Climate Activism and Media : A Critical Discourse Analysis on Activists’ Tomato Soup Attack on Van Gogh’s Sunflower

This thesis aims to conduct a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of news articles and tweets discussing the climate protest that occurred on October 14th, 2022, where activists threw tomato soup on Van Gogh’s “Sunflower” at the London National Museum. The purpose is to investigate the media logic and the underlying social and cultural factors of iconoclastic actions that shaped the media discourse surrounding the event. The research questions this thesis aims to investigate are: RQ1: How are news values emphasized in media coverage of the tomato soup incident, as reflected in both news articles and Twitter posts? RQ2: Through the lens of media logic, how do media discourses shape perceptions of the climate action? RQ3: ​​How do affiliations with culturally significant artifacts and the climate shape the discursive representations of the protest in news articles and tweets? The sample consists of 34 tweets and 15 news articles. It is analyzed according to Van Dijk’s and Faircough’s CDA frameworks and the concepts of mediatization, media logic, iconoclasm, affiliation (as defined by Stoler (2022)) and news values. The results of this study suggest that the event had significant news value due to the iconoclastic tactics. Further, the media logic is seemingly involved in shaping the news into a sensationalistic story with little focus on the cause of the action. Lastly, the discourses surrounding the event on the platforms can be discussed in light of affiliation to provide an understanding of the discourse.