Effective communication about complex environmental issues: Perceived quality of information about carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) depends on stakeholder collaboration

This experimental research addresses the effectiveness of communication about complex environmental issues, depending on whether the same information is provided by multiple collaborating or by individual organizations (i.e., stakeholders). The information provided pertains to carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology, as an example of a complex environmental issue. In Studies 1 (N = 75) and 2 (N = 66) we found that participants perceived factual information from collaborating stakeholders to be of higher quality than when the same information was provided by individual stakeholders. As predicted, the expectation of diverse perspectives being represented in the collaborative information mediated this effect. In addition, in Study 3 (N = 79) the perceived dissimilarity of collaborating stakeholders was shown to be an important precondition for the collaboration effect observed in Studies 1 and 2. Finally, these studies indicate that occasional collaboration between different stakeholders does not necessarily harm the perceived credibility of each individual stakeholder.