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