What drives boycotts? Exploring motivational frames in digital activism

Abstract

Transnational consumer boycotts have become increasingly visible forms of political expression, particularly in digitally mediated contexts where individuals mobilize consumption choices in response to conflict-related events. While existing research has examined political consumerism broadly, empirical studies analyzing the motivational framing of youth participation in contemporary boycott movements remain limited. This study examines how young people discursively frame their participation in consumer boycotts related to the Gaza war within digital environments. Drawing on a corpus of 4,670 English-language social media posts published between January 2024 and October 2025, the study employs BERTopic modeling and qualitative frame analysis to identify dominant motivational frames in youth-led boycott discourse. The analysis focuses on how political participation is justified, legitimized, and communicated through digital narratives. The findings reveal a set of prominent motivational frames through which youth engage with consumer boycotts, including perceived institutional inadequacy, moral-humanitarian justification, transnational solidarity, and market-based accountability. Across these frames, emotional expression plays a central role in amplifying political meanings and facilitating collective alignment in digital spaces. The study demonstrates how consumer boycotts function as a discursive form of political participation for young people, where market behavior, moral expression, and digital communication intersect. By foregrounding framing processes, this research contributes to scholarship on political consumerism, youth political engagement, and digital activism, offering new insights into how political meanings and collective motivations are constructed and circulated in networked public spheres.