Pro-Environmental Social Media Influencers strike on #fridaysforfuture An exploratory study of communicated narratives on Instagram to tackle climate actions

Planet earth’s temperature is still on the rise and the world needs to wake up because: Change is coming, whether they like it or not. The young girl Greta Thunberg from Sweden struck for the climate, together with 4 million people from all over the world, for a whole week in September 2019. Her intentions are clear: reminding global leaders of the necessity to adapt and mitigate the system to become environmentally friendly. Yet, the ‘Fridays for future strike’ is not only addressed to global leaders, but also to society. The majority of the world’s population, people under 25 years old, do not support a pro-environmental attitude. Pessimism, negativity and a hopeless scenario define the picture that young Europeans see in a changing climate of the world. Therefore, questions arise, whether young people are able to change their perception so that a predicted dangerous temperature change could be prevented? (Social) media plays a crucial role to represent the public’s opinion. Social Media Influencers (SMIs) have become the new journalists and gain popularity by their virtual followers. Since social media sites became part of young people’s everyday life, which role do SMIs play in communicating climate change appropriately? More precisely, this research explores the communicated narratives during the time of a proven example (Fridays for future), to ultimately answer the question: How did selected Instagram influencer accounts communicate a pro-environmental attitude to young people in Europe? Three purposively selected Instagram influencer accounts provided the data to identify dominant underlying patterns, expressed in communicated narratives. 90 captions and 60 visuals in total build the foundation for the conducted content analysis. Four overarching categories and 11 subthemes, based on a profound thematic and visual analysis, allowed an in-depth understanding of communicated climate actions. Ultimately, this research shows that Instagram influencers contribute by their focus on an emotional and personal representation of climate actions. Human imperfections, vulnerability and ecoanxiety were communicated openly, to approach the user with empathy and authenticity. In doing so, collective climate activism as well as an individual responsible consumption and production behavior become apparent as a best-practice example. Furthermore, this research identified topics that are crucial but either missing or reported on a low level. The findings show fossil fuels, defined as the largest contributor to global warming, could be further explained to tackle efficient climate actions from a long-term perspective. Finally, Instagram allows the transmission of clear messaging if visuals and texts are aligned coherently.