Climate Change Movements and Online Youth Radicalization: Visions, Symbols and Emotions of Dissent

The study aims to explore the relationship between radicalization, youth collective actions, and environmental online activism and its consequences offline. Starting from the concepts of creativity and radical imagination, this paper analyzes the opportunities that they offer to young people to reflect on their self-representation in the social environments, emphasizing the role of emotions as drivers of collective actions. Younger generations want to be protagonists of social change, as it might be understood by examining the online discourse of climate activism. Social networks should not be conceived as a separate space but in continuity with the offline world, directly influencing their way of thinking and acting.

Using the sentiment analysis, along with lexical correspondence analysis, an evaluation and categorization of opinions and emotions conveyed in some official press releases will be done. In particular, this paper focuses on some radical climate movements such as Ultima Generazione, Letzte Generation, Just Stop Oil, and Extinction Rebellion. Using natural language processing, this methodological approach points to underline the connection between radical non-violent militancy in real life (roadblocks, targeting masterpieces, chaining themselves to public places) and radical discourse on the Internet. The empirical data obtained will be compared, for an in-depth understanding, with an explorative analysis through the visual meaning approach of some relevant figurative posts on the social pages of the previous movements.

According to the obtained results, this work addresses the following questions: How do young radical climate activists represent themselves in online communication practices? Can the online environment play a role in orienting collective objectives and actions? How creativity and radical imagination contribute, as tools, to the raising awareness on the issue of climate change? Can they foster concrete actions aimed at social change?