CLIMATE ANXIETY AS A LENS INTO YOUNG PEOPLE'S POLITICAL EXPRESSION ON YOUTUBE

Abstract

Climate anxiety—the feeling of dread and distress associated with worrying about the future of the planet—has been posited as a defining feature of Gen Z. This study examines youth communication around climate anxiety on YouTube, through a qualitative content analysis of 146 youth-created videos about climate anxiety, as well as the over 20,000 comments posted on them. Illustrating an emphasis on content rather than form, the videos in our corpus showed an in-depth engagement with the topic at hand, coupled with a simple, low-key aesthetic. The vast majority of videos assumed an imagined audience of young people who are concerned about the climate; thus, the goal was to provide information and advice rather than persuade about climate change. Our analysis illustrates the significance of insider conversations among youth, and the centrality of YouTube’s expressivity and connectivity affordances in allowing young people to engage with these topics on a personal and intimate level. At the same time, our research illuminates the mental toll of political expression for young people, and further highlights this connection between the affective and the political drive. On a theoretical level, our research offers and tests a broadly applicable model that explains how different social media platforms (in this case, YouTube) enable—as well as constrain—certain forms of political expression, through the interaction between their affordances, norms, and contents.