How Media, Information Sources, and Trust Shape Climate Change Denial or Doubt

Abstract

Climate change skepticism presents an opportunity to examine the role of media, information, and trust on views about controversial scientific topics. Building on extant work on predictors of skepticism and the role of information and trust in shaping skeptical attitudes, in this paper, we examine the relationship between climate change skeptics’ access of media/information sources, trust, and the strength of their skepticism. Specifically, we use data gathered from 1,000 surveys with skeptics in the U.S. Pacific Northwest to present an analysis of how trust in institutions and institutional leaders affect the relationship between skeptics’ information sources and their type/strength of skepticism along a “continuum” of skeptical thought. Results reveal that the reliance on conservative/rightwing media and trust in actors steeped within the climate change denial countermovement is associated with a higher degree of denial of anthropogenic climate change as opposed to doubt of the phenomenon. Further, skeptics’ reliance on non-scientific sources for climate change information is partly explained by their distrust in climate scientists.