This research focuses on nuanced expressions of vulnerability within climate activist groups on social media and their impact on political protest. In recent years, the climate movement has grown significantly, both in Europe and around the globe. Especially the movement „Fridays for Future“ has gained momentum since 2018 and youth resistance has since become a global phenomenon. In their protests, activists frame their political demands around an injustice resulting from previous generations actions (Eide & Kunelius, 2021; Spaiser et al., 2022) , rendering them vulnerable to imminent climate catastrophes. Vulnerability based on a neglect of care from preceding generations (King, 2010) therefore acts as one of the main narratives in activist articulations. According to Butler (2016), vulnerability is conceptualized as an ontological, relational category that is impossible to overcome in general terms but whose distribution should be equalized where possible. It is thus often the basis of political activism that demands political action based on an injust and avoidable exposure to vulnerability (ibid.). In terms of climate activism, the relational character exceeds interpersonal relations and contains the dependence on environmental surroundings. It remains an ambivalent attribution, as the explication of vulnerability is on the one hand often re-configured as „heroic“ (Safaian, 2022), whereas declaring vulnerability over a specific (sub)group can on the other hand be conzeptualized as an expression of hegemonic power (Govrin, 2022; Manzo, 2010).

The climate movement in Europe and the so-called Global North has been publicly criticised as a group of wealthy youth, primarily bound by shared privilege, thus depoliticizing the protests (von Zabern & Tulloch, 2021) - although there is conflicting empirical data regarding this argument (della Porta & Portos, 2021). Nonetheless, statistical evidence indicates that activists are well-educated (Sommer et al. 2019) and in a global perspective, disproportianaley less vulnerable to climate change than respective youth in the „majority world“ (Crawford et al., 2023). Notwithstanding, the acknowledgment and effective communication of vulnerability, both within specific activist groups and as a global ecological concern, remain crucial for crafting affective narratives, especially in the realm of social media networks (Papacharissi, 2016) that are crucial in connecting disparate events to a global movement (Bouliane et al., 2020). The complex position that European activists navigate, oscillating between victimhood and directly profiting from global injustice systems (Malafaia, 2022), necessitates a comprehensive analysis that avoids merely responsibilizing climate activists. Therefore, the question of group constitution that is on the one hand based on a global political injustice (in which children and youth have been argued to shape the „climate precariat“ as proposed by Holmberg & Alvinius, 2021) and yet acknowledges global differences along intersectional vulnerabilities (Crenshaw, 2010; Yuval-Davis, 2010) remains crucial.

This research adopts a qualitative approach, intending to empirically examine the negotiation and affective depiction of vulnerability in public articulations of climate protest on social media platforms. While existing research has delved into climate activism, particularly on digital platforms (Neumayer & Rossi, 2018; Belotti et al., 2022), this study aims to contribute by systematically analyzing depictions and attributions of vulnerability within the activism, and its intricate interplay with privilege within the European context. The poster emphasizes the need for a nuanced understanding that recognizes the relational structure of vulnerability (Butler, 2016) and the resulting political imperative for care (Bond et al., 2020). Main research ocjective for the poster presentation is to answer the question (RQ1) How do climate activists articulate and negotiate vulnerability on social media platforms and how do these articulations shape their political activism in the context of the European climate movement?

This study is part of a cumulative, qualitative PhD project aimed at comprehending the affective dimensions within both digital and local climate activism groups. The PhD in turn, is situated within a larger framework of a research project concerning practices of politicisation on digital platforms with a focus on TikTok (see Silkenbeumer et al, 2023). The methodological context for the PhD project encompasses both ethnographic and netnographic research methodologies. To address the specific research question at hand, a netnographic approach, following the framework proposed by Kozinets (2019) has been chosen. The focus of this research involves the examination of TikTok profiles directly associated with European climate protest groups, identified through their names (e.g FFF_Scotland) as a form of „Activist Political Online Community“ (Villegas, 2021). The rationale for selecting TikTok lies in its algorithmic structuring, encouraging the creation of highly emotionalized content. After a research period of „deep immersion“ (Kozinets, 2019) in the digital context, ten videos have been chosen for a detailed qualitative hermeneutic analysis. For the sample, 10 videos have been chosed for deeper analysis based on European origin, depictions of vulnerability and articulations of specifically European perspectives on climate activism, ensuring comparability by limiting the selection to content in either German or English. The timeframe for video inclusion spans from October 2023 to March 2024. To develop a nuanced understanding of the medium, a detailed multimodal analysis is employed, following the metholodical approaches of “Visual Grounded Theory Methodology” (Mey & Dietrich, 2016), additionally drawing on hermeneutic interpretation principles (Oevermann, 2016). This analytical approach allows for the exploration of the intricate process of meaning-making, considering the interaction of various content creation levels such as sound, visuals, and memetic structures (see e.g. Literat & Kligler-Vilenchik, 2019). Through this approach, the study aims to reconstruct and review the complex layers of meaning within TikTok content in the context of the research question, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of how vulnerability is expressed on multiple levels within the European climate movement on social media platforms. This research contributes to the broader discourse on climate activism by examining the nuanced dynamics of vulnerability and privilege within the digital realm.

This research identifies distinct predominant narratives of vulnerability employed by climate activists on TikTok: It becomes evident that vulnerability is mostly depicted indirectly and is hereby related to multiple social categories, such as gender, race, and socioeconomic status. Importantly, these intersections are not uniformly addressed by climate activists online, with certain dimensions like disability being largely overlooked. Strategies for addressing vulnerability exhibit variation in their affective dimensions based on three key factors: (1) the intended audience, conceptualized as the imagined "other," (2) the explicitness of political demands within the content and (3) multiple and intersecting depictions of vulnerability. The affective impact of these strategies ranges from (self) "heroic" depictions, positioning activists as potentially powerful despite their vulnerability (following Safaian, 2022), at times even due to their vulnerability to portrayals where vulnerability is presented not as a virtue but as a reason for desperation (Kessl, 2019), and in some instances, hopelessness. This diversity in affective impact corresponds to different narratological motives, including the use of popular memetic templates and platform-specific affordances like sound or filters. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of meaning-making in digital spheres, particularly regarding political demands in non-formalized contexts. Lastly, the research draws conclusions on depictions of vulnerability that extend beyond the vulnerabilities of the activists themselves. It uncovers complex layers of solidarity within these depictions, highlighting the interconnectedness of vulnerabilities and the various ways in which activists navigate and express solidarity within digital spaces. The demand for a politics of care is discussed based on the theoretical discourse on vulnerability (Butler, 2016) as well as the typologies derived from specific depictions found in the empirical data.

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