Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ttngx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-12T14:00:58.835Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Media evolution and public understanding of climate science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2016

Ann E. Williams
Ann E. Williams*
Affiliation:
Department of Communication, Georgia State University, One Park Place South, Atlanta, GA 30302. annwilliams@gsu.edu
Get access

Abstract

This paper employs public opinion data from a nationally representative probability sample to examine how information encounters and exposure to different media sources relate to individuals' beliefs about global warming. The analyses indicate that media source exposure (i.e., exposure to news and information about science presented through different media outlets), intentional information exposure (i.e., deliberate exposure to global warming news coverage), and inadvertent information exposure (i.e., unplanned exposure to news and information about science that is encountered online while searching for other forms of information) relate to beliefs about global warming, in significant and meaningful ways. Namely, the findings show that both intentional information exposure and inadvertent online information exposure associate with disbelief in human-made causes, catalysts, and consequences of global warming. Theoretical and social implications of the findings are discussed and contextualized in light of the rapidly evolving media environment.

Keywords

Climate scienceglobal warmingpublic opinionselective exposureintentional exposureinadvertent exposure
Type
Research Articles
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , Fall 2011 , pp. 20 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Ungar, Sheldon, “The rise and relative decline of global warming as a social problem,” Sociological Quarterly 1992, 33: 483–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. Berk, Richard A. and Schulman, Daniel, “Public perceptions of global warming,” Climatic Change 1995, 29: 1–33.Google Scholar
3. Bodansky, Daniel M., “The emerging climate-change regime,” Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 1995, 20: 425–461.Google Scholar
4. Zehr, Stephen C., “Public representations of scientific uncertainty about global climate change,” Public Understanding of Science 2000, 9: 85–103.Google Scholar
5. Glosserman, Brad, “A foundation for the future: U.S. public opinion and foreign policy in Northeast Asia,” Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 2003, 15: 201–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6. Brewer, Thomas L., “U.S. public opinion on climate change issues: Implications for consensus-building and policymaking,” Climate Policy 2005, 4: 359–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7. Nisbet, Matthew C. and Myers, Teresa, “The polls-trends: Twenty years of public opinion about global warming,” Public Opinion Quarterly 2007, 71: 444–470.Google Scholar
8. Stamm, Keith R., Clark, Fiona, and Reynolds, Paula, “Mass communication and public understanding of environmental problems: The case of global warming,” Public Understanding of Science 2000, 9: 219–237.Google Scholar
9. Frank Newport, “Americans' global warming concerns continue to drop,” Gallup Politics, http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/americans-global-warming-concerns-continue-drop.aspx, accessed March 11, 2010.Google Scholar
10. Rosenzweig, Cynthia, Karoly, David, Vicarelli, Marta, Neofotis, Peter, Wu, Qigang, Casassa, Gino, Menzel, Annette, Root, Terry L., Estrella, Nicole, Seguin, Bernard, Tryjanowski, Piotr, Liu, Chunzhen, Rawlins, Samuel, and Imeson, Anton, “Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change,” Nature 2008, 453, 353–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Board Statement on Climate Change, www.aaas.org, December 2006. (See also the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, www.ipcc.ch, and the Joint National Academies, http://nationalacademies.org.)Google Scholar
12. Conway, Erik, What's in a name? Global warming vs. climate change, NASA News Topics, http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate_by_any_other_name.html, accessed December 9, 2008.Google Scholar
13. Krosnick, Jon A., Holbrook, Allyson L., Lowe, Laura, and Visser, Penny S., “The origins and consequences of democratic citizens' policy agendas: A study of popular concern about global warming,” Climatic Change 2006, 77:7–43.Google Scholar
14. Zillmann, Dolf and Bryant, Jennings, “Selective exposure phenomena,” Selective Exposure to Communication, Zillmann, Dolf and Bryant, Jennings, eds. (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1985), pp. 1–10.Google Scholar
15. Saad, Lydia, “Did Hollywood's glare heat up public concern about global warming?” Gallup online, http://www.gallup.com/poll/26932/Did-Hollywoods-Glare-Heat-Public-Concern-About-Global-Warming.aspx, accessed March 21, 2007.Google Scholar
16. Jones, Jeffrey M., “In U.S., concerns about global warming stable at lower levels,” Gallup Politics, http://www.gallup.com/poll/146606/concerns-global-stable-lower-levels.aspx, accessed March 14, 2011.Google Scholar
17. Lacey, Colin and Longman, David. “The press and public access to the environment and development debate,” Sociological Review, 1993, 41: 207–243.Google Scholar
18. Sampei, Yuki and Aoyagi-Usui, Midori, “Mass-media coverage, its influence on public awareness of climate-change issues, and implications for Japan's national campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions 2009, 19: 203–212.Google Scholar
19. Benoit, William L., Communication in Political Campaigns (New York: Peter Lang, 2007).Google Scholar
20. Boyce, Tammy and Lewis, Justin, eds., Climate Change and the Media (New York: Peter Lang, 2009).Google Scholar
21. Tichenor, Phillip J., Donohue, George A., and Olien, Clarice N., “Mass media flow and differential growth in knowledge,” Public Opinion Quarterly 1970, 34: 159–170.Google Scholar
22. Krosnick, Jon A., Holbrook, Allyson L., and Visser, Penny S., “The impact of the fall 1997 debate about global warming on American public opinion,” Public Understanding of Science 2000, 9: 239–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23. Brewer, Thomas L., “U.S. public opinion on climate change issues: Implications for consensus-building and policymaking,” Climate Policy 2005, 4: 359–376.Google Scholar
24. McComas, Katherine and Shanahan, James, “Telling stories about global climate change,” Communication Research 1999, 26: 30.Google Scholar
25. Iyengar, Shanto and McGuire, William J., eds., Explorations in Political Psychology (Durham: Duke, 1993).Google Scholar
26. Schneider, Stephen H., “Degrees of certainty,” Research & Exploration 1993, 173–190.Google Scholar
27. Boykoff, Maxwell T. and Boykoff, Jules M., “Climate change and journalistic norms: A case-study of U.S. mass media coverage,” Geoforum 2007, 38: 1190–1204.Google Scholar
28. Nisbet, Matthew C., Climate Shift: Clear Vision for the Next Decade of Public Debate, Climate Shift, American University School of Communication, http://climateshiftproject.org/report/climate-shift-clear-vision-for-the-next-decade-of-public-debate, summer 2011.Google Scholar
29. Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, The State of the News Media 2011, http://stateofthemedia.org, March 2011, accessed March 14, 2011.Google Scholar
30. McCright, Aaron M. and Dunlap, Riley E. “Challenging global warming as a social problem: An analysis of the conservative movement's counter-claims,” Social Problems, 2000, 47: 499–522.Google Scholar
31. Dunlap, Riley E. and McCright, Aaron M., “A widening gap: Republican and Democratic views on climate change,” Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 2008, 50: 26–35.Google Scholar
32. Jones, David A., “The polarizing effect of new media messages,” International Journal of Public Opinion Research 2002, 14: 158–174.Google Scholar
33. Mendelsohn, Matthew and Nadeau, Richard, “The magnification and minimization of social cleavages by the broadcast and narrowcast news media,” International Journal of Public Opinion Research 1996, 8: 374–389.Google Scholar
34. Brossard, Dominique, Scheufele, Dietram A., Kim, Eunkyung, and Lewenstein, Bruce V. “Religiosity as a perceptual filter: Examining processes of opinion formation about nanotechnology,” Public Understanding of Science, 2009, 18: 546–558.Google Scholar
35. Scheufele, Dietram A., Corley, Elizabeth A., Shih, Tsung-jen, Dalrymple, Kajsa E., and Ho, Shirley S., “Religious beliefs and public attitudes toward nanotechnology in Europe and the United States,” Nature Nanotechnology 2009, 4: 91–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
36. Sears, David O. and Freedman, Jonathan L., “Selective exposure to information: A critical review,” Public Opinion Quarterly 1967, 31: 194–213.Google Scholar
37. Zillmann, Dolf, Chen, Lei, Knobloch, Sylvia, and Callison, Coy, “Effects of lead framing on selective exposure to Internet news reports.” Communication Research 2004, 31: 58–81.Google Scholar
38. Zillmann, Dolf and Bryant, Jennings, “Selective exposure phenomena,” in Selective Exposure to Communication, Zillmann, Dolf and Bryant, Jennings, eds. (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 1985), pp. 1–10.Google Scholar
39. Knobloch-Westerwick, Sylvia and Meng, Jingbo, “Looking the other way: Selective exposure to attitude-consistent and counterattitudinal political information.” Communication Research 2009, 36: 426–448.Google Scholar
40. Sunstein, Cass R., Republic.com 2.0 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).Google Scholar
41. O'Neill, Saffron, J. O'Neill, S.J. and Boykoff, M., “The role of new media in engaging the public with climate change,” in Engaging the Public with Climate Change: Communication and Behaviour Change, Whitmarsh, Lorraine, O'Neill, Saffron J., and Lorenzoni, Irene, eds. (London: Earthscan, 2011), pp. 233–251.Google Scholar
42. Frey, Brunos S. and Stutzer, Alois, Happiness and Economics: How the Economy and Institutions Affect Human Well-being (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).Google Scholar
43. Brocas, Isabelle and Carrillo, Juan D., The Psychology of Economic Decisions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).Google Scholar
44. Kelly Garrett, R., “Echo chambers online? Politically motivated selective exposure among Internet news users,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 2009, 14: 265–285.Google Scholar
45. Turow, Joseph, “Breaking up America: The dark side of target marketing,” American Demographics 1997, 19: 51–54.Google Scholar
46. Graf, Joseph and Aday, Sean, “Selective attention to online political information,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 2008, 52: 86–100.Google Scholar
47. Kobayashi, Tetsuro and Ikeda, Ken'ichi, “Selective exposure in political web browsing,” Information, Communication & Society 2009, 12: 929–953.Google Scholar
48. Hargittai, Eszter, “Open portals or closed gates? Channeling content on the World Wide Web,” Poetics 2000, 27: 233–253.Google Scholar
49. Spink, Amanda and Jansen, Bernard J., Web Search: Public Searching of the Web (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2004).Google Scholar
50. Williams, Ann E., “Designing and refining measures of communication in a new media landscape,” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the World Association for Public Opinion Research Thematic Seminar on Quality Survey Research , 2006, Caddenabia, Italy.Google Scholar
51. Williams, Ann E., “The political implications of a drive to digitize: An examination of audience engagement with newspapers,” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research , 2011, Phoenix, Arizona.Google Scholar