Essay by Eric Worrall
UT School of Journalism Professor Renita Coleman is lead author of a study which suggest journalists who want to engage climate skeptics should replace the term “Global Warming” with “Weather”.
Want to reach sceptics? Researchers suggest leaving the term ‘climate change’ out of some news coverage
By Denise-Marie Ordway Thursday June 23, 2022
If newsrooms want climate science sceptics to read and share news about climate change, researcher Renita Coleman recommends they do this: Leave the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ out of their coverage.
“Research seems to indicate those are trigger words for sceptics,” says Coleman, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “This is what we found would trigger them to stop reading and instantly become hostile, [believing] ‘Oh, that story is biased or that media organisation is biased.’”
Coleman is the lead author of a new paper that investigates strategies to help journalists reach people who distrust science. She and her colleagues conducted an experiment that indicates small changes in how journalists cover climate change have the potential to elicit substantial changes in the way sceptics engage with the news.
In the experiment, after reading a news story that incorporated the three changes below, sceptics said they would likely seek out and share more news about climate change. They also said they would likely take steps to help mitigate its damage.
…
Read more: https://www.themandarin.com.au/193130-want-to-reach-sceptics-researchers-suggest-leaving-the-term-climate-change-out-of-some-news-coverage/
The abstract of the study;
Reaching Science Skeptics: How Adaptive Framing of Climate Change Leads to Positive Responses Via Persuasion Knowledge and Perceived Behavioral Control
Renita Coleman, Esther Thorson, Cinthia Jimenez, Kami Vinton
First Published May 19, 2022 Research Article
Abstract
This study extends framing theory by identifying two causal mechanisms and one contingent condition for a new type of frame to be used with issues where people dispute scientific claims. This new “adaptive frame” focuses on adapting to climate change impacts without cueing deeply held beliefs by discussing causes. An experiment shows this frame works by reducing persuasion knowledge and increasing perceived behavioral control, resulting in science skeptics being significantly more likely to intend to take action, engage with the news, and agree with the story’s perspective. This effect is moderated by science skepticism, with adaptive frames working significantly better on the very people the news media are not reaching. We contribute to theory with an understanding of how a frame that eliminates references to deep-seated beliefs is more effective than the existing frames of conflict, attribution of responsibility, and possibly others.
Read more (Paywalled): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00936502221084925
Of course, leaving out trigger words like “climate change” and “global warming” might lead to less engagement by climate alarmists. So maybe journalists need to publish two different versions of the same story? Or can they aim to engage different audiences on different weeks?
Here’s a radical thought – perhaps journalists could ease back on the trigger words and other attempts to manipulate the emotions of their audience, and try just presenting the facts.
Alarmists try everything to get people who don’t accept their view to change their mind — except for the one thing that will actually work. We will change our mind when they present verifiable evidence that can survive all attacks against it. Alarmists won’t do that because their belief is weaker than wet toilet paper. Their belief couldn’t survive even the most basic factual assault; our beliefs can survive the most vicious propaganda attacks.
“Here’s a radical thought – perhaps journalists could ease back on the trigger words and other attempts to manipulate the emotions of their audience, and try just presenting the facts.”
The problem with that is, no one knows the facts. We’re all guessing.
Not true, we know lots of facts, but they don’t support alarmism, therefor they go after the emotions
I had a skeptical horse when I was a kid. At first, when I wanted to ride, I used to chase him around the corral with a rope. It didn’t work very well. Then I learned to hold the halter and lead behind my back with one hand and offer a treat with the other. As the horse’s attention became focused on the treat, I could slip the lead around his neck then gentle the halter on. Total control. Much better.
So at least according to the study, climate skeptics are like horses.
“Reaching Science Skeptics: How Adaptive Framing of Climate Change Leads to Positive Responses Via Persuasion Knowledge and Perceived Behavioral Control”
Science is based on skepticism.
So what’s a “science skeptic” ?
BTW, what a monty-pythoninan, meaningless word salad !
“Science skeptic” = anyone skeptical of their propaganda.
Or instead of trying to trick readers they could instead tell the other sides views. I might actually read some of their articles if they did that.
They seem to spend as much time and resources on trying to figure out how best to present the lies as they do in fabricating the lies.
I think that she refers to the cynical rather than the sceptical. The former goes on gut feeling.
What if your gut feeling also is backed by unpopular data?
Then you are sceptical and better science is required to change your mind.
Lefties always think everyone is as shallow and ignorant as they are.
Is this being portrayed as attempts to better engage sceptics when it is merely another step for the alarmists to extract themselves from the very specific corners they had painted themselves into with the terms CAGW, then global warming which morphed into climate change when it has always been about the natural weather cycles and change over time.
Regardless of the intent calling it weather is a step in the right direction. Also giving credit to the Sun for it’s impact on the Earth and life would be refreshing.
Better watch out, the next thing you know, they’ll be disguising climate change stories as porn.
I can’t think of a response to that which doesn’t sound completely filthy…
They could take a lesson from old Yasir Arafat, the speeches in Arabic and English were always completely different
“Death to the Jews” becomes “can’t we just talk”.
I guess it would never occur to a scientologist to just leave the BS at the door
Here in canada on the anniversary of the heat dome we get minute by minute stories on the “over 600 people who died in BC”.
Of course when you dig into it you find they were counting deaths out to mid august as part of that, 6 weeks after it passed.
Because climate can do you in even weeks later.
All BS all the time
That is similar to the Jan 6th crowd who claim that several cops died because of the Jan 6th riot. They say that it led to several suicides. Then if you look up suicides for police officers for 2021 you find that 160 cops committed suicide in that year. I am surprised that the crazies don’r claim that 160 cops died because of Jan 6th as it is unfortunately an every other day occurrence.
My suggestion is to replace the phrase “climate change” with “the wrath of God” – it works pretty well too.
Should we all expect Renita Coleman to have solar panels on her roof? I bet she does not.
Further massaging of the corrupted science of “the message”.
Referring to realists as science skeptics is a good measure of the fantasy world these fools are living in. Skepticism is science, and blind belief in unproven theories and unvalidated models is the definition of gullibility.
Blind belief in untestable incomplete theories is not science. It should be called climate social science.
The other day, I was having one of those Castella moments (metaphorically speaking)
I thought back to the days of my childhood. The news at the time was full of the usual Cold War anxiety, the actual Vietnam war lunacy and of course the imminent extinction of some iconic animal. The whales were always about to disappear, but were saved in the nick of time by fossil fuels replacing whale oil. The polar bear was not long for this world either, but was saved when people stopped shooting them for their warm coats. Seals were similarly given an extension when we stopped clubbing them to death. For some reason, the Polar Bears also benefited when we stopped clubbing seal pups. The food supplies we left in the ocean worked so well there are now too many Bears.
About the same time, a movement of concern was being advanced regarding run away population increase. The world population moved from 2.5 billion back in the 1950s to today’s 8 billion, without too much trouble. Apparently thanks in the main to the endless supply of reliable energy sources we once had and were pleased we could use..
The world population crisis has come and is about to disappear, quickly as the world population crashes over the next two generations of childless humans.
The need for a real crisis remained and was moved forward by the concept of ‘man made climate impact’. The idea being, humans have always done bad things, so we must not expect anything provided by human ingenuity to be good.
The big play was and remains the destruction of capitalism.
By removing capitalism the theory tells us, everyone lives happily ever after….well actually for about 30 years on average, but hey, that’s plenty of time to remember how awful living to around 80 would be.
Anyway, I am just running my rainbow flag up the pole and getting ready for some bashing of pots and pans, I am sure that will change everything for the better. It worked so well the last time, now we have doubled energy prices we can look forward to winter with newly endorsed anxiety….
Perhaps if the media really want to “reach people who distrust science” they should be aiming their articles at the climate activists whose understanding of basic physics is minimal to say the least and ability to observe anything scientific stops short of their own reflection in their computer screen.
As for any comprehension of history or how to use statistics most climatologists are a lost cause.
This isn’t a “Science” paper.
It’s a “Psychology” paper.
Psychologists have no idea whatsoever how to distinguish between “scientific” and “non-scientific” claims.
They need CNN (and MSNBC, and the NYT, and WaPo, and …) to do that task for them.
NB : The reason that psychology papers only ever talk about “an” experiment is that those particular “(soft-science) experiments” are non-reproducible.
The paper isn’t about “(climate) science”.
It’s about improving the effectiveness of propaganda techniques (AKA “framing theories”).
Likewise, “snake oil” should be replaced with “natural products of reptilian origin⋄” (under which we of course mean “snake oil”).
Huh. How much do you want to be “engaged” by the preachers of quackery?
On the one hand, the story is correct. Many ‘journalists’ in the Main Stream Media take their walking orders from Editors or propaganda groups like Covering Climate Now and try to make every weather story into an alarming climate story — in fact, CCNow insists that every story be about the climate regardless of topic.
So when educated readers see the words “climate change” inappropriately applied to a weather story, or a financial story, or a political story or a health story they know in an instant that the journalist is not doing his/her/its job but instead is writing a propaganda story which can and should be ignored.
When a journalist can cover a weather story without falsely making it into a climate story, then there is a chance the story is at least as true as anything else in the news.
“Journalism research” is an oxymoron.
“Coleman … lead author of a new paper .. investigates strategies to help journalists reach people who distrust science.” i.e., feed them propaganda change the names. We all know climate change is not weather. What we need is REAL science. i.e., formulate falsifiable hypothesis, testing hypothesis, reach defensible conclusions. This is a recipe book for propaganda. 🐱🏍
So, their thinking is that they will change reports that said, “Drought fueled Wild fires in California caused by Climate Change.” to “Drought fueled Wild fires in California caused by weather.” Doesnt sound fear porn enough to get people to read the stupid articles they are pushing out there.
Pushing propaganda on the morons is one thing – trying to get those in the know to believe it is another …
Finally, we’ve come full circle. They now admit that it’s just weather.