Communicating the climate: an analysis of Greenpeace's environmental discourse
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2019-07-04
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en
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As climate change continues to worsen with every passing year, and public engagement is low, communicating climate change becomes increasingly more important. Recently, the academic field started placing more emphasis on language and images and therefore discourse as crucially important in communicating climate change to the general public. A dissection of the discourse constructed by one of the biggest spreaders of climate change awareness, Greenpeace, will aid in the understanding of how environmental discourse is constructed, and, perhaps, how it could be improved to become more effective. This thesis used critical discourse analysis to uncover the way in which both Greenpeace International and Greenpeace Netherlands construct their environmental discourse. By looking at textual elements such as framing and metaphor use and pictorial elements, this research examined the resulting environmental discourse. The current research found that both Greenpeace International as well as Greenpeace Netherlands tell the story of a climate change apocalypse that threatens the world. Though Greenpeace International places more emphasis on climate justice, Greenpeace Netherlands highlights the concept of culpability in the climate issue. Greenpeace International’s stories were found to be more personal, immersive and hopeful than Greenpeace Netherlands’ very matter of fact articles.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen