By looking at the characteristics of climate movements in a visual manner, we are able to better observe the differences and similarities between them and perhaps even get an idea of why these differences and similarities persist. From here, we’ll have a better understanding of what exactly a climate movement is and how they behave in local and global contexts.
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Now that we know a little bit about what climate movements are, how they are situated in a historical and geographical context, and their social media outreach, it is time to take the next step.
How do individuals interact with these movements, physically and digitally, in shaping the wider narrative around climate change?
For the past few weeks, our team has been working on compiling a dynamic data set of various climate movements. From the data set, we’ve extracted the different ways that climate movements describe themselves, their reach on multiple social media platforms, their geographic spread, as well as how they’re situated in the wider historical context of climate change. The intention is to make a creative combination of data and visuals. Our results are presented on this webpage.
Why are we doing this research?
Taking inspiration from the backpack project that was done for school kids, we unpacked each climate movement individually and then looked for ways to cluster and classify them. Each of the four visualizations provides its own unique way of doing so. By looking at the characteristics of the movements in a visual manner, we are able to better observe the differences and similarities between them and perhaps even get an idea of why these differences and similarities persist. From here, we’ll have a better understanding of what exactly a climate movement is and how they behave in local and global contexts. The webpage we have created is our own version of organizing and classifying, in an inductive manner, information related to rising climate movements. The inductive nature of our research is especially important as a climate movement is something dynamic and without a strict definition.
Steps:
|
Visualization |
Description |
|
Definition Rotating Carousel |
This visualization is a dynamic definition which combines the action words, target audiences, and target subjects (who the movements were ‘pointing fingers’ at) of 12 climate movements. The structure of the definition remains the same whilst the key words (inputs) rotate to display the different ways that climate movements describe themselves. With this visualization, we hope to show that there is not just one definition for a climate movement, but rather that each movement describes themselves in their own unique way, leading to a plethora of different definitions. Verbs (action words) were chosen based on the frequency that they came up in the purpose statements taken from the official website of each climate movement. Verbs used twice or more were selected for contention. The same was done with the target audiences and subjects. From here, a list of combinations was compiled to test the coherence of all combinations. Once all combinations were mapped out, we coded the Carousel. Why? The rotating carousel was chosen to show that different climate movements speak about themselves in different ways. However, it was also chosen to show the movements are similar in the sense that they demand a desired action from a target group against a particular subject(s). By combining terms, we aimed to show the range of scopes that climate movements assume. |
|
Social Stacked Barplot |
This visualization displays the social media reach of the different climate movements in a stacked barplot visualization. Each bar represents one movement and is made up of several sub-bars that show the movement’s following for a given social media platforms. The total size of the bar represents how large the reach of a particular movement in absolute terms as well as relative to the other movements. The intention of this visualization is to display the differing ‘reaches’ of the climate movements and to classify them based on particular platform data. This will help provide an overview of how widespread the movements are. Why? We want to know which movements are most prominent on which forms of social media. We also want to know which social media platforms are the most relevant for pushing the narrative surrounding climate change. This visualization is the first step in identifying appropriate objects for image scraping later on. |
|
Timeline |
This visualization uses a timeline format to highlight key climate events and compare them to the establishment of particular climate movements, starting from 1963 and going until present day. With such a timeline, we can see what triggered the rise of particular climate movements as well as if and how these triggers have changed over time. Furthermore, it provides a concise overview of all the climate movements we have analyzed to date and how they are situated in the wider context of climate change. Through desktop research, we used secondary sources and other timelines to determine which events were most important in the history of climate change. |
|
Map of Locations |
Similar to the social rings, the intention of this visualization is to display the reach of different climate movements - this time geographically. The map contains items such as the movement headquarters and local support groups for each of the movements. By having all this information on one map, we show both the local and global scale that particular climate movements assume as well as which geographic locations are over/under represented. |
Compiling visualizations into a webpage: Once the visualizations are complete, we embedded them on a webpage we created.
Bibliography
Code Red. (n.d.). Shell Must Fall. Retrieved from https://code-rood.org/en/.Tools
https://observablehq.com/@d3/hexbin-map