Inter-Risk Framing Contests: The Politics of Issue Attention among Scandinavian Climate NGOs during the Coronavirus Pandemic

Abstract

In this article, we study the framing activities of Scandinavian climate-active non-governmental organizations (NGOs) during the early phases of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Building on theories of focusing events, crisis exploitation and Ulrich Beck’s global risks, we develop and apply the concept of inter-risk framing contests to the case. Empirically, we analyse all climate- and corona-related tweeting activity of a broad selection of green NGOs in Denmark (17 NGOs, 874 tweets), Norway (22 NGOs, 2575 tweets) and Sweden (15 NGOs, 920 tweets), respectively. Methodologically, we employ quantitative text analysis to map socio-symbolic constellations of NGO-term relations using principal component analysis, while complementing this via online ethnographic observation to increase interpretative validity. Overall, the analysis demonstrates similarities and differences in how green NGOs have variously responded to the ambiguous challenges and symbolic opportunities of the coronavirus event, in ways resonant with path-dependent dynamics of the three national green civil societies.