Visual Persuasion in a Transforming Europe

Climate change has been called the defining crisis of our time. In the last few years, millions of people have taken to the streets to demand urgent action on the escalating ecological emergency. Social media have had great importance in the development of the movement. For example, the virality of posts on Twitter and Instagram has quickly transformed the activist Greta Thunberg into an iconic figure, attracting supportive but also openly hostile reactions. The importance of images in the online communication of the movement and the emotions moving these activists and those who attack them online draw attention to the symbolic and emotional role of images for social movements. The PolarVis project will examine the role of visual content in processes of political polarization and belonging in the digital age by focusing on the intergenerational issue of climate change and the green transition. The visual dimension is increasingly salient online, where it underpins both conflict and connection. Photos, videos, and memes offer a powerful form of political communication. Political actors use them to frame issues, mobilize support an d build or undermine legitimacy, and citizens and platforms play a part by modifying, sharing, and amplifying them. This research project will forge a unique interdisciplinary framework to study the implications of networked visual persuasion on a large scale and to understand how, why, and with what consequences visual content becomes a mechanism of polarization and belonging in Europe. In particular, it will address four key questions: How do movements use visual content in their communication? What are the characteristics of this visual content, and how does it form visual narratives? How do online audiences react to the visual content? How does this content spread online and allow like-minded or opposed groups to emerge? By combining network analysis, computational text and image analysis, and in-depth qualitative approaches, the project will advance the study of polarization in its political, societal, and affective dimensions, illuminating dilemmas facing stakeholders that work to engage citizens with climate change issues online. Prof. Annie Waldherr (PI) and Dr. Nicola Righetti (Co-PI) lead the project at the University of Vienna which is part of a large international and interdisciplinary collaboration within the CHANSE initiative. Partners include the coordinator of the consortium Alexandra Segerberg (Uppsala University) as well as Luca Rossi (IT University of Copenhagen), Daniel Oross (Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences), and Nicole Doerr (University of Copenhagen).