Abstract
Communication researchers and practitioners have suggested that framing climate change in terms of public health and/or national security may make climate change more personally relevant and emotionally engaging to segments of the public who are currently disengaged or even dismissive of the issue. To evaluate these assumptions, using a nationally representative online survey of U.S. residents (N = 1,127) conducted in December, 2010, we randomly assigned six previously identified audience segments on climate change to one of three experimental conditions. Subjects were asked to read uniquely framed news articles about climate change emphasizing either the risks to the environment, public health, or national security and the benefits of mitigation and adaptation-related actions. Results show that across audience segments, the public health focus was the most likely to elicit emotional reactions consistent with support for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Findings also indicated that the national security frame may possibly boomerang among audience segments already doubtful or dismissive of the issue, eliciting unintended feelings of anger.
Highlights
Engaging the American public on climate change—including its causes, impacts, and solutions—remains both a major research question and a communication challenge.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.T
Feelings of hopelessness and inefficacy related to climate change are linked with a tendency to ignore the problem or to rationalize inaction (Norgaard 2011). With these considerations in mind, in this study we investigate how unique audience segments—Global Warming’s Six Americas—emotionally react to news articles crafted to reflect three distinct climate change message frames: (1) a traditional environmental frame, which emphasizes the consequences of climate change to ecosystems—and the benefits to ecosystems of adaptation and mitigation-related actions, (2) a national security frame, which highlights the risks to U.S national security and the benefits to national security of adaptation and mitigation-related actions and (3) a health frame, which stresses the health risks associated with climate change and the potential benefits to health of adaptation and mitigation-related actions
Our results are consistent with past research that has found that a diversity of audience segments respond positively to an emphasis on the public health consequences of climate change and the health benefits of action (Maibach et al 2010)
Summary
Engaging the American public on climate change—including its causes, impacts, and solutions—remains both a major research question and a communication challenge. Feelings of hopelessness and inefficacy related to climate change are linked with a tendency to ignore the problem or to rationalize inaction (Norgaard 2011) With these considerations in mind, in this study we investigate how unique audience segments—Global Warming’s Six Americas—emotionally react to news articles crafted to reflect three distinct climate change message frames: (1) a traditional environmental frame, which emphasizes the consequences of climate change to ecosystems—and the benefits to ecosystems of adaptation and mitigation-related actions, (2) a national security frame, which highlights the risks to U.S national security and the benefits to national security of adaptation and mitigation-related actions and (3) a health frame, which stresses the health risks associated with climate change and the potential benefits to health of adaptation and mitigation-related actions
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