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 DOI: 10.1177/1075547014535878

2014 36: 267Science CommunicationSusanna Hornig Priest

Climate Change: A Communication Challenge for the 21st Century  

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Science Communication2014, Vol. 36(3) 267 –269

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Introduction

Climate Change: A Communication Challenge for the 21st Century

Susanna Hornig Priest1

Many researchers in our field have turned their attention to the challenges of climate change communication. As a result, we have received a number of outstanding research articles on this topic and have decided to put several of these together into two back-to-back theme issues for ready reference, along with other excellent current work that complements the climate change material.

Designing effective messages about complex science means understand-ing how audiences process information, which is the focus of this first theme issue (June 2014). Two complementary articles in this issue address ques-tions of risk information seeking and processing specifically for climate change. Shirley Ho and her colleagues have incorporated media use in what they describe as an extended planned risk information seeking model, or extended PRISM, predicting intention for climate change information seek-ing. In other words, they look at what causes people to become motivated to seek climate-related information and how media may contribute to this. They conclude that the relationship between media use and information seeking may best be described as a reinforcing spiral in which the factors that stimu-late media use may in turn be further stimulated as a result, although details would need to be verified by future work.

Drawing from related literature, Janet Yang and colleagues apply the risk information seeking and processing model, or RISP, to the analysis of support

1University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Corresponding Author:Susanna Hornig Priest, Editor, Science Communication: Linking Theory and Practice. Email: editorscicom@gmail.com

502733 SCX36210.1177/1075547013502733Science CommunicationJangresearch-article2013

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268 Science Communication 36(3)

for climate change mitigation policy. Their evidence suggests that perceived issue salience, risk perceptions, ecocentric values, and negative affect all appear to influence the way related information is processed. Systematic (or thoughtful) information processing, in turn, appears more closely related to increased support for mitigation policies than heuristic (or superficial, i.e., cue-driven) processing.

But what is the actual content of the media messages most likely to be encountered? Also in this issue, P. Sol Hart and Lauren Feldman report research on the content of broadcast news stories about climate change, con-cluding that both threat information and efficacy information are presented—but rarely in the same broadcast. Furthermore, only a few broadcasts depict actions individuals can take, with government action portrayed as discon-nected from public opinion or political pressure. The environmental impacts of climate change are shown, but political action to mitigate these impacts tends to be presented as uncertain and laden with conflict, possibly under-mining audience members’ feelings of efficacy.

The current issue also includes a study by Leona Yi-Fan Su and colleagues of real and perceived knowledge gaps. While the context was nanotechnol-ogy knowledge rather than climate change knowledge, the study underscores the importance of understanding these gaps, as well as the measurement chal-lenges. One intriguing conclusion: Attention to science in newspapers and interpersonal discussion of science can widen knowledge gaps between socioeconomic groups, but use of scientific blogs could counteract this tendency.

Two commentaries concerned with alternative means—new and old—of engaging nonscientists with scientific material complete this issue. Vickie Curtis writes about public engagement through contemporary science-based computer games, while Kristian Overskaug and colleagues describe the dis-semination efforts of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, which go back to the 18th century. Seeing these two articles together reminds us that we’ve been encouraging public engagement with science by many means for rather a long time—but with a consistent goal.

Understanding how the challenges of communicating complex science are approached within a range of professional cultures is also useful—as well as endlessly fascinating—and our next issue (August 2014), the second of our two theme issues on climate change, will consider these processes. Looking ahead, that issue will bring us an article by Michael Bruggemann and Sven Engesser exploring the idea that climate change journalists and their scientist sources form a global interpretive community. Using interviews with journal-ists from five countries, the authors also characterize smaller subgroups that

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Priest 269

write from different perspectives about climate change science and its uncertainties.

Another interview-based study of journalists, this one by Sara Shipley Hiles and Amanda Hinnant and focused on leading U.S. environmental jour-nalists, documents how the group has changed its approach to the ethical principle of balance in the face of climate change and past critiques of climate change coverage. These two articles (this one and the one described just above) go together in asserting the value of analyses that consider group characteristics, not just individual ones.

The third theme article of the August issue takes quite a different direction in analyzing the creation and production of a comedic theatre production on climate change staged in Canada and studying audience member reactions to it. Laughter may reach people in ways news accounts simply cannot.

The August issue will also include an article by John Lynch and colleagues about biomedical public relations practices for two different institutions, focusing on the rhetorical structure and likely influence of their press releases. A fascinating study in itself, the article also reminds us of the broader chain of events that commonly leads up to the appearance of journalistic stories on scientific issues, regardless of the topic.

Finally, the concluding commentary by Chris McGillion and Merryn McKinnon on participatory theatre as a science communication tool in Timor Leste illustrates the broad global range of audiences to be reached, as well as the many creative ways in which that can happen—echoing the message of the Canadian theatre study.

There’s a lot to be thinking of here, and I hope these current and upcom-ing theme issues—taken together—will help inspire future work, resulting in more informed scholarship as well as more creative practice in commu-nicating climate change and other complex topics. It is a privilege to have published all of this important work, which confirms the extent to which we are a vital community of scholarship and practice!

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