The Information Deficit Model and Climate Change Communication

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brianne Suldovsky
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
News Media ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Communication Model ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Deficit Model ◽  
The Public ◽  
Change Communication

Many publics remain divided about the existence and consequences of anthropogenic climate change despite scientific consensus. A popular approach to climate change communication, and science communication more generally, is the information deficit model. The deficit model assumes that gaps between scientists and the public are a result of a lack of information or knowledge. As a remedy for this gap, the deficit model is a one-way communication model where information flows from experts to publics in an effort to change individuals’ attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors. Approaches to climate change communication that reflect the deficit model include websites, social media, mobile applications, news media, documentaries and films, books, and scientific publications and technical reports. The deficit model has been highly criticized for being overly simplistic and inaccurately characterizing the relationship between knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, particularly for politically polarized issues like climate change. Even so, it continues to be an integral part of climate change communication research and practice. In an effort to address the inadequacies of the deficit model, scholars and practitioners often utilize alternative forms of public engagement, including the contextual model, the public engagement model, and the lay expertise model. Each approach to public engagement carries with it a unique set of opportunities and challenges. Future work in climate change communication should explore when and how to most effectively use the models of public engagement that are available.

scholarly journals What Framework Promotes Saliency of Climate Change Issues on Online Public Agenda: A Quantitative Study of Online Knowledge Community Quora

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1619 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Shi ◽  
Changfeng Chen ◽  
Jie Xiong ◽  
Haohuan Fu
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Knowledge Community ◽  
The Public ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Public Agenda

Though scientists have achieved consensus on the severity and urgency of climate change years ago, the public still considers this issue not that important, as the influence of climate change is widely thought to be geographically and temporally bounded. The discrepancy between scientific consensus and public’s misperception calls for more dedicated public communication strategies to get climate change issues back on the front line of the public agenda. Based on the large-scale data acquired from the online knowledge community Quora, we conduct a computational linguistic analysis followed by the regression model to address the climate change communication from the agenda setting perspective. To be specific, our results find that certain narrative strategies may make climate change issues more salient by engaging public into discussion or evoking their long-term interest. Though scientific communicators have long been blaming lack of scientific literacy for low saliency of climate change issues, cognitive framework is proved to be least effective in raising public concern. Affective framework is relatively more influential in motivating people to participate in climate change discussion: the stronger the affective intensity is, the more prominent the issue is, but the affective polarity is not important. Perceptual framework is most powerful in promoting public discussion and the only variable that can significantly motivate the public’s long-term desire to track issues, among which feeling plays the most critical role compared with seeing and hearing. This study extends existing science communication literature by shedding light on the role of previously ignored affective and perceptual frameworks in making issues salient and the conclusions may provide theoretical and practical implications for future climate change communication.

Communicating About Climate Change with Journalists and Media Producers

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Wihbey ◽  
Bud Ward
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Rhode Island ◽  
News Media ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
The University

The relationship between scientific experts and news media producers around issues of climate change has been a complicated and often contentious one, as the slow-moving and complex story has frequently challenged, and clashed with, journalistic norms of newsworthiness, speed, and narrative compression. Even as climate scientists have become more concerned by their evidence-based findings involving projected risks, doubts and confusion over communications addressing those risks have increased. Scientists increasingly have been called upon to speak more clearly and forcefully to the public through news media about evidence and risks—and to do so in the face of rapidly changing news media norms that only complicate those communications. Professional science and environment journalists—whose ranks have been thinned steadily by media industry financial pressures—have meanwhile come under more scrutiny in terms of their understanding; accuracy; and, at times, perceived bias. A number of important organizations have recognized the need to educate and empower a broad range of scientists and journalists to be more effective at communicating about the complexities of climate science and about the societal and economic impacts of a warming climate. For example, organizations such as Climate Communication have been launched to support scientists in their dealings with media, while the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change itself has continued to focus on the communication of climate science. The Earth Journalism Network, Society of Environmental Journalists, Poynter Institute, and the International Center for Journalists have worked to build media capacity globally to cover climate change stories. Efforts at Stanford University, the University of Oxford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and the University of Rhode Island sponsor programming and fellowships that in part help bolster journalism in this area. Through face-to-face workshops and online efforts, The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication has sought to link the media and science communities. Meanwhile, powerful, widely read sites and blogs such as “Dot Earth,” hosted by the New York Times, Climate Central, Real Climate, The Conversation, and Climate Progress have fostered professional dialogue, greater awareness of science, and called attention to reporting and communications issues. Journalists and scientists have had ongoing conversations as part of the regular publication and reporting processes, and professional conferences and events bring the two communities together. Issues that continue to animate these discussions include conveying the degree to which climate science can be said to be “settled” and how to address uncertainty. Through some of these capacity-building efforts, news media have become increasingly aware of audience dynamics including how citizens respond to pessimistic reports, or “doom and gloom,” versus solutions-oriented reports. Professional dialogue has also revolved around the ethical dimensions of conveying a story at the level of global importance. Still, with issues of climate change communication on display for more than two decades now, certain tensions and dynamics persist. Notably, journalists seek clarity from scientists, while climate change experts and advocates for and against taking climate action often continue to demand that journalists resist the temptation to oversimplify or hype the latest empirical findings, while at the same time urging that journalists do not underestimate potential climate risks.

Communicating Climate Change across Workplace and Organizational Settings

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Dixon ◽  
Yanni Ma
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Reduce Emissions

Addressing climate change requires attention to a variety of communication contexts. While attention has been paid to top-down approaches aimed at individual-level behavior and the beliefs of the public at large, organizations in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors are increasingly recognized as integral players in solving the climate change challenges that we face today. For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) characterize the commercial sector as having the highest potential to reduce emissions by 2020, suggesting that meaningful actions aimed at climate change mitigation must come from within organizations. However, the diverse nature of organizational communication poses challenges toward effective climate change communication. On the one hand, climate change communication can occur within organizations, where members’ individual behaviors and beliefs can have a significant impact on an organization’s energy consumption. On the other hand, organizations can communicate environmental issues directly to stakeholders and the public at large—though communication can be complicated by the fact that some organizations benefit from instilling doubt in the science of climate change. The complex nature of organizational-based climate change communication allows members of the for-profit and nonprofit sectors to play an important role in cultivating divergent views of climate change. Future research can help promulgate climate change-related awareness and action within organizational contexts.

Climate Change Communication in Germany

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike S. Schäfer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political History ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
The Public ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Policy Agendas

Climate change communication has a long history in Germany, where the so-called “climate catastrophe” has received widespread public attention from the 1980s onwards. The article reviews climate change communication and the respective research in the country over the last decades. First, it provides a socio-political history of climate change communication in Germany. It shows how scientists were successful in setting the issue on the public and policy agendas early on, how politicians and the media emphasized the climate change threat, how corporations abstained from interventions into the debate and how skeptical voices, as a result, remained marginalized. Second, the article reviews scholarship on climate change communication in Germany. It shows how research on the issue has expanded since the mid-2000s, highlights major strands and results, as well as open questions and ongoing debates.

Gender differences in the climate change communication on Twitter

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 811-828 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Holmberg ◽  
Iina Hellsten
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Gender Differences ◽  
News Media ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Local Campaigns ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a study about gender differences in the climate change communication on Twitter and in the use of affordances on Twitter. Design/methodology/approach – The data set consists of about 250,000 tweets and retweets for which the authors’ gender was identified. While content of tweets and hashtags used were analysed for common topics and specific contexts, the usernames that were proportionately more frequently mentioned by either male or female tweeters were coded according to the usernames’ stance in the climate change debate into convinced (that climate change is caused by humans), sceptics, neutrals and unclear groups, and according to the type or role of the user account (e.g. campaign, organization, private person). Findings – The results indicate that overall male and female tweeters use very similar language in their tweets, but clear differences were observed in the use of hashtags and usernames, with female tweeters mentioning significantly more campaigns and organizations with a convinced attitude towards anthropogenic impact on climate change, while male tweeters mention significantly more private persons and usernames with a sceptical stance. The differences were even greater when retweets and duplicate tweets by the same author were removed from the data, indicating how retweeting can significantly influence the results. Practical implications – On a theoretical level the results increase the understanding for how women and men view and engage with climate change. This has practical implications for organizations interested in developing communication strategies for reaching and engaging female and male audiences on Twitter. While female tweeters can be targeted via local campaigns and news media, male tweeters seem to follow more political and scientific information. The results from the present research also showed that more research about the meaning of retweeting is needed, as the authors have shown how retweets can have a significant impact on the results. Originality/value – The findings contribute towards increased understanding of both gender differences in the climate change debate and in social media use in general. Beyond that this research showed how retweeting may have a significant impact on research where tweets are used as a data source.

scholarly journals An IPCC that listens: introducing reciprocity to climate change communication

2021 ◽  
Vol 168 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Dudman ◽  
Sara de Wit
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scientific Authority ◽  
Human Voice ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Reliable Knowledge

AbstractAs the epistemic hand in the UNFCCC’S political glove, the IPCC is charged with furnishing the global dialogues with ‘reliable knowledge’ on climate change. Much has been written about how this body of scientific information can be communicated more effectively to a diverse public, but considerably less so on the role communication might play in making the IPCC itself more receptive to alternative forms of contribution. Climate change communication remains centred on a unidirectional model that has helped climate science achieve greater public legibility, but so far not explored equivalent channels within institutional thinking for representing public and other non-scientific knowledges. Anticipating a new assessment report and major developments for the Paris Agreement, now is an opportunity to consider ambitious pathways to reciprocity in the IPCC’s communication strategy. Drawing on interdisciplinary insights from social science literatures, we argue that communication is not only inseparable from knowledge politics in the IPCC, but that communication activities and research may prove key avenues for making the IPCC more inclusive. Recognising climate communication as a developed field of study and practice with significant influence in the IPCC, we present a framework for categorising communicative activities into those which help the panel speak with a more human voice, and those that help it listen receptively to alternative forms of knowledge. The latter category especially invites communicators to decouple ‘epistemic authority’ from ‘scientific authority’, and so imagine new forms of expert contribution. This is critical to enabling active and equitable dialogue with underrepresented publics that democratises climate governance, and enhances the public legitimacy of the IPCC.

scholarly journals Exploring the digital media ecology: insights from a study of healthy diets and climate change communication on digital and social media

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (03) ◽  
pp. A02
Author(s):  
Emma Weitkamp ◽  
Elena Milani ◽  
Andy Ridgway ◽  
Clare Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Media Ecology ◽  
The Public ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Healthy Diets ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
The Media

This study explores the types of actors visible in the digital science communication landscape in the Netherlands, Serbia and the U.K. Using the Koru model of science communication as a basis, we consider how science communicators craft their messages and which channels they are using to reach audiences. The study took as case studies the topics of climate change and healthy diets to enable comparison across countries, topics and platforms. These findings are compared with the results from a survey of over 200 science communication practitioners based in these countries. We find that although traditional media are challenged by the variety of different new entrants into the digital landscape, our results suggest that the media and journalists remain highly visible. In addition, our survey results suggest that many science communicators may struggle to gain traction in the crowded digital ecology, and in particular, that relatively few scientists and research institutions and universities are achieving a high profile in the public digital media ecology of science communication.

Climate Change Communication in Belgium

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Pepermans ◽  
Pieter Maeseele
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Behavior Change ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Economic Surplus ◽  
Deficit Model ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Physical Consequences ◽  
Limited Spectrum

Climate change communication in Belgium takes place in a socio-economic context characterized by an economic surplus and an ecological deficit. This implies that in the short term the benefits of the structures and behaviors that sustain carbon capitalism and cause climate change are larger and more tangible than the consequences of global warming, which are exported to more vulnerable places with less adaptive capacity. Nevertheless, with regard to physical consequences, climate change communication in Belgium also takes place in a context in which heavy thunderstorms and rainfalls, as well as floods, have increased significantly. In general however, Belgians have the means to distance themselves from climate change’s existing impacts. In other words, climate change communication (and public engagement) takes place in a context in which climate change serves primarily as a cultural idea to be acted upon rather than particular geophysical changes, such as weather disruptions. Belgium is characterized primarily by a consensual, technocratic policy environment, in which debate is limited to a relatively limited spectrum of views and in which citizens are targeted primarily according to the (information) deficit model. However, increasingly initiatives are being taken from a social marketing or public participation approach. In the case of civil society, there is a rich tradition of social movements communicating and campaigning about climate change. These campaigns have primarily focused on individual behavior change and more recently also on collective forms of behavior change such as transition initiatives or collaborative/confrontational strategies of political action. Media research has revealed how the United Nations climate process sets both the agenda and the terms of the debate in Belgian newspapers. Only in the case of an alternative news site were different discourses found that approached climate change communication in terms of a genuine debate about the direction climate policy is taking. Finally, while Belgian citizens clearly acknowledge the urgency of the matter and the need for action, many feel powerless, because of a social, spatial, and temporal distance towards the issue or because it is perceived as a threat to their identity or routines.

scholarly journals Messaging on Slow Impacts: Applying Lessons Learned from Climate Change Communication to Catalyze and Improve Marine Nutrient Communication

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Nicole Canfield ◽  
Kate Mulvaney ◽  
Nathaniel Merrill
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Nutrient Pollution ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Comprehensive Management ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Environmental Causes

Building publics’ understanding about human-environmental causes and impacts of nutrient pollution is difficult due to the diverse sources and, at times, extended timescales of increasing inputs, consequences to ecosystems, and recovery after remediation. Communicating environmental problems with “slow impacts” has long been a challenge for scientists, public health officials, and science communicators, as the time delay for subsequent consequences to become evident dilutes the sense of urgency to act. Fortunately, scientific research and practice in the field of climate change communication has begun to identify best practices to address these challenges. Climate change demonstrates a delay between environmental stressor and impact, and recommended practices for climate change communication illustrate how to explain and motivate action around this complex environmental problem. Climate change communication research provides scientific understanding of how people evaluate risk and scientific information about climate change. We used a qualitative coding approach to review the science communication and climate change communication literature to identify approaches that could be used for nutrients and how they could be applied. Recognizing the differences between climate change and impacts of nutrient pollution, we also explore how environmental problems with delayed impacts demand nuanced strategies for effective communication and public engagement. Applying generalizable approaches to successfully communicate the slow impacts related to nutrient pollution across geographic contexts will help build publics’ understanding and urgency to act on comprehensive management of nutrient pollution, thereby increasing protection of coastal and marine environments.

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