Climate change represents one of the greatest threats to contemporary society, yet the topic often remains marginalized in public and media discourse. This master's thesis focuses on the visual communication of climate change and sustainability on Instagram, exploring how different visual elements contribute to meaning-making and message transmission. We analyzed the most common visual and textual features of posts, including symbols, color schemes, and compositional elements, while also examining the use of iconography and the frequency of source citation. A combination of quantitative and qualitative multimodal analysis was employed, grounded in the visual grammar framework developed by Kress and van Leeuwen. The findings indicate that climate communication on Instagram is predominantly solution-oriented, with a strong emphasis on technological innovation and an optimistic outlook on the future. Individuals emerge as key actors in raising awareness, educating, and mobilizing the public, thus assuming the role of agents of change. However, the lack of transparent sourcing may negatively affect the perceived credibility of such content. Instagram thus proves to be a powerful yet still under-researched tool for climate communication, offering significant potential to enhance public engagement, promote reflection, and encourage socially responsible and sustainable behavior.
|
