Examining how different forms of climate protest affect social media debates is critical to understanding their role within societal climate policy discourse. This study compares debates surrounding disruptive and non-disruptive movements on Twitter/X, asking to what extent they lead to ideologically and affectively polarized networks. We analyzed debates around two prominent German climate movements—Fridays for Future and Last Generation—using automated content and network analyses ( N = ~5,000,000) and manual content analyses ( N = 2,830) of data compiled during 2022 and 2023. In doing so, we identified the types of events, (extreme) frames, users, and interactions that shape the structure of the online debates. The results reveal polarized networks in both debates, with the climate protesters’ antagonists driving discursive polarization. The Last Generation debate, however, has a significantly higher number of antagonistic users, more extreme frames, more toxic cross-group interactions, and less diverse network clusters. Last Generation generated higher individual user engagement, suggesting that debates about disruptive protests are effective at attracting attention, albeit at the cost of distracting from climate policy and expanding antagonistic networks. This debate was more polarized than that around Fridays for Future, dividing users into opposing camps, with fewer political and journalistic actors being on the protesters’ side. Thus, the disruptive protests unleashed two types of connective action: a supportive network that defended the protesters and their goals more extensively than during non-disruptive protests, and an antagonistic backlash network driven by what we term “connective counteraction.”

中文翻译：

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从破坏性抗议到网络中断？分析德国 Twitter/X 关于“Fridays for Future”和“Letzte Generation”的辩论中的两极分化程度

研究不同形式的气候抗议如何影响社交媒体辩论，对于理解它们在社会气候政策话语中的作用至关重要。本研究比较了围绕 Twitter/X 上的破坏性和非破坏性运动的辩论，询问它们在多大程度上导致了意识形态和情感两极分化的网络。我们使用 2022 年和 2023 年期间汇编的数据的自动内容和网络分析 （N = ~5,000,000） 和手动内容分析 （N = 2,830） 分析了围绕德国两个重要气候运动——“周五为未来”和“最后一代”的辩论。在此过程中，我们确定了塑造在线辩论结构的事件类型、（极端）框架、用户和互动。结果揭示了两场辩论中的两极分化网络，气候抗议者的对立者推动了话语两极分化。然而，Last Generation 辩论的对抗用户数量明显更高，框架更极端，跨组交互毒性更大，网络集群的多样性更低。Last Generation 产生了更高的个人用户参与度，这表明关于破坏性抗议的辩论可以有效地吸引注意力，尽管代价是分散了对气候政策的注意力并扩大了敌对网络。这场辩论比 Fridays for Future 前后的辩论更加两极分化，将用户分成了对立的阵营，站在抗议者一边的政治和新闻演员较少。因此，破坏性抗议活动释放了两种类型的连接行动：一个支持网络，比非破坏性抗议活动更广泛地捍卫抗议者及其目标，以及由我们所谓的“连接性反抗”驱动的对抗性反弹网络。