Let's Talk A Bit More "Blah, Blah, Blah": A Look At Greta Thunberg's Digital Climate Change Communication

In 2018, the Western world was rocked by the impassioned outcry of a 15-year-old youth from Sweden who called-out world leaders for their inaction towards the climate crisis. Greta Thunburg, with her “calm but impassioned speech” at the “UN climate change summit in Poland” minced no words when she addressed world leaders saying: “’You are not mature enough to tell it like [it] is…even that burden you leave to us children’” (Campeau, 2018, p. 1). Within a few minutes, Thunburg rebuked the time-old belief and tradition of bequeathing—in a similar fashion to leaving an inheritance—the problems of the world to the next generation. Since this moment, Thunberg has become a veritable social movement in and of herself. She is the voice, the face, and, in many ways, the very definition of climate activism and empowerment. In 2019, Greta was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for being one of the most influential people of 2018. At the time, the editor-in-chief of Time Magazine, Edward Felsenthal, said that “Thunberg has become the biggest voice on the biggest issue facing the planet—and the avatar of a broader generational shift in our culture that is playing out everywhere from the campuses of Hong Kong to the halls of Congress in Washington” (Flynn, 2019). Greta Thunberg has proven, through the simple act of example, that everyone—even a 15-year-old person from Sweden—has a voice and agency in this climate conversation.

In this article, I will be analyzing the effectiveness of Great Thunburg’s online presence—specifically an Instagram post—to interpret how online communication can be an effective mechanism for climate communication.

A Message to Political Leaders Everywhere

On September 28, 2021, Thunberg posted a speech she gave at a youth climate summit (YouthCOP) in Milan to her Instagram page. In this speech, she once again calls out world leaders for their lack of climate action over the last thirty-odd years claiming that their work and promises have amounted to “blah, blah, blah” (Greta Thunberg, 2021). In this address, she urges her audience (peers) to act—to definitively stand up for climate justice—by suggesting a bottom-up movement. The caption of the post is a quote from the speech, which reads: “We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not bla bla bla. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking actions” (Greta Thunberg, 2021). Although publicly berating policy makers and world leaders for their inaction, this speech’s intended audience is the common people—her audience at YouthCOP—but also those with access to her Instagram account or other social medium.

Climate Communication Techniques

In order to understand the effectiveness of Greta’s digital communication, I have put together a list of three climate communication techniques to analyze Greta’s YouthCOP Instagram post (Greta Thunberg, 2021). These tools allow me to objectively go through this example of digital climate communication.

The tools I have chosen to focus on are:

Looking Beneath the Surface

Posting Greta Thunberg’s YouthCOP address to her Instagram page is, overall, an effective form of climate action communication. This is because it effectively utilizes the communication techniques of (1.) framing, (2.) interpersonal communication, and (3.) narrative.

The framing of her post—and subsequently her speech—is based around action. It is that climate change is closely tied to social justice, which includes public health and equity (Greta Thunberg, 2021). She is not accusing us—as a society—of being responsible for the current climate crisis. Instead, she blames the powers that be for their inaction. For their enabling of practices that have and continue to exacerbate the situation. To her intended audience, she has iterated that it is our right to fight for a clean and sustainable future. Furthermore, it is our responsibility to take action to ensure that future. This frame is successful because Thunburg is appealing to a larger audience by opening up the reality of climate change as more than just an environmental issue.

By choosing to post her speech on her Instagram page, and thus utilizing interpersonal communication, Thunburg is able to reach a wider audience. “When people do engage with the information that is provided to them [in this case, about climate change), they often have trouble interpreting it, or have difficulty remembering specifics” (Hodson, 2019, p. 3). By offering information in a social and informal platform (Instagram), a broader segment of society (those who may otherwise not engage with topics of climate justice) are given the opportunity to engage with climate communication topics. Her message is not pigeonholed to an audience attending YouthCOP—or requisite media coverages that adapt framing of their own. Posting on her own Instagram page allows her to maintain control over her message. This platform also invites an informal discourse to arise by followers. People can like, share, and otherwise engage with her messaging, which allows for the further dispersal of her communication.

Lastly, narrative is used throughout to weave Thunberg’s climate communication piece together. She “situates events in a certain place and a certain time,” which shifts the dialogue from abstract to tangible (Krauß & Bremer, 2020, p.3). The story starts thirty years ago at a time of excess, specifically with CO2 emissions, followed by many years of inaction and empty promises made by public leaders. She then brings the narrative to the present with her call to action—and not only for policymakers, but for all members of society—urging people to fight for their future in a multi-arching narrative. The end of this narrative ends with the promise of a sustainable and equitable future. Thunberg provides opportunity for her audience to connect with her speech on a personal level, explaining that we all have the ability to act. This is effective because it is proactive as well as personal. Each member of society has agency in the future of their story.

Taking A Moment To Be Contrary

Naturally, there are pitfalls to this informal form of communication. The YouthCOP speech was covered by several online journals. It is not only available through Thunburg’s Instagram account, but also via YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, CNN, The Guardian, Washington Post, and many other digital platforms and mediums (Carrington, 2021; Dewan, 2021). Essentially, this has become another piece of Greta’s communication to “go viral,” adding to the climate discourse of the online world. The viral nature of Greta’s communication pieces can be seen as a double-edged sword.

Although “going viral” creates more exposure and discourse around important topics, it also runs the risk of beginning to lack credibility and validity. Using a social platform opens a form of public discourse that involves no accountability on the part of the unofficial and most often invisible observer. Just within the instance of Great’s YouthCOp post, it has opened her up to public ridicule from a segment of the online world that does not agree with her messaging. For example, one comment reads: “Oh dear Greta, you are just an illusion and a being of a lie, the existence of which is only kept alive through the naivete of people” (Greta Thunberg, 2021). Furthermore, going viral in this fashion can, at times, skew the messaging. Meaning, people no longer talk about the topic of the speech (climate justice), but about the person giving the speech (Thunburg herself). This is what brings up the question of validity; although Thunburg’s name is now well-known in the public sphere, does her climate communication efforts become too sensationalized to be considered effective?

A Choose-You-Own-Adventure Story

Based on my analysis, Greta Thunberg has done a sensational job of generating a narrative in the public sphere around climate change. As climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe has said, “the most important thing you can do to fight climate change [is to] talk about it” (TED, 2019). This is exactly what Thunberg is doing, either through her Instagram account or the countless other endeavors she undertakes to encourage the general public to act. By using a combination of communication techniques, she has created a story of our future and allowed us—as a society—the opportunity to choose our own collective ending. It is just a matter of changing those “blah blah blah’s” to “rah-rah-rah’s.”

References

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Conner, P., Harris, E., Guy, S., Fernando, J., Shank, D. B., Kurz, T. Bain, P. G., Kashima, Y. (2015). Interpersonal communication about climate change: How messages change when communicated through simulated online social networks. Climate Change, 136, 463-476. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1643-z

Carrington, D. (2021). ‘Blah, blah, blah’: Greta Thunberg lambasts leaders over climate crisis. The Guardian.

Dewan, A. (2021). Greta Thunberg roasts world leaders for being ‘blah, blah, blah’ on climate action. CNN.

Flynn, K. (2019). Time person of the year: Climate crisis activist Greta Thunberg. CNN.

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Hodson, J. (2019). An ecological model of climate marketing: A conceptual framework for understanding climate science related attitude and behavior change. Cogent Social Sciences (5), 1625101. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2019.1625101 

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