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Project Code [GOIPG/2022/2242]
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Project title
A Critical Analysis of the Protest Signs and Placards of the Fridays for Future Environmental Movement
Primary Funding Agency
Irish Research Council
Co-Funding Organisation(s)
n/a
Lead Organisation
Dublin City University (DCU)
Project Abstract
The School Strike for Climate movement began in August 2018 when Greta Thunberg painted a placard and skipped her classes to protest outside the Swedish parliament. From there, the movement grew to encompass school strike actions in 228 countries and 7,500 cities � including several in Ireland - involving some 13 million strikers.
Thunberg�s sign has become iconic: reproductions are available on phone covers, clothes and mugs. Placards and signs remain core to the school strike movement. Its main website dedicates significant space to signs and banners and how to make them.
Every school strike event gives rise to numerous online �listicles� � articles written as lists � of the �best� or �funniest� signs or placards. This is the case because, I argue, the protesters have �pre-cooked� their dissenting discourse for social media algorithms. In other words, they have drawn, written and designed their placards to look like posts on Instagram or Twitter.
Their slogans and images and use of memes displays a conscious pursuit of internet virality. The question I want to answer is what the effect of this is. Memes, algorithms, social media platforms have a particular grammar. The decision to phrase dissent as meme or as Instagram post has profound implications � it places the dissent in an uncomfortable relationship to the very systems of power it opposes.
When the protesters utilise the language of Instagram, of the meme or of the viral post to articulate their dissent, they inevitably and, perhaps unconsciously, accept the presuppositions of the platform.
I aim to analyse the movement�s posters and to suggest the possibility of an alternative. A particularly popular protest sign states that �There is no Planet B�; this is undoubtedly true, but I argue that another better world is possible.
Grant Approved
�53,310.00
Research Theme
Ireland's Future Climate, its Impacts, and Adaptation Options
Initial Projected Completion Date
31/08/2024