Framing Climate Change for Specific Audiences

In the realm of environmental education, educators often struggle with figuring out how to discuss an inherently depressing topic such as climate change in a way that is empowering and facilitates engagement, rather than creating a desperate sense of hopelessness. Communicators and researchers alike debate the effectiveness of negative framing, or telling people about the potential dangers of climate change, as compared to positive framing, which explains how people can improve the state of the world by taking action to reduce climate change.

Because recent studies in climate change science and social psychology suggest that negative framing may not be the most effective approach in convincing people to act against climate change, educators and communicators often assume that negative framing should be avoided. Until this study, however, researchers had not investigated whether the object of the negative framing—that is, the person, environment, or species that climate change puts in harm's way— has an effect on intended environmental actions. Previous studies had also overlooked whether the objects of positive framing—the beneficiaries of actions that mitigate climate change—changed a person's interest in mitigating his or her own carbon emissions.

This study investigates how positive and negative framing, as well as the objects of each type of framing, affect a person's interest in taking action to lower his or her own carbon footprint and engage in citizen science activities. The authors surveyed 3,456 adults, the overwhelming majority of whom lived in the United States and self-identified as birders. Each survey participant also indicated an interest in a citizen science program that allows participants to collect data and share the actions they take to reduce their carbon footprints via an online mapping platform.

The survey included two topically related questions, and other questions related to basic demographics. Every survey participant received the same first question, which measured the participant's level of concern about climate change. The participants were randomly given one statement out of five potential options: (1) a control statement about the citizen science platform; (2) a statement about how climate change negatively impacts humans; (3) a statement about how climate change negatively impacts birds; (4) a positive statement about how climate change can be mitigated by collective action; or (5) a positive statement about how climate change can be mitigated by collective action for the good of future generations. All statements were then followed by a question asking the participant how much he or she is interested in reducing his or her carbon footprint and participating in the citizen science platform. Participants ranked their interest numerically on a scale of one (not at all interested) to seven (very interested).

The authors measured the impact of the different framings by comparing the numerical difference in interest participants expressed in the survey. Each of the framings—the two negative framings and the two positive framings—were compared to the control, and the authors determined whether the numerical difference in interest expressed by participants given the framed statements was significantly different from the interest expressed by participants who were given the control statement.

The two negatively framed statements had very different outcomes. While the negative human framing was statistically undifferentiated from the control, the negative bird framing showed a statistically significant increase in participant interest in acting to reduce carbon footprints. This suggests that the object of the negative framing in climate change communication can impact how much a person seeks to mitigate his or her own carbon emissions.

The two positively framed statements were statistically indistinguishable from each other, but each of them did show a significant increase in interest in acting when compared to the control statement. This indicates that the concept of collective action against climate change may increase a person's interest in acting against climate change, whether future generations are explicitly included in the collective action concept or not.

Out of all of these framing methods, the frame that most increased intent to act was the statement that discussed how climate change harms birds. Because the study surveyed birders almost exclusively, the authors suspect that negatively framing climate change may more strongly impact a person's interest in acting if the object of the framing is an object of significance to the person.

The study is not necessarily generalizable to the larger American public, as the study's participants were of such a specific subpopulation and were not randomly chosen to participate in the surveys. However, these findings do introduce a new idea: that the object of negative framing matters in climate change communication. By extension, it also suggests that U.S. educators will need to present the public—people who have diverse backgrounds and interests—with different framings of climate change in order to maximize the effectiveness of climate change communication efforts.