Communication and Marketing As Climate Change–Intervention Assets (original) (raw)

Targeting and tailoring climate change communications

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 2013

Social marketing studies suggest that targeting segments of the population, by assessing and addressing their values and motives for actions in the design of communications, can improve the effectiveness of health and environmental communications efforts. Guidance for climate change communication now routinely proposes targeting specific audience segments as a fundamental principle, despite ambiguity regarding what specific behaviors to target and a lack of empirical evidence for specific strategies. Audience segmentation strategies proposed to date for climate change communications resemble those used in other social marketing efforts, but can be proprietary or opaque, with little data on the effects of implementing them. Insufficient evidence exists to systematically demonstrate the effectiveness of targeting or tailoring climate change communications per se, other than by reference to related research on health and environmental risk communications. Meta-analyses with systematic literature reviews, however, demonstrate that health risk communications can be more effective at changing attitudes and behaviors if they are tailored to the individual recipients' beliefs about their self-efficacy. The advent of technologyenabled microtargeting is rapidly expanding the opportunities for tailoring and targeting climate change communications and for adding to what we know from using them to make them effective.

Health as a Key Driver of Climate Change Communication. A Scoping Review

The negative implications of climate change for human health are now well-established. Yet these have not been fully considered into climate change communication strategies. Research suggests that reorienting climate change communication with a health frame could be a useful communication strategy. We conducted a long-term and broad overview of existing scientific literature in order to summarize the state of research activity in this area, by extent and by nature. The methodology is based on a scoping review of scientific articles published on climate change communication and health between 1990 and mid-2016 indexed in the PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science databases. The screened citations were reviewed for inclusion and data were extracted and coded in order to conduct quantitative (e.g. frequencies) and qualitative (i.e. content analysis) analyses.Out of 2,866 identified published papers, only 24 articles were eligible for analyses. The main themes identified were effecti...

Reorienting Climate Change Communication for Effective Mitigation

Science Communication, 2009

Climate communication approaches expend significant resources promoting attitudinal change, but research suggests that encouraging attitudinal change alone is unlikely to be effective. The link between an individual's attitudes and subsequent behavior is mediated by other influences, such as social norms and the “free-rider” effect. One way to engender mitigative behaviors would be to introduce regulation that forces green behavior, but government fears a resulting loss of precious political capital. Conversely, communication approaches that advocate individual, voluntary action ignore the social and structural impediments to behavior change. The authors argue that there are two crucial, but distinct, roles that communication could play in engaging the public in low carbon lifestyles: first, to facilitate public acceptance of regulation and second, to stimulate grass-roots action through affective and rational engagement with climate change. The authors also argue that using com...

Investigating the long-term impacts of climate change communications on individuals' attitudes and behavior

Environment and Behavior 46(1): 70-101, 2014

To assess the effectiveness of climate change communications, it is important to examine their long-term impacts on individuals’ attitudes and behavior. This article offers an example study and a discussion of the challenges of conducting long-term investigations of behavioral change related to climate change communications (a vital and underresearched area). The research reported is a longitudinal panel study of the impacts on UK viewers of the climate change movie The Age of Stupid. The heightened levels of concern, motivation to act, and sense of agency about action that were initially generated by the movie did not measurably persist over the long term. The results also show that behavioral intentions do not necessarily translate into action. Data analysis raised issues concerning the reliability of participants’ causal attributions of their behavior. This and other methodological challenges are discussed, and some ways of avoiding or lessening problems are suggested.

Challenges and Strategies for Enhancing Climate Change Communication and Environmental Engagement

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2019

Although there is an ongoing debate in the world regarding the reality of climate change, it has been largely accepted that climate change is real and happening. Nevertheless, the action on the ground to reign in climate change seems to be slow or absent in many parts of the world. The paper takes note of some of the challenges that the scientists and environmental interest groups face while communicating climate change to enhance environmental engagement. It also reviews some novel and innovative methods suggested by researchers for improving and enhancing the impact of climate change communication. These could also be applied to convey the facts, the perceptions, and the projections related to climate change. The desired policy changes, attitudinal changes, individual behavioral changes, and collective action needed at local and global levels, may then be communicated in more creative ways. There is an urgent and certain need for moving societies into environmental action through right communication. Climate change communication needs to be reoriented and reframed by applying the insights gained from communications research. The communicators need to pay attention to their audience more, so as to frame their communication to match their audience.

The When and How of Communicating Climate Change

This investigation discovers how combined use of the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the Elaboration Likelihood Model could offer greater specification for both academics and practitioners looking to improve the effectiveness of communication as a tool to encourage behaviour change. It will contribute, as Stern called for, to greater understanding of the catalogue of variables which are involved when people are contemplating changing environmentally significant behaviours Citation: Wilson, C., Irvine, K. and Mill, G. (2009) The When and How of Communicating Climate Change. In: IAPNM 2009, 8th international Congress of the International Association on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, University of Valencia, Spain 18th-19th June 2009. www.adeit.uv.es/aimpnl2009

Consumer Awareness, Perception and Actions towards Climate Change

Climate change is one of the most serious environmental and human threats of the 21st century. It is a product of the consumers’ actions and inactions, directly or indirectly that has led to high levels of the various greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and that have caused temperature to rise more than normal. Consumers demand for and consumption of products and services has gone unabated and particularly those rooted in unsustainable production methods. As years go by with no significant actions, the impacts of climate change will intensify with probable catastrophic effects. Across the world, how well informed are consumers about climate change or ready to take actions on it has no certain answer. This study determined the level of consumers’ awareness and perception of climate change. It also investigated consumers’ adaptation actions against climate change. A sample of 500 respondents was used for the survey. The findings of the study were mix; the relationship between consumers’ perception of climate change and the adoption of all the adaptation variables used in the study were significant but for three variables (Turn off all electrical appliances when not in use; Buy a locally made product rather than one imported from far away and; Talk to friends or family about global warming). The result also showed that some of the variables the consumers adopted were more expensive than the ones they declined. This created the suspicion that such variables were chosen for social status rather than to control climate change. Other finding included that the consumers lacked understanding of their role in the cause of climate change. Also the knowledge of what the consumer roles are in mitigating climate change was insufficient. So enlightenment is required; electronic media particularly radio should be used as the primary mass media for communicating climate change information as it is readily available and can be powered by battery in locations where there is no electricity. Government and media must partner to ensure that consumers are well positioned to have access to climate change information for knowledge and to take action.

Reorienting Climate Change Communication for Effective Mitigation: Forcing People to be Green or Fostering Grass-roots Engagement?

Science Communication, 2009

Climate communication approaches expend significant resources promoting attitudinal change, but research suggests that encouraging attitudinal change alone is unlikely to be effective. The link between an individual's attitudes and subsequent behavior is mediated by other influences, such as social norms and the “free-rider” effect. One way to engender mitigative behaviors would be to introduce regulation that forces green behavior, but government fears a resulting loss of precious political capital. Conversely, communication approaches that advocate individual, voluntary action ignore the social and structural impediments to behavior change. The authors argue that there are two crucial, but distinct, roles that communication could play in engaging the public in low carbon lifestyles: first, to facilitate public acceptance of regulation and second, to stimulate grass-roots action through affective and rational engagement with climate change. The authors also argue that using communication to stimulate demand for regulation may reconcile these “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches.