The Impact of Public Deliberation and Identity-Based Storytelling on Civic Empowerment among Latinx Communities on Environmental Issues

Abstract

ABSTRACT Environmental issues already disproportionately impact communities of color in the U.S., where there is a long and well-established history of environmental racism. Despite efforts to diversify voices in deliberation, engaging marginalized populations remains a key challenge. Drawing from environmental communication, civic empowerment, and social identity literatures, this study conducted a field experiment within an environmental deliberative event among Latinx communities. We examined (1) to what extent deliberation affects process – and outcome-based empowerment, and (2) the impact of factual vs. storytelling deliberative material on empowerment. Our findings show that deliberation increased process-based, but not outcome-based, empowerment on environmental issues. We also found that participants exposed to storytelling had a larger increase in empowerment compared to those exposed to factual materials during the deliberation day. Implications for designing culturally responsive deliberations for environmental communication are discussed.