Construction and contestation of climate activist identities in the comments section of a large UK-based online newspaper

Abstract

Success of global attempts to limit climate change depends partly upon public support for demands of climate activist groups. We examined the role of social representation and identity processes in shaping opposition to climate activism, through a discursive thematic analysis of 628 online comments on 20 MailOnline articles about climate activists. Members of the commenting community propagated representations of climate activists as an immoral and incompetent, low-value to society, ideological Other. Commenters contrasted negative representations of activists with constructions of their own shared identity as hardworking, moral and competent. These constructions serve to undermine and delegitimize the activist voice, while simultaneously advancing a political project rooted in ideological and class-based concerns. Future research might explore the possibility of engaging wider support through generating competing representations of activist identity. Our research illustrates the value of jointly focusing on social representations and social identity processes for understanding issue-based societal polarisation.