SOCIAL COLLECTIVES AND NETWORKED MOVEMENT: DIFFUSION DYNAMICS IN THE GERMAN-SPEAKING #FRIDAYSFORFUTURE NETWORK ON TWITTER

Initiated by Greta Thunberg and carried by students who skip schoolevery Friday to call for climate justice and the safeguarding of their future,FridaysForFuture emerged and proliferated along with both recognition and criticism. Thisstudy analyzes diffusion dynamics and connectivity formation in the German-speaking#FridaysForFuture network from its emergence to its expansion. Based on a diffusion networkand cascade analysis (N = 238,458), it presents how different diffusion dynamics facilitatedthe emergence of #FridaysForFuture on Twitter. According to findings, FFF activists andorganizations are the leading intermediaries and activators for movement diffusion. Most ofthe tweets in #FridaysForFuture are about activism, introducing the movement, and callingfor action. During the development, news, liberal left, and right-wing actors joined,bringing discussions about the movement, the youth, and leading activists to theTwittersphere. While cascades by FFF clusters were more likely to gain attention and spreadfarther, faster, and deeper, cascades activated by right-wing actors were greater, but notbroader, faster, or deeper. In contrast to the reciprocal reposting activities betweenleft-wing and activist groups, right-wing actors are relatively isolated, expressingcriticism of the movement. This study shows that the German-speaking #FridaysForFuturenetwork serves as a facilitator of offline movements and features a public arena ofpolitical discourses. Through the mobilization endeavors of FFF clusters, engagement ofleft-wing hubs, and the counter-public of right-wing actors attacking the movement, itgained continuity and momentum to flourish.