Personalising climate change—how activists from Fridays for Future visualise climate action on Instagram

The study investigates how Fridays for Future (FFF) activists visually narrate climate action on Instagram and posits that visual communication is central to FFF’s activism. Building on a one-year project (2021–2022), the paper addresses the research question: how do FFF activists narrate climate action through images on Instagram? It situates FFF as a ‘new narrator’ in climate politics and emphasises personalisation—activists leveraging their own perspectives, stories, and experiences—as a key strategy in climate storytelling. The work argues for recognising activists themselves, not only mainstream media, as important actors in visual climate communication, and outlines the study’s focus on three personalised storytelling themes.

The paper reviews research on visual climate change communication and the protest paradigm, wherein mainstream media often depict protests as deviant or disruptive, marginalising activists’ perspectives. With social media, climate movements can bypass traditional gatekeepers and frame their own narratives, often diverging from mainstream frames by focusing on political action, policy change, and climate justice. The review notes extensive scholarship on FFF across disciplines, but highlights a predominant focus on text rather than visuals. Prior studies of visual narratives include analyses of Greta Thunberg’s Instagram (moral, hopeful, motivational framing) and eco-influencers’ positive, personalised content. The author contends that personalisation extends beyond celebrities to ‘ordinary’ activists, and conceptualises climate narration (the what/how) in interplay with personalisation (the who). Storytelling is linked to enhancing agency and self-efficacy in climate action, suggesting that personalised visual strategies can be particularly effective with youth audiences.

Exploratory qualitative study using inductive grounded theory and visual thematic analysis of approximately 400 Instagram posts from 2019–2022. Data selection focused on major FFF chapters by follower count to capture high-visibility narratives: France (~29k), Germany (~546k), Italy (~125k), Brazil (~30k), India (~46k), Mexico (~19k), and FFF International (~456k) as of Nov 2022. The period includes pre-pandemic mobilization, pandemic disruptions, and post-2021 revival, with attention to global climate strike events as peak storytelling moments. Analysis steps: (1) repeated viewing and open coding to familiarise with content; (2) categorisation by visual elements—subjects (activists, signs, captions), settings (home, public spaces), and actions (protests, dances); (3) iterative identification of recurring themes exemplifying personalisation. Instagram was chosen for its visual affordances (photos, videos, Stories, Reels), youth demographics, and tools for personalised narrative creation. Ethical caution led to removal of illustrative collages in the final publication to avoid potential harm to youth; references are hyperlinked.

Three interrelated themes characterise the personalisation of FFF’s visual climate storytelling on Instagram: 1) Localising global climate change: Activists personalise messages via self-made imagery, videos, and stories that weave individual experiences into a collective identity across chapters and countries (e.g., live calls linking Mexico and Colombia during the 24 Sept 2021 global strike). Content often situates action in domestic or urban protest settings and foregrounds local consequences and politics: FFF Germany critiques fossil fuel dependence and protests RWE and the Lüzerath case; FFF Brazil highlights rainforest protection and Indigenous rights; FFF India focuses on waste, pollution, and everyday environmental degradation. Localisation makes impacts tangible and mobilises audiences by connecting global issues to daily life and local policy. 2) Performing climate messages: Youth-friendly, platform-native performances (e.g., TikTok-style dances, lip-syncs, humour) and memes are used to communicate climate messages and promote strike participation (e.g., 25 March 2022 strike). An FFF India reel stages roles of an Indigenous elder and a scientist vs. unresponsive governments, set to the protest song Burn, Baby, Burn. Memes (e.g., FFF Italy’s muscular-dog vs. lapdog comparing German €9/month transit tickets to Italy’s one-off €60 bonus) inject humour and relatability while advocating policy demands. These strategies enhance credibility and resonance with young audiences and help build community. 3) Visualising contentious politics and agency: Posts depict individual and collective actions—from crafting protest signs to large demonstrations—reinforcing self-efficacy and pathways to engagement. Visuals from global strikes (e.g., Berlin posts noting 22,000 participants) showcase scale, demands, and humour in signage. During COVID-19, digital visualisation of agency became more crucial. The imagery functions as a mobilisation tool, evoking emotion, demonstrating action-in-progress, and countering apathy by showing that collective efforts can yield change.

Findings address the research question by showing that FFF activists use Instagram to construct personalised, relatable narratives that connect individual experiences to collective climate action. This personalisation helps subvert traditional protest-paradigm framings by foregrounding activists’ own voices and by localising global issues. Performative and humorous formats native to youth social media enhance engagement, while visuals of contentious politics convey agency and invite participation. The study frames FFF as an important visual communicator—indeed, a ‘new narrator’—in climate discourse, illustrating how social media affordances enable the movement to mobilise supporters, build community, and promote climate justice narratives across diverse contexts.

The paper contributes an exploratory account of how FFF activists personalise climate storytelling on Instagram, identifying three themes—localising global impacts, performing climate messages, and visualising contentious politics. It underscores the political function of personal narratives in conveying that individual actions matter alongside systemic-change demands, while noting that Instagram posts are curated, subjective windows. The study highlights activists as significant actors in visual climate communication and calls for further research on: additional narrative strategies (e.g., visual analogies linking climate to other crises), simplifying climate-science jargon for accessibility, gendered dimensions of FFF’s narratives (notably the prominence of young women), reliance on the visibility of large-scale protests for legitimacy and grassroots identity, and the transmedial spread and impact of alternative climate visuals across platforms.

- Movement heterogeneity: FFF is not a unitary organisation; analysis covers selected major chapters only, limiting generalisability. - Sampling and platform scope: Focus on Instagram and chapters with high follower counts may bias toward highly visible strategies; other platforms or smaller/local chapters may differ. - Time-bounded corpus: Approximately 400 posts from 2019–2022 capture a specific period shaped by COVID-19 disruptions and subsequent revival. - Ethics and visuals: Illustrative collages were removed to avoid potential harm to youth; absence of reproduced images may limit readers’ direct appraisal of examples. - Curated content: Instagram posts are not objective records but curated, subjective presentations; this affects interpretation of authenticity and everyday realities. - Geographic focus: Emphasis on selected Western (France, Germany, Italy) and non-Western (Brazil, India, Mexico) contexts may not reflect all regional dynamics.