Is There Any Hope? How Climate Change News Imagery and Text Influence Audience Emotions and Support for Climate Mitigation Policies

Abstract

Using a national sample, this study experimentally tests the effects of news visuals and texts that emphasize either the causes and impacts of climate change or actions that can be taken to address climate change. We test the effects of variations in text and imagery on discrete emotions (i.e., hope, fear, and anger) and, indirectly, on support for climate mitigation policies. Political ideology is examined as a moderator. The findings indicate that news images and texts that focus on climate-oriented actions can increase hope and, in the case of texts, decrease fear and anger, and these effects generally hold across the ideological spectrum. In turn, the influence of emotions on policy support depends on ideology: Hope and fear increase support for climate policies for all ideological groups but particularly conservatives, whereas anger polarizes the opinions of liberals and conservatives. Implications for climate change communication that appeals to emotions are discussed.

The impact of compensatory measures on public support for carbon taxation: an experimental study in Sweden

“…Converse, 1964), current research on environmental attitudes demonstrate significant left-right cleavages. This research has found that people positioning themselves to the ideological left tend to be more favourable towards environmental protection than those on the ideological right (Feldman & Hart, 2017;Greenhill, Leviston, Leonard, & Walker, 2014;Hamilton & Saito, 2015;Liu, Vedlitz, & Shi, 2014;McCright & Dunlap, 2013), and that this ideological cleavage is even growing larger over time (McCright, Xiao, & Dunlap, 2014;Smith & Leiserowitz, 2012). In part, the left-right differences in policy attitudes are suggested to be a result of the ideological right's desire to limit governmental interference (Milbrath, 1986), protect free-market capitalism (Campbell & Kay, 2014) and preserve the current economic and political system (Feygina, Jost, & Goldsmith, 2010;Häkkinen & Akrami, 2014).…”

“…Drews & van den Bergh, 2016). In an American context, both Feldman and Hart (2017), as well as Shwom, Bidwell, Dan, and Dietz (2010), contend that public support is key for motivating politicians to take climate action. Finally, Rabe and Borick (2012; see also Löfgren & Nordblom, 2009) point to the importance of reframing carbon pricing measures as neither a 'tax', nor on 'carbon', in response to unfavourable mass opinion.…”

“…Even more relevant is the question of whether, and if so by which measures, policy resistance can be alleviated. In the current literature, a large number of factors are proposed to shape policy attitudes, spanning both individual motivation (Schleich, Schwirplies, & Ziegler, 2018;Steg, Dreijerink, & Abrahamse, 2005); political ideology (Feldman & Hart, 2017); institutional, political and interpersonal trust (cf. Dietz, Dan, & Shwom, 2007;Hammar & Jagers, 2006;Harring, 2014;Kallbekken, Garcia, & Korneliussen, 2013); and contextual variables such as degree of political polarization (Linde, 2018), economic conditions and dependencies (Jagers & Matti, in press;Kenny, 2018;Ščasný et al, 2017), political culture (Cherry, García, Kallbekken, & Torvanger, 2014) and quality of government (Harring, 2015).…”

Emociones y difusión de noticias sobre el cambio climático en redes sociales. Influencia de hábitos, actitudes previas y usos y gratificaciones en universitarios

“…Se ha señalado que diferentes enfoques y encuadres pueden hacer variar los efectos de los mensajes sobre cambio climático (Bilandzic, Kalch, & Soentgen, 2017;Feldman & Hart, 2018) y que estas diferencias en el tratamiento de la noticia pueden provocar efectos distintos en las actitudes e intenciones de los usuarios . Así, puesto que los usuarios reaccionan de manera diferente ante distintos encuadres (Lee, Chang, & Chen, 2017) es necesario que estudios posteriores comparen las respuestas de los participantes ante varios estímulos que incluyan distintos enfoques.…”

Narrative Medicine Meets Planetary Health: Mindsets Matter in the Anthropocene

“…Finally, we argue for a greater scientific understanding of narrative 'medicine' and mindsets at the larger scale. Scientists and other scholars are already in deep discussions on the importance of narrative as a means to effectively communicate the causes and consequences of climate change [9][10][11][12], or in the case of infectious disease, the value of narrative in encouraging vaccine uptake [13,14]. Our focus here is largely on NCDs.…”