A Simple Intervention to Reduce Framing Effects in Perceptions of Global Climate Change

This paper explores a technique for mitigating framing effects in perceptions of global climate change. People's opinions on issues ranging from same sex marriage and the environment to free speech and health care have been shown to be influenced by the way in which the issue is presented: the metaphors, images, and catchphrases that communicate implicit normative messages about the issue. The work described here synthesizes insights from experimental research on moderators of framing effects and sociological research on frame reflection. Based on this synthesis, this paper describes a test of a simple highlighting technique for focusing respondents' attention on the framing operating in political materials. Results suggest that this intervention not only can reduce the opinion-shaping impact of frames but may also reduce ideological polarization. Implications include a better understanding of the mechanisms by which frames operate, techniques for making frame reflection possible among political non-elites, and recommendations for strengthening environmental groups' public communication strategies.     

Developments in the Framing of Climate Change as a Public Health Issue in US Newspapers

News media are major channels for the transmission of information to the public and deliver news about the latest developments regarding health issues such as climate change. How the media frame such information may enhance public understanding and enable appropriate responses by individuals and communities. This study follows up on previous research examining media portrayals of climate change in US newspapers from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2008. Here, we content analyze 270 news stories on climate change as a public health issue from five US newspapers between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2012. Findings indicate that the total number of articles about climate change declined while emphasis on the public health dimension of climate change increased. The types of generic news frames (i.e., dramatic/substantive) most frequently used did not considerably change across the two time periods, however. To explain this, we discuss ways in which people may assess and spark change in news framing of public issues to better reach and influence a range of audiences.     

Divergent Perspectives on Expert Disagreement: Preliminary Evidence from Climate Science,Climate Policy,Astrophysics, and Public Opinion

We report the results of an exploratory study that examines the judgments of climate scientists, climate policy experts, astrophysicists, and non-experts (N?=?3367) about the factors that contribute to the creation and persistence of disagreement within climate science and astrophysics and about how one should respond to expert disagreement. We found that, as compared to non-experts, climate experts believe that within climate science (i) there is less disagreement about climate change, (ii) methodological factors play less of a role in generating disagreements, (iii) fewer personal or institutional biases influence climate research, and (iv) there is more agreement about which methods should be used to examine relevant phenomena we also observed that the uniquely American political context predicted experts’ judgments about some of these factors. We also found that, in regard to disagreements concerning cosmic ray physics, and commensurate with the greater inherent uncertainty and data lacunae in their field, astrophysicists working on cosmic rays were generally more willing to acknowledge expert disagreement, more open to the idea that a set of data can have multiple valid interpretations, and generally less quick to dismiss someone articulating a non-standard view as non-expert, than climate scientists were in regard to climate science.     

YouTube,Social Norms and Perceived Salience of Climate Change in the American Mind

This online experiment explored how contextual information embedded in new media channels such as YouTube may serve as normative social cues to users. Specifically, we examined whether the number of views listed under a YouTube video about climate change would elicit inferences regarding how “others” feel about the climate issue and, consequently, might influence perceptions of issue salience. Participants in this experiment were exposed to a YouTube video about climate change using two experimental conditions, one providing a small number of views under the video and the second listing a large number of views. Results suggest that the “number of views” cue did, indeed, influence participant perceptions of the importance assigned by other Americans to the issue of climate change. Further, compared to low self-monitoring participants, high self-monitoring participants registered an increase in their own judgment of issue importance.     

Blogging about Climate Change in Russia: Activism,Scepticism and Conspiracies

The article explores the new media’s role in climate change communication in Russia. By providing an open space for the expression of very diverse points of view, the internet creates a substitute media reality where both climate activists and climate sceptics can question the established discourse. Analysis of 374 entries published on the LiveJournal blogging platform has resulted in the identification of four discursive categories: “conspiracies of climate change,” “climate change impact,” “political games of climate change” and “online (anti-)environmentalism.” Each category demonstrates how the same topic can be framed in very different ways depending on bloggers’ worldview rather than the nature of the discussed environmental problem. The findings also show that the blogs act as “echo-chambers” for both climate deniers and climate activists reinforcing their behold beliefs. Finally, the analysis discovers some parallels with the traditional media coverage in their minimal critique of Russian state policy on climate.     

Climate Change Reporting in Great Lakes Region Newspapers: A Comparative Study of the Use of Expert Sources

This study focuses on the use of science sources as experts in news stories about climate change coverage in the Great Lakes region of the US and Canada. We examine, using the hierarchy of influences model, whether the use of scientific sources in climate change coverage may be related to factors such as geographic location, reporting frequency, and authorship, in the prestige press as well as regional and local media. The study found that as many or more non-scientists than scientists are selected as sources regardless of geographic location, reporting frequency, or authorship. However, the study also found that the more stories reporters produce on this topic, the more likely their stories are to use and give prominence to science sources. In addition, the articles included few denier sources, but denier views are more likely to appear in a more prominent location in the articles than supporters when stories are framed as conflict over global warming. These results highlight the need for additional research examining the expertise of climate scientists in news stories to better understand news decision-making in the context of complex scientific reporting.     

Assessing National Discourse and Local Governance Framing of Climate Change for Adaptation in the United Kingdom

While many national governments struggle to maintain global climate change as a high priority issue, many local governments are taking action to fill the policy gaps. This study examines how local governments across the United Kingdom of Great Britain are reframing climate change. We compiled a dataset of newspaper publications covering climate change over a 10-year timeframe, plus survey and interview responses from local governance practitioners, to identify a shift in national discourse that has changed the priority level of climate change in UK local governance. This paper argues that many local governments are strategically reframing climate change as alternative issues in order to make progress in climate adaptation planning.     

Psychological Reactance From Reading Basic Facts on Climate Change: The Role of Prior Views and Political Identification

Scholars continue to search for solutions to shift climate change skeptics’ views on climate science and policy. However, research has shown that certain audiences are resistant to change regarding environmental issues. To explore this issue further, we examine the presence of reactance among different audiences in response to simple, yet prominently used, climate change messages. Our results show that emphasizing the scientific consensus of climate change produces reactance, but only among people who question the existence of climate change. Moreover, adding political identification to the model as an additional moderating variable shows the increases in reactance occur among Republicans who question the existence of climate change. Finally, our results show that reactance to climate change messaging may lead to backfiring effects on important outcomes tied to climate change such as risk perceptions, climate change beliefs, and support for mitigation policies.     

Tipping Points and Climate Change: Metaphor Between Science and the Media

Over the past decade, scientists and journalists have prominently utilized the metaphor of a tipping point for drastic, irreversible and dangerous climate change. This paper shows how the tipping point metaphor became a multi-purpose bridge between science and the news media, describing how its meaning and use developed and diversified in interaction between these two domains. Within the scientific domain, the metaphor developed from a rhetorical device conveying a warning of drastic, irreversible and dangerous climate change to a theoretical concept driving empirical research. The news media soon picked up the tipping point metaphor for abrupt and dangerous climate change, turning it into a common part of the journalistic lexicon. Moreover, both science and the news media developed another, societal use of the tipping point metaphor, calling for radical societal change to avoid climate change catastrophe. The tipping point metaphor is hence not a monolithic notion but a highly versatile concept and expression, allowing it to be used for various communicative purposes by distinct stakeholders in different contexts.     

The Circulation of Climate Change Denial Online: Rhetorical and Networking Strategies on Facebook

This study uses a topical, rhetorical approach to analyze how climate change denial circulates online through the 25 most popular posts on the Watts Up With That and the Global Warming Policy Forum Facebook pages. These groups adopt the appearance of credibility through reposting and hyperlinking, thus establishing a supportive, networked space among other skeptical sites, while distancing readers from original sources of scientific information. Visitors use a variety of rhetorical strategies to echo posts’ main themes and to discredit alternative viewpoints. Differences between the topoi and rhetorical strategies of WUWT and the GWPF show that the climate change denial community is multifaceted and makes use of social media affordances to craft the appearance of legitimacy. This project contributes to our knowledge of how scientific information is co-opted, manipulated, and circulated in online spaces and how online features shape environmental discourse practices.     

Communication Practices and Political Engagement with Climate Change: A Research Agenda

In this article, we call for a refocusing of research on citizens’ political engagement with climate change. In doing so, we argue that communication practices not only help create the conditions for political engagement but they also comprise the modes of such engagement. Our argument proceeds in four steps. First, we review the literature on public engagement with climate change, concluding that there is a lack of attention to issues regarding the political. Consequently, we make the case for a refocusing of research on political engagement. Second, we explain how the notion of political subjectivity helps us to understand the relation between communication practices and engagement with the politics of climate change. Third, we discuss examples of dominant communication practices that constrain citizen political engagement by depoliticizing climate change, and alternative communication practices that have the potential to politicize. We end by outlining the many research questions that relate to the study of political engagement with climate change.     

全球气候变化对中国森林影响的研究进展

通过梳理现有文献表明,全球气候变化对社会经济和自然生态系统造成了重大影响,气候变化将显著地改变森林生态服务的供给水平和质量,对森林和以林为生的人口都会造成重要的生态、经济和社会影响,甚至威胁到人类的生存.我国是受气候变化影响较大而适应能力较弱的发展中国家,森林适应气候变化的科学、社会经济及对策研究相对滞后,因此,笔者从气候变化对历史上森林生态系统的影响着手,阐述了气候变化对森林分布、森林演替、森林生产力、生物多样性、森林火灾、森林水文调节和水质、森林生态系统的未来、森林生态服务的水平和质量等方面产生的影响,分析了现有气候变化对森林影响的研究存在的不足:忽略了其它环境因子的作用;忽略了不同物种之间的竞争机制;缺乏对极端气候事件的考虑;缺乏森林自身变化对气候变化的反馈;缺乏森林生态系统对全球气候变化相应机制更深入的认识;研究模型及数据的不完善性.文章最后提出了可将气候变化对森林造成的危害降到最低限度的政策建议.     

Frequent but Accurate: A Closer Look at Uncertainty and Opinion Divergence in Climate Change Print News

The prevalence of uncertainty and opinion divergence frames in climate change news reporting has generated concerns about the misrepresentation of scientific consensus. We first develop reliable, valid, and more nuanced measures of often-conflated types of uncertainty and opinion divergence frames. Then we analyse the co-occurrence combinations of those distinct types of opinions, sources, and topics in mainstream climate change news stories between 2005 and 2015. Results indicate that while uncertainty and opinion divergence frames are indeed frequent, once clearly distinguished, they in general accurately reference non-scientist sources (e.g. government officials) and topics that do not have a scientific consensus (e.g. the severity of climate change effects).     

Media Access and Political Efficacy in the Eco-politics of Climate Change: Canadian National News and Mediated Policy Networks

We use a discourse network analysis approach to answer two questions about national news coverage of climate change policy debate in Canada during the period 2006–2010. First, what is the media visibility of actors relevant to policy development and advocacy on climate change? Second, given the political and economic context of climate policy-making in Canada, does greater or lesser media visibility reflect effectiveness in climate policy advocacy? Multiple interpretive frameworks characterize Canadian political discourse about climate change, with fragmentation between the federal government, opposition political parties, provincial governments, and environmental organizations. Contrary to expectations, environmental organizations had high levels of media visibility while the relative invisibility of fossil fuel corporations was notable in the media coverage of Canadian climate discussions. Our findings challenge optimistic accounts of the relationship between media power and political power, and suggest that media power does not necessarily translate to political efficacy.     

Media Representations of Climate Change: A Meta-Analysis of the Research Field

A flurry of studies in recent years has analyzed the role of media in climate change communication. This article provides a systematic, large-scale, and up-to-date overview of the objects and characteristics of this research field through a meta-analysis. It identifies 133 relevant studies and analyzes them empirically. The results show that research activity has risen strongly over time, and that the analytical spectrum has expanded to include an increasing number of countries, more types of media including online and social media, and different methodological approaches. The analysis also demonstrates, however, that scholarship in the field still concentrates strongly on Western countries and print media.     

Climate Change and Energy Technologies in Undergraduate Introductory Science Textbooks

Global climate change and the implementation of energy technologies are among the most pressing issues facing society and the environment today. Related educational content spans the science disciplines. Through an analysis of introductory-level university textbooks from four major US publishers in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, this study presents trends in terminology and content. As the defining terms, “global warming” and “climate change” are used nearly equally. However, the first location of a working definition for climate change appears earlier. Energy technologies, climate change, and related environmental issues are found, on average, on ≤4% of textbook pages, and variation is large among individual textbooks. Discipline-based trends exist, especially for the energy technologies presented. Addressed separately as a non-renewable, non-fossil fuel, nuclear energy is found on ≤1% of textbook pages and unfavorably represented. The discussion within these science disciplines has implications on introductory-level education, public perception of science, and informed citizenship.     

Climate Hypocrisies: A Comparative Study of News Discourse

This paper conducts a comparative study of how the idea of hypocrisy was invoked in media coverage of climate change in 12 newspapers from four countries (Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) between 2005 and 2015. It develops the concepts, and explores the characteristics, of three distinct types of climate hypocrisy: personalized (which attacks the moral character of individuals based on inconsistencies between their stated beliefs and behavior); institutional-analytic (which identifies contradictions between institutional rhetoric and ongoing policies and practices); and reflexive (which develops sympathetic accounts of the struggles individuals face in reconciling the tension between values and actions). It explores how these types are used to undermine the credibility of climate advocates as well as to argue for more aggressive climate action, and maps out key features of climate hypocrisy discourse including ideological attributes, targeted actors and behaviors, affective intensity, and regional variations. It outlines a number of surprising key findings, such as (i) hypocrisy discourses are more frequently invoked by “progressives” supporting climate change action than by “conservatives” resisting climate change action, and (ii) while both groups use hypocrisy discourse, they tend to use very different types of hypocrisy discourses which each likely have very different impacts on climate change discourse.     

Internet Memes,Media Frames,and the Conflicting Logics of Climate Change Discourse

ABSTRACT

Media frames have been applied to news information for decades to influence the manner in which news is both delivered and interpreted. However, media frames have tended to focus on traditional news media channels, but the emergence of new media platforms now necessitates a recalibration of how media framing is understood in relation to media and communication studies. With a focus on the issue of climate change, this study explores how framing is employed by the phenomenon of Internet memes in the new media landscape. Specifically, memes presented demonstrate the representation of five common media frames from the perspectives of both the “convinced” and “skeptical” logics. It is argued that through the use of common meme templates combined with the typical humorous or ironic message they convey, Internet memes represent a potentially powerful form of socio-political participation in the online community.     

Actively Dealing with Climate Change and Striving to Strengthen the Capability of Sustainable Development

Either from the perspective of the finite supply capacity of global resources and energy,or from the perspective of global environment restrictive conditions,developing countries can not repeat the old development road of developed countries,either in view of the international pressure China is currently facing,or in view of China’s own resources endowment and stages of development,we must actively face such a challenge of climate change.We must recognize that the issue of climate change may be a great restraint to the present and future eco-social development,and may also be an important driving force and new opportunity to push forward the transformation of development pattern,to take a new road of industrialization and to realize sustainable development.This demands us,on the one hand,to take the Scientific Outlook of Development as the guide to make efforts to control the emission of greenhouse gases and continuously increase the capability of adapting to climatic change,and set up the overall plan to respond to climate change of our country,and on the other hand,we should unswervingly take the road of sustainable development,save energy,optimize energy structure and strengthen biological protection in slowing and adapting to climate change.