Fridays for what future? : a case study on the collective action framing of the Swedish environmental movement

Abstract: Climate protests under the banner Fridays For Future have increased in scale and frequency since they began in August 2018. Protests are in the present research understood as significant discursive arenas that are instrumental in societal knowledge production, prompting the aim of the present research to empirically explore how specific knowledges about climate change are communicated by the movement. A case study methodology was devised informed by collective action framing theory. The analysis drew on multiple data sources, including online and offline observations and activist interviews, to generate a comprehensive interpretation of the Swedish Fridays For Future’s collective action frame. This methodology allowed for inductive construction of themes present in the data. The findings detail 10 themes and 13 sub-themes of movement diagnostic, prognostic and motivational framing. Internal heterogeneity among select diagnostic and prognostic themes is established, inferring possible frame disputes. The movement makes use of Doomsday vocabulary to construct motive for collective action. Responsibility, or even environmental citizenship, is inferred as another means of constructing motive. The findings together make static some of the ongoing and everchanging processes of protest, allowing researchers and practitioners alike to observe and reflect on the movements’ collective action frame. Future research on responsibility framing or internal frame disputes may generate further clarity to the movement’s knowledges and framing processes.