Hero or villain? Responses to Greta Thunberg’s activism and the implications for travel and tourism

Abstract

The paper engages with the concepts of scapegoat ecology and heroisation to explore social media responses to Greta Thunberg’s activism. We sought to understand the broad sentiment towards her anti-flying (flygskam/flight shame) campaign, as symbolised by her 2019 sail to the United States to attend the United Nations Climate Action Summit. Specifically, social media user posts in response to three major news media organisations’ (BBC, CNN, and Sky News) Facebook coverage of her trip were analysed. The findings reveal dichotomous responses – the majority are critical and dismissive, which we interpret through the lens of ‘scapegoating’; however, a substantial number of posts (about 30%) describe the youth activist as inspirational. We conclude that the majority of people are not yet ready to give up travel convenience for climate change or other environmental reasons, and discuss potential implications for the tourism industry.

Keywords:

• Climate change
• flight shaming
• activism
• air travel
• environmentalism
• qualitative analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mucha Mkono

Dr Mucha Mkono's current research focuses on a range of sustainability themes, including climate change, air travel, and wildlife conservation.

Karen Hughes

Assistant Professor Karen Hughes has been teaching and researching tourism for approximately 25 years. Her research and teaching predominantly focus on interpretation, visitor management, wildlife tourism, and tourist behaviour.

Stella Echentille

Stella Echentille is a tutor and research assistant in tourism studies.