Climate misinformation & pro-environmental messaging
I’ve been writing a book chapter on engaging people with climate & ecological research through artful methods. As part of this, I had to grasp positive and negative methods of engaging people in social media and online communication. I’m sharing my brief literature review, in the hopes that my summary of themes is helpful to others.
Summary of themes
All references are in the headlines of studies outlined further below.
Positive pro-environmental social media and communication
- When people spend more time consuming illustrated or in-depth content, or content across multiple channels, they are more likely to develop pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours.
- Attitudes to climate change are mediated by perceived social consensus (i.e. agreement by people you trust or feel identity with).
- Social media can be effective in pro-environmental messaging, with the possibility of public opinion influencing political decision-making.
- Meaningfulness and personification are two key principles for effective pro-environmental social media and communication, especially in communicating the shared responsibility to address climate change.
- Facebook is most associated with negative messaging and climate misinformation. More effective communication pays more attention to the local channels, values and languages that people favour.
- Polarisation of views in Twitter is more likely to occur in response to non-scientific or poorly evidenced information. Therefore, it is vital to show the validity of research in messaging on short-form social media.
- Scientific consensus (focusing on the facts agreed by scientists) is a gateway to believing and understanding anthropogenic climate change.
Misinformation and anti-environmental attitudes
- A network of actors is involved in financing, producing, and amplifying misinformation — including right-wing media and think tanks.
- There are four variants of climate science denial: that it’s not happening, that it’s not anthropogenic, that it will not have a significant impact and that there is no scientific consensus.
- False anti-environmental information is legitimised with methods that include constructing authentic-seeming trustworthy proponents of information, or persuading real ‘influencers’ to advocate for or share information.
- Misinformation does not necessarily lead to ‘misbehaviours’. Panic about the negative impact of social media on behaviour relates to a shift in ways of knowing from objectivity to intersubjectivity.
- Misinformation doesn’t just travel in social media but in science itself due to mechanisms such as hype and hyperbole, publication bias and citation misdirection, predatory publishing, and filter bubbles.
Headlines of a selection of research
Effective pro-environmental messaging
What channels are effective for positive environmental messaging?
The two key findings of this research suggest that when people spend more time consuming illustrated or in-depth content, or content across multiple channels, they are more likely to develop pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours.
- “YouTube has the strongest and most robust positive and statistically significant effect on climate change awareness”
- “Being a multi-platform user also has a positive and statistically significant effect on climate change awareness.”
‘The effect of social network sites usage in climate change awareness in Latin America’, Popul Environ, May 2023
Amalia Gómez-Casillas and Victoria Gómez Márquez
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10150149/
Social media as a soft-power tool
This study finds that even though it is difficult to assess the effects of social media as a soft power tool with certainty, there are visible links between social media and changing public perceptions, with the possibility of public opinion influencing political decision-making.
Role of Social Media as a Soft Power Tool in Raising Public Awareness and Engagement in Addressing Climate Change
Climate, 2019
Aleksandrina V. Mavrodieva, Okky K. Rachman, Vito B. Harahap and Rajib Shaw
Keio University, Japan
https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/7/10/122
What are some principles for effective user interaction?
“Four practical principles are especially relevant to foster user interaction on Twitter through images: (i) show ‘real people’ (i.e. non-staged images of people that transmit real emotions), (ii) tell a story, (iii) include a local connection, and (iv) show impacts or actions by people who are directly affected. These practical principles are based on the more general principles of meaningfulness and personification, two foundations that can help to overcome some of the main barriers to citizens’ perception of climate change as a relevant issue with serious consequences in their lives. Campaigns on social media that use imagery based on these practical and general principles can be effective in communicating the shared responsibility to address climate change.”
‘Social Engagement with climate change: principles for effective visual representation on social media’, Climate Policy, 2022
Bienvenido León, Samuel Negredo & María Carmen Erviti
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2022.2077292
What increases a sense of empowerment on climate?
What increases climate change efficacy?
Climate change efficacy is the belief that one is able to make a difference on climate. This study by Tuitjer and Dirksmeier finds that Facebook negatively correlates with perceived climate change efficacy. So, this platform more than others includes news and discussion that increases a sense of apathy and powerlessness. They argue that more effective communication is more diversified across European nations, and pays more attention to the local channels, values and languages that people favour.
‘Social media and perceived climate change efficacy: A European comparison’
Digital Geography and Society, 2021
Leonie Tuitjer, Peter Dirksmeier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266637832100009X
Does inoculating the public help combat climate misinformation?
This research explores how people evaluate and process consensus cues in a polarized information environment. They provide evidence that it is possible to pre-emptively protect (“inoculate”) public attitudes about climate change against real-world misinformation. They show through experiment that scientific consensus (focusing on the facts agreed by scientists) is a gateway to believing and understanding anthropogenic climate change.
Inoculating the Public against Misinformation about Climate Change
Global Challenges, January 2017
Sander van der Linden, Anthony Leiserowitz, Seth Rosenthal, Edward Maibach
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/gch2.201600008
Anti-environmental information and misinformation
What is misinformation and why is it a problem?
This study by Adams et al focuses on whether misinformation leads to misbehaviours, and they find evidence for direct causal links to be very weak. The authors identify a shift in ways of knowing from objectivity to intersubjectivity as a root cause for the alarm that generates beliefs that misinformation causes misbehaviours.
(Why) Is Misinformation a Problem?
Perspectives on Psychological Science, Volume 18, issue 6
Zoë Adams, Magda Osman Björn Meder et al
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17456916221141344
How does misinformation happen within scientific research?
West and Bergstrom examine “the ways that misinformation can travel within science due to misaligned incentives, out-of-date publishing norms, and sociotechnical systems that concentrate attention and credit on a small subset of the literature”. Where many studies focus on social media as propagator of falsehoods, they identify the problems within science, including hype and hyperbole to publication bias and citation misdirection, predatory publishing, and filter bubbles.
Misinformation in and about science, April 2021
Jevin D. West Carl T. Bergstrom
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1912444117
What is online misinformation about climate change?
This literature review by Treen, Williams and O’Neill analyses the mechanisms of misinformation and the gaps in research. They make explicit that “A network of actors are involved in financing, producing, and amplifying misinformation”. They cite Bjornberg et al (2017) who finds 6 categories of actors denying environmental & climate science: a) scientists b) governments c) political & religious organisations such as think-tanks d) extractive industries e) media, particularly right-wing f) the public, especially conservative white males. That study also identifies four variants of climate science denial: that it’s not happening, that it’s not anthropogenic, that it will not have a significant impact and that there is no scientific consensus. They also identify further elements such as the distinctions between different content creators — from automated to authentic people.
Online Misinformation about Climate Change, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews, June 2020
Kathie Treen, Hywel Williams, Saffron O’Neill
University of Exeter
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342307224_Online_misinformation_about_climate_change
Awareness of misinformation aids effective communication
Ulrich synthesises current research on climate misinformation and concludes that communicators must remain alert to methods of misinformation to be able to adapt methods accordingly to illuminate and bypass falsities and manipulation. She reflects on values across cultures identifying that conservatism and individualism increase the likelihood of climate skepticism and denial.
‘Climate misinformation: Communicating Climate Science in an Era of Misinformation’
Alysha Ulrich, Pennsylvania State University
Intersect, Volume 16, Number 1, 2022
file:///Users/bridgetmckenzie/Downloads/Ulrich_ClimateMisinformation_Final.pdf
Non-credible information increases polarisation
Twitter in particular has been used to propagate misinformation about climate change, with fossil fuel industries and lobby groups manufacturing fake accounts to circulate them. Samantray and Pin find that polarisation of views is more likely to occur in response to non-scientific or poorly evidenced information. “We find that polarization can not increase with increase in homophily in communication unless information propagating fake beliefs has minimal credibility. We therefore infer from the empirical results that anti-climate change tweets are largely not credible.”
‘Credibility of climate change denial in social media’, Nature, 2019
Abhishek Samantray & Paolo Pin
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0344-4
Effectiveness of climate misinformation relies on legitimisation methods
Di Domenico explores the legitimisation processes that encourage people to accept misinformation in social media, filling a gap amongst many studies that focus more on the psychological profiling and biases of the types of people more likely to believe, share and act upon misinformation. Legitimisation methods include constructing authentic-seeming trustworthy proponents of information, or persuading real ‘influencers’ to advocate for or share information.
‘Fake News and Social Media Disinformation: a consumer behavior perspective’ (PhD thesis)
Giandomenico Di Domenico, University of Portsmouth, 2022
https://pure.port.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/63065979/Thesis.pdf
Is social consensus key to forming beliefs about climate change?
Psychological research has shown a tendency towards homophily (liking the same) and social consensus (agreeing with the majority), so with these acting together, it means that people agree with the majority that they identify with.
This study by Lewandowsky et al investigating the impact of blogs and comment threads finds that beliefs are partially shaped by readers’ perception of how widely an opinion expressed in a blog post appears to be shared by other readers. The perceived social consensus among readers, in turn, is determined by whether blog comments endorse or reject the contents of a post. When comments reject the content, perceived reader consensus is lower than when comments endorse the content.
‘Science by social media: Attitudes towards climate change are mediated by perceived social consensus’
Mem Cognit, 2019
Stephan Lewandowsky, John Cook, Nicolas Fay and Gilles E. Gignac
