From DUKE UNIVERSITY and the department of Mannian screaming and insults, comes this attempt to yet again, find the perfect message to sway climate skeptics.
Messages that conflict with audience’s partisan identity fail, exacerbate opposition
DURHAM, N.C. — Political advocates who support action on climate change have long sought “the perfect message” for swaying skeptics. If the issue can be framed correctly, they believe, the battle can be won.
A new Duke University study suggests it may be more complicated than that.
“Because climate change has become polarized along party lines, it’s no longer just an issue of finding ‘the right framing’ to convey relevant facts,” said study author Jack Zhou, who will graduate with a Ph.D. in environmental politics next month from Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “It has become a matter of political identity, particularly the political party we feel closest to.”
Even efforts to frame climate change around seemingly win-win issues such as economic growth, national security or poverty alleviation are likely to backfire, Zhou’s study finds, if the communication conflicts with the partisan identity of the targeted audience.
“These efforts don’t just fail in terms of being unconvincing,” he said. “In most cases, they actually trigger a significant negative effect — or backfire — that polarizes the audience even further.”
Zhou published his peer-reviewed study this month in the journal Environmental Politics.
In a 2014 survey experiment, Zhou asked more than 470 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents to read one of four randomly assigned messages that framed climate change as an issue society needs to deal with and is worth caring about.
One message framed climate change as an economic issue; one as a national security issue; one as a moral justice issue; and one as a natural disaster issue. The first two messages were written to tap into Republican identity; the last two targeted Democratic identity. To further test the power of partisanship, the four messages were then randomly attributed to one of two sources: a fictional Republican congressman or a fictional Democratic one.
The hypothesis, going in, was that Republicans would be more open to an in-party message from an in-party source and least receptive to on out-party message from an out-party source. Instead, Zhou found that regardless of the source, all eight vignettes backfired when compared to the control group, who were asked to simply think about climate change as a political issue.
The study also showed that Republican respondents, after exposure to framing, became more opposed to governmental action on climate change and less willing to take personal action on the issue.
“When asked to read information that clashed with their partisan identities, respondents reacted with motivated skepticism,” he said. “Not only was there greater opposition after reading the framed messages, there was also less attitudinal ambivalence. This means that people dug in and became more sure of their negative opinions.”
These backfire effects doubled or tripled in size among individuals who reported a high personal interest in politics, which functions as a measure of intensity of political identity. These individuals make up roughly one-third of the respondents in the study and one-third of all U.S. Republicans.
“I want to be clear: This reaction is not a matter of intelligence or education. It’s not totally irrational. It’s just a natural reaction — people want to justify and defend their identities,” Zhou stressed. “I would expect if I asked Democrats to read framed messages about how climate change is a hoax, I would also see strong backfire effects.”
The take-away message for climate communicators, he said, is that to avoid backfire, they need to take care to target their audience’s values and understand how polarization affects their evolving sensitivities and identities.
“I’m not saying it’s totally impossible to frame climate change across party lines but it might take more time and resources than advocates imagine, and a much greater degree of care,” Zhou said. “Communication that doesn’t work perfectly — if such a thing even exists — could polarize these audiences further from where you want them to be.”
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Funding for the study came from the Duke University Kenan Institute for Ethics.
CITATION: “Boomerangs Versus Javelins: How Polarization Constrains Communication on Climate Change,” Jack Zhou. Environmental Politics, April 19, 2016. DOI: 10.1080/09644016.2016.1166602
“The take-away message for climate communicators, he said, is that to avoid backfire, they need to take care to target their audience’s values and understand how polarization affects their evolving sensitivities and identities.”
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Same as in a bar fight.
Polarization is a mild term compared to RICO prosecution, employment discrimination, and various assaults from the Presidential podium using activist-supplied speeches directed at anyone who does not conform to the over reach agenda. Not even LBJ descended to that level.
Deanfromohio, that was wonderful! That gave me a good – much needed – laugh. Thank you!
Accordionsrule – and excellent addition! So accurate!
I love both of these comments. +1000 +1000
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09644010802055576
Only picked one, logical error in abstract, admission in paper they looked for their conclusion. Have not studied thoroughly. Journal been around since 1992. A few years before then I started teaching about logical errors to biology college students, because many seemed not to understand.
Poor study design. They should have questioned Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. If Independents match Republicans, then Democrats are likely out of touch.
Their conclusion simply reveals the mind of lefty-greens. A well read conservative or libertarian has a better BS detector in this age of leftist MSM.
The only message this sceptic wants to hear from alarmists is, “We admit it. We lied. We cheated. We abused the data. We bullied. We destroyed reputations. We smeared our opponents. We went full retard with our bogus theories. We apologise profusely. We quit!”
One can dream.
This effort is doomed by a faulty paradigm. The situation is fairly well explained by an analogy to communicable diseases and vaccinations. The vaccine is critical thinking, which protects against a multitude of diseases brought on by uncritical acceptance of statements and assertions which include hype, propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, and rhetoric used to persuade people to accept beliefs that cannot be validated with empirical evidence and replication of data, or which cannot account for existing phenomena or provide reliable forecasts of results of future observations.
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/field_guide_to_critical_thinking
‘Because climate change has become polarized along party lines’
once again the fell to understand the reality of the situation and therefore fail to deal with it
“Even efforts to frame climate change around seemingly win-win issues such as economic growth, national security or poverty alleviation are likely to backfire, Zhou’s study finds, if the communication conflicts with the partisan identity of the targeted audience”
Hey I’m all in agreement with the above. If we can get GW and increased CO2 just think how the planet will green and be warmer and more comfortable overall. That will foster win-win issues such as economic growth, national security or poverty alleviation.
On the other hand count me out concerning the NWO and climate based draconian environmental controls. As well as subsidized medieval energy systems that will leave us all in energy poverty.
So as we now know the true issue is not CC at all but leftist progressive globalist elites seeking a new paradigm of world poverty and slavery that has been in abeyance since the development and use of FF’s.
getit;
Just calc how many whales would have to be ‘rendered’ to power NYC. Compare to total world supply.