“Make a Change for Climate Change”: A Comparative Discourse Analysis of Online Environmental Petitions in the USA and UK

This study analysed a corpus of e-petitions calling for action against climate change, published on Change.org in the USA and UK. The investigation focuses on the persuasive strategies employed in user-generated discourse, and compares the trends emerging in the two national contexts. The analysis centres on how petitioners engage with climate science, re-mediating scientific concepts by explaining global phenomena in their own words and referring to authoritative sources. The study thus explores the use of interactive metadiscourse devices typical of popular science writing. The approach is based on corpus-assisted discourse analysis. The study revealed that climate change was perceived as a documented threat requiring urgent action. It was frequently addressed in conjunction with other topics, particularly wildlife and water conservation in the USA, and land protection in the UK. All petitions contained a mediation of specialised information, encompassing general references to environmental issues and specific evidence quoted from scientific research. The present study analyses a corpus collecting a selection of online petitions that call for action against climate change. The texts were retrieved from the USA and UK versions of Change.org, one of the most popular e-petition websites. The study focuses on the discursive strategies exploited in the user-generated discourse to gain support for the environmental cause. The analysis also compares the discursive trends emerging in different national and regulatory contexts. E-petition texts attempt at persuading readers through multiple techniques, e.g. requesting urgent action, exploiting emotions, highlighting the author’s credibility, and providing detailed supporting data. In particular, the present investigation focuses on the way e-petitioners engage in scientific popularisation, re-mediating climate science, by both explaining global phenomena in their own words and making reference to authoritative sources.