Conference Agenda

This paper addresses how global climate movements use images in their social media communication from a comparative perspective: How have Fridays For Future and Extinction Rebellion in Italy, Germany, Sweden and Hungary evolved their use of visual communication on Instagram between 2018 and 2024? We argue that three lines of analysis are important for a comprehensive understanding of the relation between image content and protest movements: a) complementary movements, b) complementary countries and c) longitudinal observation.

We explore those lines of analysis by leveraging a mixed-method analysis of full production of images shared by FFF and XR on Instagram in the period 2018-2024.

This study examines the interplay between fragmentation and transnationalization in climate change discourse across legacy and social media in Brazil and Germany from 2014 to 2022. Fragmentation theorists argue that digital platforms, driven by algorithmic personalization and commercial imperatives, fragment public discourse into isolated issue agendas, limiting exposure to diverse viewpoints. In contrast, the transnationalization hypothesis posits that global issues, such as climate change, foster unified transnational discourse, amplified by global institutions like the IPCC and UNFCCC. To assess these contrasting hypotheses, this study employs a longitudinal, multiplatform analysis of climate change attention across four major newspapers (Folha de S. Paulo, O Globo, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and three social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X). Using Spearman correlation scores, the study compares climate change attention between social and legacy media within each country (fragmentation) and between Brazilian and German media ecosystems (transnationalization). Results reveal no clear long-term trends of increasing or decreasing fragmentation or transnationalization. Instead, attention patterns fluctuate erratically over the nine-year period, challenging the assumption that digitalization inherently drives growing fragmentation or that climate change consistently fosters sustained transnational discourse. Findings highlight the episodic nature of transnationalization, driven largely by event-based attention spikes, such as COP meetings, rather than sustained international discourse. This paper contributes to ongoing debates on the structural transformation of the public sphere, emphasizing the need for future research to explore actor dynamics and platform-specific influences on climate communication across national contexts.

Visual narratives play a crucial role in climate advocacy, yet they are also exploited by climate denialists to disseminate misleading information. While disinformation research has primarily focused on text-based content and network structures, the role of visual disinformation remains underexplored. Given its immediate and emotional impact, visual disinformation can be particularly effective in reinforcing climate denialism. This study investigates how images are used to promote climate denialism across three social media platforms—X (formerly Twitter), Reddit, and 4chan.

Utilizing a dataset of 22,485 images with accompanying captions (2018–2022), we employ multimodal large language models (MLLMs) to classify and analyze climate denial visuals. We categorize denialism into five frames: rejecting climate change’s existence, questioning human influence, downplaying consequences, opposing mitigation efforts, and advancing conspiracy theories. Our analysis also identifies recurring visual elements and styles, such as infographics, memes, and scientific imagery.

This study provides the first systematic cross-platform analysis of climate denialism visuals, offering empirical insights that inform counter-strategies against climate disinformation. Methodologically, it also highlights the opportunities and limitations of MLLMs in analyzing multimodal climate discourse.

This research explores public attention towards sustainability in the European Union (EU) using Google Trends data. By leveraging Google’s Trends API, the study assesses the evolution and composition of public interest in sustainability across EU member states. Sustainability is a multi-dimensional concept and its definition has evolved over time to encompass several environmental, social and economic factors. Public attention to sustainability has generally increased in Europe over the past three decades, as indicated by numerous studies analyzing trends in public engagement and media coverage. However, given the difficulty of measuring public attention towards a topic directly, most large-scale analyses of public attention to sustainability rely on media coverage as a proxy. Thus, we suggest using Google Trends data to analyze public attention towards sustainability. Considering the variability of definitions associated with the term, instead of applying existing assumptions on what sustainability means in a certain point in time and in space, we reconstruct what topics, as defined by Google knowledge definitions, received the most public attention, based on users’ search practices. The analysis reveals a steady increase in public engagement with sustainability issues since 2018, with notable regional disparities between Western and Eastern Europe. The research identifies the most common topics associated with sustainability, such as energy, sustainable development, and environmental issues, while also highlighting the growing influence of economic and corporate dimensions in public discourse. We conclude with covering the main limitations with the proposed methodology, and outlining the analytical directions for future research.