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In:Thinking Politically: Cognitive linguistic insights into political discourse
Edited by Anastasios Vogiatzis
[Figurative Thought and Language 22] 2027
► pp. 16–41

Chapter 2
“A message from the future”

Politainment and climate crisis metaphors

 | Catholic University of Louvain
 | Corvinus University of Budapest
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
“Politainment,” the presentation of political content in an entertainment format, has found its way to climate crisis discourse. A notable example is the 2019 Emmy-nominated short film “A message from the future” starring US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and activist Naomi Klein. The film promotes the Green New Deal, a package of US policies to achieve sustainability. Yet how can climate policies be presented in an entertaining manner? Metaphors are key tools in elaborating on policymaking for the general audience. Thus, we explore how metaphors complement the entertaining and political functions of this discourse. The findings suggest that the metaphors are (1) conventional and include concrete source concepts and (2) “humanise” descriptions of the climate crisis through storytelling of lived experiences.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Climate crisis metaphors
    • 2.2Metaphors and modalities
    • 2.3Politainment
  • 3.A case study for the future
    • 3.1Methodology
    • 3.2Metaphor identification and analysis
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Animated images as political actions
    • 4.2Color metaphors
    • 4.3Polarizing multimodal metaphors
  • 5.Discussion
  • Author queries
  • Notes
  • References
  • Video
References (70)
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Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9uTH0iprVQ (“A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez” posted on Youtube by The Intercept, last accessed 21/08/2026)
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