Igniting awareness, extinguishing ego: Earth hour Indonesia's hybrid narrative strategy in shaping ecological citizens (2019–2025)

Abstract

Background: This study analyzes how Earth Hour Indonesia constructs digital ecological engagement through hybrid narrative persuasion and participatory communication strategies, situating digital environmental activism within broader sustainability transitions in the Global South. Methods: A qualitative content analysis combined with multimodal discourse analysis was applied to campaign materials collected from the official Earth Hour website and social media platforms (2019–2025), selected purposively through the hashtags #EarthHourIndonesia, #SwitchOff, and #Connect2Earth. Findings: The findings reveal a hybrid persuasion model integrating rational instruction, affective solidarity, moral obligation, and community-based eco-citizenship formation, in which visual storytelling and youth representation function as infrastructures for collective ecological identity. Conclusion: The study concludes that Earth Hour Indonesia has shifted from an annual light-off ritual into sustained digital environmental activism, carrying practical implications for environmental governance, sustainability education, and community resilience in developing economies. Novelty/Originality of this article: The novelty of this article lies in integrating multimodal narrative persuasion with eco-citizenship formation, positioning Global South digital campaigns as engines of everyday ecological agency within sustainability transitions.