as an activator of action complementing or nuancing narratives about future and climate change. The analysis of the discourse of Fridays For Future Barcelona on social media (Twitter and Instagram) with a mixed methods approach shows first the centrality of the notion of emergency in the public discourse of the movement and its role in making the future seem not so distant. Secondly, it shows how the use of emergency speech is linked to a positive view of the future and to a generational discourse. And, finally, it has been detected that using emergency speech together with references to a hopeful future increases the impact of the movement’s social media posts.

KEYWORDS:

• Fridays for future
• social media
• youth
• emergency
• future
• climate movement

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Mariona Ferrer-Fons and Dr. Ludovic Terren for their valuable contributions to this paper. We would like also to extend our gratitude to Fridays For Future Barcelona for their ongoing collaboration during this study. Finally, We would like to thank editors and reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This article is based on data from two research projects on youth climate activism: YouGECA (Youth Global Engagement for Climate Action) funded by the PlanetaryWellbeing2019 Pompeu Fabra University programme, and #4F (Hashtags For Future) funded by the AJOVE2019-AGAUR from the Government of Catalonia.

Notes on contributors

Roger Soler-i-Martí

Roger Soler-i-Martí is a María Zambrano postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Government and Public Policy (IGOP) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and visiting research fellow at Aston University. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the UAB. He has actively participated in national and European research projects on youth studies, political participation, social movements, democracy, and environmental politics.

Ariadna Fernández-Planells

Ariadna Fernández-Planells is an Associate Professor in Media Studies at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. She holds a PhD in Public Communication from Pompeu Fabra University. Her research focuses on the impact of ICT in different areas of life. She has participated in different national and European projects on journalism, media use, activism, political participation, youth, and gangs.

Laura Pérez-Altable

Laura Pérez Altable is a Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies in the Communication Department of Pompeu Fabra University. In 2016, her thesis on social movements and network analysis earned her a PhD in Social Communication from Pompeu Fabra University. She has participated in national projects dedicated to the study of media and network society