The Role of Media in the Global School Strike for Climate Change

This essay delves into the significant role of both social and print media in shaping and disseminating the global school strike for climate change movement. It examines how these media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, newspapers, and magazines, have framed and supported student protests against governmental inaction on climate change. The essay analyzes the impact of media coverage on the movement's growth, comparing the reach and influence of social media versus print media in encouraging student activism and raising public awareness. The analysis includes how media organizations have provided a platform for students to voice their concerns, share information, and organize protests, while also considering the potential for media to present both positive and negative aspects of the strikes, including criticisms related to the impact on student learning. The essay references the origins of the strike with Greta Thunberg and the global spread of the movement. The conclusion highlights the unavoidable role of media in climate change awareness and activism, while acknowledging the differing impacts and audiences of social and print media.

Running Head: School strike for climate change
Role of Media in School climate change
Essay
APRIL 20, 2019

School strike for climate change 1
Introduction
The school strike for climate change is a global movement of all school students
including primary and high school students who are deciding to protest against their government
for their inappropriate action for global warming and climate change. The present study shows
the role of social and print media that how these media organizations framing the student protest.
The present work analyses the role of social media and print media and compare these media
organization in framing this movement in which student denied to attend the school and protest
against the government for better environmental action. The main objective of the present work
is to define the role of social and print media in school strike for climate change and appraise
these channels for their encouragement provided to the students. These media organizations are
continuously supporting the movement via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, newspapers, magazines
and other channels (Zhou, 2019).
What is the movement about?
A large numbers of school children all-around the world is protesting against their
government for the climate change. The students in different countries are unhappy that their
governments are doing nothing to control the climate change and to reduce the global warming.
The strikes are part of growing international movement that is spreading in all over the world,
and there are large numbers of primary and high school students are skipping their classes to take
part in this street protest. Many of these protests have been outside of the government buildings
(Adeogun & Olisaemeka, 2016).
This strike was started in August 2018 when a Swedish student Greta Thunberg stood
outside of a Swedish government building and displayed a signboard “School strike for climate
change”. Various social and print media highlighted this girl and her photos and videos went
viral on Facebook, YouTube, and local newspapers in Sweden. After watching the post and
videos posted on social media related to this protest, students has been organized in all over the
world and give their support to the initiative of Ms. Thunberg’ movement. In 2019, this strike
has taken place across Europe, North-America, Australia. In some part of the Asia, it also
encourages students to protect against their government for poor climate change actions. Over
45,000 students protested on one day in Switzerland and Germany (Anderson, 2018). The

School strike for climate change 2
students were displaying banner to their government that “why learn without future?” “if you do
not act as adults, we will” etc. (Smart-Knight, 2019). Many scientists, teachers, politicians
supported this protest and they all congratulated to these students for their great initiative and
activism. Although a large number of people against their protest and ask them to go back to
school and learn first. An Australian leader called for “more learning in school and less
activism”. However, a journalist of USA asks them “if they really want to protest for climate
change and wag their fingers at older generations for some undoing fault or sin, the student
should do it on weekend.” However, this strike was so much appraised on social media and in
print media in various countries (Kalafatis, Lemos, Lo, & Frank, 2015).
Role of Online and Print Media organization in the Strike
Role of social media in school climate change strike is unavoidable. The protest was
appraised all over the world and social media playing a crucial role to provide a platform to
encourage to protest of students. Students see the videos from Facebook and YouTube and join
the protest in their own country. The reach of social media is now so wide and it covers almost
the whole population of the world, especially youngsters. The time of Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, and YouTube change the scenario of communication in this digital age. Social media
and its use to represent opinions of people about climate change have several positive impacts
and its can be easily pointes in the school strike for climate change. A large number of people
share their opinion on social media and local newspapers about this protest. It has been also
considerable that everything has some positive and negative aspects and both media
organizations (social and print media) also criticize and appraise this protest in equal manner
(Corner, Roberts, Chiari, Völler, Mayrhuber, Mandl, & Monson, 2015).
Social media spread a greater knowledge of climate change around the world among the
people who keen to know about the current issues of global warming and initiative taken by
government. It also provides a platform for discussion among various social groups and
individuals who discuss the issue with other groups or individuals. However, Social media
provide space for framing climate change skeptically and activating those with a skeptical
perspective of climate change. If we are talking about the print media then it provides a platform
for local people to discuss this protest with both its negative and positive aspects (Greenhow &
Lewin, 2016). Although print media has limited range of audience in compare to social media,

School strike for climate change 3
but it is more effective and represents the issue of school strike about climate change so
effectively. The local group of people who are not happy with this protest and think that this
protest destroys the future of students and they are not learning rather than they more involves in
activism. The school strike about climate change is a sensitive issue because if student not attend
their classes, it will definitely affect their leanings and this is widely presented by the print media
because they consider the opinion of parents and school teachers as well (Lombardi, Sinatra, &
Nussbaum, 2013). However, print media support the protest of student all over the world but it
also represents the other side of the strike that how it effects the education life of students. The
Guardian said in its article “if children do not join the climate strike, their schools are
underachieving” shows that how print media support and encourage the protest of students about
climate change. The print media supported this protest with thinking that activism is more
significant than grades and any teacher should be encouraging their pupils to walk out.
Both print media and social media encourages this protest of students, but it has been
seen that print media represents both aspects of this strike. It is usual that if students will not
attend the class, it will definitely affect their study, which is very bad for the social development.
Although the social media shows the positive side of this school strike because people follow
what they see on social media. Social media united the whole world and large group of students
(Punter, Ochando‐Pardo, & Garcia, 2015). However, in contrary to this, various scholars
examined the idea of using social median and find that excessive use of internet and social media
reduces the knowledge gap. As more and more people around the world gain access to the social
media, they became more aware about various issues related to the climate change. While print
media generally have a limited range of readers, but it has great influence in compare to social
media. However, social media spread the school strike for climate change in those areas where
students are not aware of these things and help them to organize in this protest and raise their
voice against the local government. The major disadvantage of social media that it does not
represent the bot side of the strike rather it only focuses on one side of the student protest.
Although it can be said that these media organization organized the large number of students
abut climate change issue and help them to raise their voice in front of their respective
government (Thunberg & Taylor, 2019).

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Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that the role of social media and print media in climate
change is unavoidable because these channels provide a wide range of knowledge to its users.
However, the audiences of these two media channels are different because the social media can
cover a wide range of audiences or users while the print media can cover only a limited number
of readers. However, in the school strike for climate change, both media channels provide their
appreciation and support to the students for their great activism. It is also found in the study that
some people criticize the protest because it affects the learning of student but some great scholars
and teacher supported this protest for the great activities and initiative of the students. Although
social media has wide coverage of users and viewers but its impact is not so strong while if we
consider the print media then we found that it represents the both aspect of this student protest
for climate change.

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References
Adeogun, A. A., & Olisaemeka, B. U. (2016). Influence of School Climate on Students'
Achievement and Teachers' Productivity for Sustainable Development. Online
Submission, 8(4), 552-557.
Anderson, C. S. (2018). The search for school climate: A review of the research. Review of
educational research, 52(3), 368-420.
Corner, A., Roberts, O., Chiari, S., Völler, S., Mayrhuber, E. S., Mandl, S., & Monson, K.
(2015). How do young people engage with climate change? The role of knowledge,
values, message framing, and trusted communicators. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews:
Climate Change, 6(5), 523-534.
Greenhow, C., & Lewin, C. (2016). Social media and education: Reconceptualizing the
boundaries of formal and informal learning. Learning, media and technology, 41(1), 6-
30.
Kalafatis, S. E., Lemos, M. C., Lo, Y. J., & Frank, K. A. (2015). Increasing information usability
for climate adaptation: The role of knowledge networks and communities of
practice. Global Environmental Change, 32, 30-39.
Lombardi, D., Sinatra, G. M., & Nussbaum, E. M. (2013). Plausibility reappraisals and shifts in
middle school students' climate change conceptions. Learning and Instruction, 27, 50-62.
Punter, P., Ochando‐Pardo, M., & Garcia, J. (2015). Spanish secondary school students' notions
on the causes and consequences of climate change. International Journal of Science
Education, 33(3), 447-464.
Smart-Knight, R. (2019). I am taking in the school climate strike. It’s the only power I have
[online]. Retrieve from:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/15/school-climate-strike-
classroom-climate-change
Thunberg, G. & Taylor, A. (2019). Think we should be at school? Today’s climate strike is the
biggest lesson of all [online]. Retrieve from:

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/15/school-climate-strike-greta-
thunberg
Zhou, N. (2019). ‘We’ve been forced into this': Australia's school climate strikes to go global
[online]. Retrieve from: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/11/weve-
been-forced-into-this-australias-school-climate-strikes-to-go-global