CHANGING THE WORLD THROUGH HASHTAGS: SOCIAL MEDIA AND CLIMATE CHANGE COMMUNICATION.

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.62533/80ya4f08

Keywords:

Climate Change, Social Media, Climate Communication, Social Media Activism, Climate Action

Abstract

In the contemporary era of digitalization, social media has emerged as a powerful and influential tool for communication and activism. With climate change being a pressing global issue, social media also plays its part as a medium of communication to amplify the awareness of this urgent global concern. Social media has not only become a medium to enable individuals and organizations to raise climate change concerns, but it has also established itself as a platform to hold decision-makers and people in power accountable for their actions. This paper explores social media's multifaceted role in enabling and empowering climate action while also studying the shortcomings of social media that hinder climate communication. By employing a qualitative research approach, the researchers analyze how climate change communication is facilitated or hampered through the content analysis of posts from four active Facebook pages dedicated to climate activism, chosen on the basis of the number of followers, accessibility, and the group's engagement. Additionally, this study also analyzes various ways through which social media empowers and enables social activism, such as calls to action, fostering awareness, organizing protests, and other strategies. This research aims to investigate the influence social media has on empowering activism by raising awareness about climate change. However, the researchers acknowledge social media limitations like echo chambers and the dissemination of misinformation.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

  • Sanobar Nadir, University of Karachi

    MPhil Scholar, Department of Mass Communication.

  • Dr.Fouzia Naz, University of Karachi

    Professor, Department of Mass Communication.

  • Hina Yousuf, University of Karachi

    MPhil Scholar, Department of Mass Communication.

  • Sundas Rana, University of Karachi.

    MPhil Scholar, Department of Mass Communication.

References

Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211-236. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.31.2.211

Anderson, A. (2021). Digital dialogues: The role of social media in environmental communication. Open Access Journal.

Anderson, A. A. (2017). Effects of social media use on climate change opinion, knowledge, and behavior. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science.

Bessi, A., Coletto, M., Davidescu, G. A., Scala, A., Caldarelli, G., & Quattrociocchi, W. (2015). Science vs conspiracy: Collective narratives in the age of misinformation. PLoS ONE, 10(2), e0118093. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118093

Castells, M. (2012). Networks of outrage and hope: Social movements in the internet age. Polity Press.

Citrawijaya, O., & Jannah, R. (2025). The Influence of Social Media Influencers on Public Opinion Formation Regarding Environmental and Climate Change Issues. Journal of the American Institute. https://doi.org/10.71364/wyxy4607.

Cox, R. (2013). Environmental communication and the public sphere. SAGE Publications.

Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (4th ed.). Sage.

Fernandez, M., Piccolo, L. S., Maynard, D., Wippoo, M., Meili, C., & Alani, H. (2016, May). Talking climate change via social media: communication, engagement and behaviour. In Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Web Science (pp. 85-94).

Fisher, D. R. (2019). The broader importance of #FridaysForFuture. Nature Climate Change, 9(6), 430-431. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0484-y

Fuchs, C. (2017). Social media: A critical introduction (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.

Hartmann, P., Apaolaza, V., & Paredes, M. R. (2025). How Greenfluencers Boost Climate Action: Why Inspirational Green Leadership Matters. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 49(3), e70050. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.70050

Hart, P. S., Feldman, L., Choi, S., Chinn, S., & Hiaeshutter-Rice, D. (2024). Climate Change Advocacy and Engagement on Social Media. Science Communication, 47(3), 385-412. https://doi.org/10.1177/10755470241284934 (Original work published 2025.

Husain, I., Qureshi, A. A., & Hussain, N. (2019). The economy of modern Sindh: opportunities lost and lessons for the future. Oxford University Press.

Khan, M. L. (2017). Social media engagement: What motivates user participation and consumption on YouTube? Computers in Human Behavior, 66, 236-247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.09.024

Lazard, A., & Atkinson, L. (2015). Putting environmental infographics center stage: The role of visual elements in the elaboration likelihood model. Science Communication, 37(1), 6-33. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547014555997

León, B., Negredo, S., & Erviti, M. (2022). Social engagement with climate change: Principles for effective visual representation on social media. Climate Policy, 22(7), 976–992. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2022.2077292

Lestari, R., Nurmandi, A., Younus, M., Lawelai, H., & Suardi, W. (2025). Optimizing Social Media Platforms to Foster Active Public Engagement in Tackling Climate Change and Environmental Conservation. Society, 13(1), 18-34. https://doi.org/10.33019/society.v13i1.742

McKibben, B. (2019). Climate change, social media, and protest. The New Yorker.

Moser, S. C. (2010). Communicating climate change: History, challenges, process and future directions. WIREs Climate Change, 1(1), 31-53. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.011

Pearce, W., Niederer, S., Özkula, S., & Querubín, N. (2018). The social media life of climate change: Platforms, publics, and future imaginaries. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 10(e569). https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.569

Pupneja, Y., Zou, J., L'evy, S., & Huang, S. (2023). Understanding opinions towards climate change on social media. ArXiv, abs/2312.01217. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2312.01217

Saputra, B. (2023, September 11). Russia's Social Media Propagandists Turning On The War. Techmesoft. Retrieved April 2, 2024, from https://techmesoft.com/russias-social-media-propagandists-turning-on-the-war.html

Schäfer, M. S. (2012). Online communication on climate change and climate politics: A literature review. WIREs Climate Change, 3(6), 527-543. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.191

Schmidt, A. L., Zollo, F., Del Vicario, M., Bessi, A., Scala, A., Caldarelli, G., ... & Quattrociocchi, W. (2017). Anatomy of news consumption on Facebook. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(12), 3035-3039. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1617052114

The Power of Social Media for Climate Justice Advocacy. University of Minnesota. Retrieved April 2, 2024, from https://ccaps.umn.edu/story/power-social-media-climate-justice-advocacy#:~:text=For%20instance%2C%20organizations%20have%20built,the%20issue%20and%20even%20create

Velasquez, A., & LaRose, R. (2015). Social media for social change: Social media political efficacy and activism in student movements. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 59(3), 456-474. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2015.1054998

Veltri, G., & Atanasova, D. (2017). Climate change on Twitter: Content, media ecology, and information sharing behaviour. Public Understanding of Science, 26(6), 721–737. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662515613702

Wang, S., Paul, M. J., & Dredze, M. (2018). Social media as a sensor of air quality and public response in China. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 20(3), e30. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.7311

White, M., & Marsh, E. (2006). Content Analysis: A Flexible Methodology. Library Trends, 55, 22 - 45. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2006.0053

Williams, H. T., McMurray, J. R., Kurz, T., & Lambert, F. H. (2015). Network analysis reveals open forums and echo chambers in social media discussions of climate change. Global Environmental Change, 32, 126-138.

Zaib, K., Ahmed, S., & Al Murshidi, G. (2025). Exposed Online, Endangered Offline: The Intersection of Social Media Presence and Gendered Violence in Pakistan. Liberal Journal of Language & Literature Review, 3(3), 1243-1265.

Downloads

Published

2025-12-26

Versions

Data Availability Statement

The authors have not made their research data available..

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

CHANGING THE WORLD THROUGH HASHTAGS: SOCIAL MEDIA AND CLIMATE CHANGE COMMUNICATION. (2025). BAHRIA UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES (BUJHSS), 84-98. https://doi.org/10.62533/80ya4f08 (Original work published 2026)