Abstract
Prior research on the influence of various ways of framing anthropogenic climate change (ACC) do not account for the organized ACC denial in the U.S. media and popular culture, and thus may overestimate these frames' influence in the general public. We conducted an experiment to examine how Americans' ACC views are influenced by four promising frames for urging action on ACC (economic opportunity, national security, Christian stewardship, and public health)-when these frames appear with an ACC denial counter-frame. This is the first direct test of how exposure to an ACC denial message influences Americans' ACC views. Overall, these four positive frames have little to no effect on ACC beliefs. But exposure to an ACC denial counter-frame does significantly reduce respondents' belief in the reality of ACC, belief about the veracity of climate science, awareness of the consequences of ACC, and support for aggressively attempting to reduce our nation's GHG emissions in the near future. Furthermore, as expected by the Anti-Reflexivity Thesis, exposure to the ACC denial counter-frame has a disproportionate influence on the ACC views of conservatives (than on those of moderates and liberals), effectively activating conservatives' underlying propensity for anti-reflexivity.
Highlights
Since the early 2000s, many anthropogenic climate change (ACC) communicators have come to realize that a more nuanced strategy than just conveying scientific facts is necessary for increasing public acceptance of the evidence of ACC and public support for dealing with ACC
We conducted an experiment to examine how Americans’ ACC views are influenced by four promising frames for urging action on ACC—when these frames appear with an ACC denial counter-frame
This effect seems to endure when respondents are exposed to an ACC denial counter-frame
Summary
Since the early 2000s, many anthropogenic climate change (ACC) communicators (e.g., climate scientists, environmental activists, environmental/science journalists, and sympathetic policy-makers) have come to realize that a more nuanced strategy than just conveying scientific facts is necessary for increasing public acceptance of the evidence of ACC and public support for dealing with ACC. We conducted an experiment to examine how Americans’ ACC views are influenced by four promising frames for urging action on ACC (economic opportunity, national security, Christian stewardship, and public health)—when these frames appear with an ACC denial counter-frame. As such, this is the first direct test of how exposure to an ACC denial message influences Americans’ ACC views. We end the section with a brief discussion of the Anti-Reflexivity Thesis (McCright & Dunlap, 2010), which explains the rise of ACC denial and which places our focus on the ACC denial counter-frame in theoretical context
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