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WWF's Earth Hour Campaign: ‘Global Village' or Eco-Imperialism?
The rapid spread of digital information and communication technologies since the turn of the century has led to renewed debates about globalisation and the power of new media to connect users across national, political and cultural borders. Environmental campaigns like WWF's Earth Hour, which touts...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Centre for Film and Media Studies
2020
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| _version_ | 1867613332769341440 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Chao, Eileen |
| author2 | Chuma, Wallace |
| author_browse | Chao, Eileen Chuma, Wallace |
| author_facet | Chuma, Wallace Chao, Eileen |
| author_sort | Chao, Eileen |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | The rapid spread of digital information and communication technologies since the turn of the century has led to renewed debates about globalisation and the power of new media to connect users across national, political and cultural borders. Environmental campaigns like WWF's Earth Hour, which touts itself as “the world's largest grassroots movement for the environment,” often adopt a utopian view of globalisation that celebrates what Marshall McLuhan termed the ‘global village'. While this global ethos might be useful in engaging the publics in collective action, this article argues that the way Earth Hour and similar campaigns actively construct representations of a single global village overlooks the lived inequalities between and among peoples within this imagined community. This article explores this tension using a quantitative and qualitative mixed-methods approach that combines a semiotic analysis of the Earth Hour 2019 promotional video, social media analysis of the use of #Connect2Earth hashtag among South African Twitter users, and in-depth interviews with current and former WWF-South Africa employees. This strategic approach is designed to juxtapose socially constructed representations of Earth Hour with on-the-ground user engagement in South Africa, and then triangulating these findings with qualitative interviews. The dissertation aims to explore the research question: In what ways does WWF's Earth Hour embody Marshall McLuhan's ideal ‘global village' and in what ways might it engender a form of eco-imperialism? This research question is operationalised through three subquestions: What kind of environmentalism do global environmental campaigns like Earth Hour promote? How do audiences in South Africa engage with Earth Hour on social media? How do local WWF of ices adapt global environmental campaigns to suit local audiences? This research contributes to emerging scholarship, rooted in environmental justice and decolonial studies, that is critical of mainstream environmental movements not to discourage environmental consciousness but to ultimately reformulate it. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/32207 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:34:27.383Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publishDateRange | 2020 |
| publishDateSort | 2020 |
| publisher | Centre for Film and Media Studies |
| publisherStr | Centre for Film and Media Studies |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/32207 WWF's Earth Hour Campaign: ‘Global Village' or Eco-Imperialism? Chao, Eileen Chuma, Wallace Globalisation WWF Earth Hour Twitter Network Society First World Environmentalism Eco-Imperialism environmental communications The rapid spread of digital information and communication technologies since the turn of the century has led to renewed debates about globalisation and the power of new media to connect users across national, political and cultural borders. Environmental campaigns like WWF's Earth Hour, which touts itself as “the world's largest grassroots movement for the environment,” often adopt a utopian view of globalisation that celebrates what Marshall McLuhan termed the ‘global village'. While this global ethos might be useful in engaging the publics in collective action, this article argues that the way Earth Hour and similar campaigns actively construct representations of a single global village overlooks the lived inequalities between and among peoples within this imagined community. This article explores this tension using a quantitative and qualitative mixed-methods approach that combines a semiotic analysis of the Earth Hour 2019 promotional video, social media analysis of the use of #Connect2Earth hashtag among South African Twitter users, and in-depth interviews with current and former WWF-South Africa employees. This strategic approach is designed to juxtapose socially constructed representations of Earth Hour with on-the-ground user engagement in South Africa, and then triangulating these findings with qualitative interviews. The dissertation aims to explore the research question: In what ways does WWF's Earth Hour embody Marshall McLuhan's ideal ‘global village' and in what ways might it engender a form of eco-imperialism? This research question is operationalised through three subquestions: What kind of environmentalism do global environmental campaigns like Earth Hour promote? How do audiences in South Africa engage with Earth Hour on social media? How do local WWF of ices adapt global environmental campaigns to suit local audiences? This research contributes to emerging scholarship, rooted in environmental justice and decolonial studies, that is critical of mainstream environmental movements not to discourage environmental consciousness but to ultimately reformulate it. 2020-09-10T08:05:13Z 2020-09-10T08:05:13Z 2020 2020-09-10T08:04:55Z Master Thesis Masters MA http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32207 eng application/pdf Centre for Film and Media Studies Faculty of Humanities |
| spellingShingle | Globalisation WWF Earth Hour Network Society First World Environmentalism Eco-Imperialism environmental communications Chao, Eileen WWF's Earth Hour Campaign: ‘Global Village' or Eco-Imperialism? |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | WWF's Earth Hour Campaign: ‘Global Village' or Eco-Imperialism? |
| title_full | WWF's Earth Hour Campaign: ‘Global Village' or Eco-Imperialism? |
| title_fullStr | WWF's Earth Hour Campaign: ‘Global Village' or Eco-Imperialism? |
| title_full_unstemmed | WWF's Earth Hour Campaign: ‘Global Village' or Eco-Imperialism? |
| title_short | WWF's Earth Hour Campaign: ‘Global Village' or Eco-Imperialism? |
| title_sort | wwf s earth hour campaign global village or eco imperialism |
| topic | Globalisation WWF Earth Hour Network Society First World Environmentalism Eco-Imperialism environmental communications |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32207 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT chaoeileen wwfsearthhourcampaignglobalvillageorecoimperialism |