Aptum, Zeitschrift für Sprachkritik und Sprachkultur 20. Jahrgang. 2024, Heft 3

Introducing a special issue that analyses the climate discourse on social media, the text discusses medial logics of discourse from the standpoint of internet and media linguistics. In this process the authors formulate a heuristic for analysing communicative acts on social media. This encompasses three levels: platform-specific opportunities, communicative practices, and discourse-specific characteristics. The heuristic is then applied to a tweet written in the context of a severe weather event and also used to introduce the contributions to this special issue.

This article examines multimodal strategies used to communicate within the highly polarized climate discourse. It is located at the interface between media and discourse linguistics, analyzing image posts on the platform Instagram. The article focuses on the aspect of emotionalization, which is examined concerning linguistic and visual text and discourse strategies.

The phenomenon Guerilla Gardening, which originated in the 1970s, is a form of activism that uses gardening as a means of environmental action. The activists often go beyond planting illegally flowers and vegetables and present their activities in the social media. The article adopts a comparative perspective and investigates linguistic as well as multimodal strategies used by German and French Guerilla Gardening activists on X and on Instagram in order to promote their activities. The methodological approach is thus a double contrastive one, combining the linguistic and cultural comparison with a media comparison. The analysis is based on the critical and multimodal discourse analysis and on text linguistics. The data show that there is evidence for culture-specific forms of the users’ self-presentation. The empirical analysis furthermore reveals that the focus of the users in their posts lies on specific communicative functions, and that hybrid text types tend to emerge.

This article investigates recurrent argumentative patterns (“Topoi”), that are used by right-wing-alternative YouTube channels in the discourse on climate change. Evidently, it is not climate change as such, but the young, female actors in this field of discourse who are the subjects of the argument. In this article, four ‘vectors of attack’ are identified which delegitimize these actors: their femininity, their youth, the accusation that their actions are externally controlled and staged, as well as the accusation of religiosity. These areas of attack are linked with each other and thus further the construction of a homogenic ‘green’ enemy. At the same time, the article shows how ‘affordances’ specific to YouTube shape the discourse and argumentative contributions presented there. The multimodality of the platform promotes implicit strategies of argumentation that remain negable, while the fact, that the platform is centred around individuals, furthers the personalisation of the climate discourse. Thus, the paper shows potential discourse-specific characteristics of the climate change discourse on YouTube, but also highlights how the platform itself promotes these characteristics.

This article explores the possibilities for discursive resistance on Twitter against stereotypically favourable tendencies regarding the use of hydrogen as a narrative in the hegemonic media. Selected tweets will be used to illustrate how some aspects of the EU’s current hydrogen strategy on the one hand and the German government’s hydrogen strategy on the other hand are contested by utilising the platform-specific opportunities.

The strategy video game Terra Nil allows players to restore a world that has been destroyed by humans. But can ‘climate games’ do justice to the complexity of the subject matter? Platforms such as Twitch, with over 2 million daily users, offer the potential for discussions about the climate crisis. Livestreams on Twitch create unique communication structures that have rarely been researched to date. The study aims to analyze the communication of a live stream of Terra Nil on Twitch regarding media specifics and discursive patterns. The methods used include computer-assisted content analysis. After introducing Twitch as a platform and the methodological approach the theme ‘climate crisis’ in the game and a specific stream and chat are addressed. In conclusion the media specifics of Twitch allow an interactive discourse on the climate crisis when initiated by a game and amplified by a specific streamer, though the platform can also fulfil the need for relaxation for users in opposition to a critical discourse.