Attitudes towards youth activism in Malta : the case of Greta Thunberg

Abstract

This dissertation is an attempt to explore Maltese attitudes in relation to the environmental activist Greta Thunberg through the analysis of the discourse contained within online Maltese newspaper articles together with their associated user comments. Making use of specialized corpora relevant to the query that were built from scratch, a blend of qualitative and quantitative methods has been employed. The study commenced with the use of corpus techniques before moving on to investigate and refine acquired findings through careful close readings of the data, while applying van Leeuwen’s framework for the depiction of social actors and social actions. This dissertation is an exploratory one, and seeks to bring CDA tools to a very specific social context, one focused on the ever-present challenge of climate change. On the basis of the data analysis the eventual scope of the present study was broadened to include the reception of local Maltese student protests that formed part of Thunberg’s FFF (Fridays for Future) climate change campaign, as well as general Maltese attitudes towards the environment and the depiction of authority figures in said online news portals.