The logic of imitation and the reconfiguration of news in climate communication on TikTok

This thesis is a qualitative multimodal analysis of TikTok videos and interviews with eco-influencers that maps the actors and content present across three climate event case studies: the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Dome, the "Soupgate" protest, and the passing of the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. These case studies each tell a unique story: of continued climate disconnection perpetuated by a platform vernacular that restricts some climate communication but elevates others; of the decontextualization of news content to fit into this vernacular; and, finally, of the work that a rising cast of influencers is doing to work around the affordances but within the vernacular of TikTok to engage in effective environmental education and news reporting. I assert that a logic of imitation constitutes an information ecology that is not well suited to the effective mediation of climate crisis on TikTok.