Fridays For Future and the Movement for Climate Justice Between Online and Offline Participation in Comparative Perspective

The #FridaysForFuture climate protests mobilised millions of students around the globe in 2019. Through a series of school strikes, a new generation has been galvanised, representing a historical turn in climate activism. Research has shown the emergence of a new generation of climate activists and the possible development of FFF as a broader, grassroots movement, with a strong female presence and reliance on social media and peer networks, highlighting limited commitment to established environmental organisations, with varying interpretations of the importance of lifestyle politics and a hopeful attitude towards the future. On the one hand, offline, FFF represents an innovation in the field of environmental politics, with the massive participation of young people, not involved in traditional environmental organisations or in social movements milieus. It seems to be an occasion of mass activation of a whole generation, with the climate crisis acting as a trigger for action because it singles out this generation, it provides it with something that defines it and characterise it. On the other hand, online, it is undeniable that the mediatisation of Greta Thunberg’s figure and the widespread use of social media have favoured a form of participation that escapes the traditional channels of activists’ recruitment, establishing a direct identification between individual students, or peer groups, and the issue of the climate crisis, with Greta as its most recognisable icon. This paper aims at addressing these two different components and its interactions, through the lenses of social movement studies and social media analysis, in two major European countries, bridging the analysis of climate-related collective action and the analysis of the role of social media in political participation. Rather than considering organization and communication as separate dimensions of the FFF movement, we aim at understanding how the two interpenetrate and influence each other. This is done via a mixed method approach, relying on data collected via semi-structured interviews with organizers and a qualitative reading of social media posts.