Negative Solidarities in Environmental Crisis Contexts: A Corpus-based Social Media Critical Discourse Analysis of the Australian Black Summer

The article builds on previous research concerning crisis discourse to
explore both overt and subtle discriminatory discursive practices and
realizations in climate change crisis contexts (Breazu, 2023; Breazu and
Machin, 2023; Krzyżanowski, 2014, 2020). Recognizing that climate
change constitutes a social, cultural, and political crisis and that the term
crisis itself entails a significant discursive shift in climate change
communication (Bevitori and Russo, 2025; Russo and Bevitori, 2024),
this study analyses a purpose-built corpus representing discourse
surrounding the 2019–2020 Australian bushfire crisis on the platform
Twitter (now X). It adopts a corpus-based appraisal and critical discourse
analysis approach to social media discourse to conduct an in-depth
examination of the discursive practices and overt/covert realizations of
hate, affection and positive/negative solidarity that emerged during the
crisis (KhosraviNik, 2017; Krzyżanowski, 2018; Zappavigna, 2012). Its
ultimate aim is to demonstrate that the discursive struggles underpinning
environmental and climate change crisis communication require deeper
analysis, particularly to understand how specific frames and narratives
may either exacerbate social division or foster solidarity in times of crisis