FROM HASHTAGS TO ACTION: AN ECOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF CLIMATE CHANGE NARRATIVES ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Abstract

In the digital era, social media has become a central platform for environmental advocacy, shaping perceptions, ideologies, and engagement with climate change. This study examines the linguistic strategies employed in social media climate campaigns through an ecolinguistic and critical discourse analysis lens. The research investigates how metaphors, emotive language, slogans, hashtags, and symbolic imagery construct environmental awareness and influence audience behavior. Findings reveal that while these campaigns effectively foster empathy, moral responsibility, and a sense of collective ecological identity, they also exhibit discursive ambivalence. Ambivalence arises when urgent ecological messaging is paired with solutions emphasizing individual consumer behavior, potentially limiting transformative action. The study highlights the dual role of social media discourse: it educates and mobilizes audiences while negotiating the tension between ethical imperatives, organizational priorities, and audience engagement. This research contributes to ecolinguistics by demonstrating the power of language in constructing ecological ideologies and mediating human-nature interactions in digital spaces, offering valuable insights for environmental communicators, scholars, and policy-makers.