Media and power in times of hegemonic crisis: exploring contentious climate politics on Twitter

Figures & data

Figure 1. Map of COP26 retweet network.

Table 1. Eight largest communities in COP26 retweet network (8,921,103).

Name	Colour	Retweet total	Structure	Power Resource
Greta Thunberg	Turquoise	588,608	Mono-nodal	Relational
Science-advocacy	Green	586,197	Multi-nodal	Knowledge/ moral authority
Contrarian	Yellow	526,863	Multi-nodal	Relational
COP26	Pink	436,189	Mono-nodal	Administrative
Mainstream media	Tan	310,261	Multi-nodal	Attention
UK-Scotland event	Neon	229,884	Multi-nodal	Administrative
POTUS	Orange	206,535	Mono-nodal	Political
Narendra Modi	Navy	109,427	Mono-nodal	Political

Figure 2. Close-up of Greta Thunberg and Contrarian communities.

Table 2. Top retweeted users in Greta Thunberg community (RT: 588,608).

Rank	User account	Retweets	Percentage of whole cluster
1	GretaThunberg	120,596	20.5%
2	CarolineLucas	19,708	3.3%
3	ChrisGPackham	16,144	2.7%
4	NadiaWhittomeMP	13,248	2.3%
5	davidschneider	13,069	2.2%
6	bmay	12,367	2.1%
7	GeorgeMonbiot	11,745	1.9%
8	stephenfry	11,726	1.9%
9	vanessa_vash	11,349	1.9%
10	BorisJohnson_MP	9214	1.6%
11	Ed_Miliband	8277	1.4%
12	Haggis_UK	8112	1.3%
13	ExtinctionR	7167	1.2%
14	AaronBastani	6670	1.1%
15	Luisamneubauer	6658	1.1%

Table 3. Top retweeted users in Contrarian community (526,863 RTs).

Rank	User account	Retweets	Percentage of whole cluster
1	PeterSweden7	35,183	6.6%
2	JamesMelville	30,082	5.7%
3	PrisonPlanet	29,439	5.6%
4	disclosetv	27,674	5.3%
5	BernieSpofforth	22,034	4.2%
6	GBNEWS	21,542	4.1%
7	JuliaHB1	12,705	2.4%
8	MartinDaubney	12,579	2.4%
9	EricMMatheny	11,926	2.3%
10	ShellenbergerMD	10,634	2%
11	Nigel_Farage	9670	1.8%
12	DrEliDavid	8297	1.6%
13	PeterDClack	7576	1.4%
14	JulianMellentin	6529	1.2%
15	EcoSenseNow	6231	1.2%

Table 4. Salient themes and styles in top retweeted content.

Theme	Greta Thunberg	Contrarian
Criticism or shaming of elites	88% (44)	76% (38)
Crisis/Action	74% (37)	0
Rhetorical use of irony	24% (12)	40% (20)
Rhetorical use of hypocrisy	30% (15)	66% (33)

Table 5. Elements of relational political power in two crisis communities.

Similarities
Communities motivated by systemic crisis
Critique of unresponsive global elites
Irony and sarcasm as rhetorical strategy
Differences
Greta Thunberg community	Contrarian community
Mono-nodal community structure	Multi-nodal community structure
Many connections to other clusters, and to large diffuse following	Weak connections to other clusters
Ties to mainstream media	Ties to popular/right-wing media
Irony/sarcasm + prescriptions for climate action	Irony/sarcasm + attention redirected away from climate action
Calls for engagement with systemic power	Calls for disengagement with systemic power