4.0 Article

Dead White men vs. Greta Thunberg: Nationalism, Misogyny, and Climate Change Denial in Swedish far-right Digital Media

Journal

AUSTRALIAN FEMINIST STUDIES
Volume 36, Issue 110, Pages 414-431

Publisher

ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/08164649.2022.2062669

Keywords

Alternative media; industrial; breadwinner masculinities; environmental privileges; carbon inequality; conspiracy theories; critical discourse analysis

Funding

  1. Swedish Energy Agency [P46178-1]
  2. Svenska Forskningsradet Formas [2018-00417]
  3. Forte [2018-00417] Funding Source: Forte
  4. Formas [2018-00417] Funding Source: Formas

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The article examines the hostile reaction of far-right digital media towards Greta Thunberg in 2018-2019, and delves into the motivations behind it. The far right attempted to discredit Thunberg and her movement by using conspiracy theories and historical tropes, in order to protect their usually hidden environmental privileges.
In the autumn of 2018 Greta Thunberg started her school strike. Soon she and the Fridays For Future-movement rose to world-fame, stirring a backlash laying bare the intrinsic climate change denial of Swedish far-right digital media. These outlets had previously been almost silent on climate change, but in 2019, four of the ten most read articles on the site Samhallsnytt were about Thunberg, all of them discrediting the movement and spreading doubt about climate science. Using the conceptualisation of industrial/breadwinner masculinities as developed by Hultman and Pule [2018. Ecological Masculinities: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Guidance. Routledge Studies in Gender and Environments. New York: Routledge], this article analyses what provoked this reaction. It explores how the hostility to Thunberg was constructed in far-right media discourse in the years 2018-2019, when she became a threat to an imagined industrial, homogenic and patriarchal community. Using conspiracy theories and historical tropes of irrational femininity, the far right was trying to protect the usually hidden environmental privileges, related to unequal carbon emissions and resource use, that Thunberg and her movement made visible.

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