MSGID: 1:317/3 64a8e672   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Doom-and-gloom climate news may scare but also encourage audiences   
      
      
     Date:   
         July 7, 2023   
     Source:   
         Penn State   
     Summary:   
         Researchers investigated how seeing frightening news about climate   
         change day after day may shape the way people feel about the   
         phenomenon and how willing they are to take action to address it.   
      
      
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   A team of Penn State researchers investigated how seeing frightening news   
   about climate change day after day may shape the way people feel about   
   the phenomenon and how willing they are to take action to address it.   
      
   Christofer Skurka, Jessica Myrick and graduate student Yin Yang found   
   that seeing bad news about climate change can make people more afraid   
   over time, but it also may encourage audiences to think about what   
   society can do to address the problem. They published the results of   
   two separate studies in an article titled "Fanning the flames or burning   
   out? Testing competing hypotheses about repeated exposure to threatening   
   climate change messages," which appeared in the journal Climatic Change.   
      
   "The public is surrounded by media coverage about climate change, and   
   this messaging tends to be negative in tone, focusing on the threats   
   that climate change poses to human prosperity and ecological health,"   
   said Skurka, the paper's lead author and an assistant professor of media   
   studies in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications. "We   
   know from years of research in the field of communication that media   
   messaging can impact our emotions, our beliefs and, in turn, sometimes   
   our behavior."  The first study involved exposing participants to three   
   days of negative news stories about climate change. A follow-up study   
   consisted of participants reading negative news headlines about climate   
   change in the form of Twitter posts for seven consecutive days.   
      
   "We found that three days in a row of reading doom-and-gloom news stories   
   about climate change was linked to greater fear and less hope, which   
   can potentially hurt an audience's attitude that they can do anything   
   to tackle the problem," said Myrick, the Donald P. Bellisario Professor   
   of Health Communication and co- funded faculty member of the Institutes   
   of Energy and the Environment.   
      
   "However, our follow-up study had people look only at headlines and not   
   full news stories for a longer period of seven days in a row. In that   
   study, we found that fear peaked after a few days and then held steady."   
   The researchers reported that over time, people who repeatedly saw   
   climate change headlines started to feel like they could do more to   
   affect change and that the topic of climate change was important.   
      
   "You would think that as people are repeatedly exposed to threatening   
   climate news devoid of solutions content that their efficacy beliefs will   
   decrease over time," Skurka said. "We saw the opposite pattern in our   
   second study. People's efficacy beliefs increased over time. In other   
   words, the more exposure people had to these threatening news stories   
   each day, they were increasingly likely to think that they can make a   
   difference in addressing climate change."  Skurka said one possibility   
   is that as the public copes with unpleasant feelings about the enormous   
   threat climate change presents, they may convince themselves that they   
   have control over the situation, which translates into greater efficacy   
   beliefs that their actions will make a difference.   
      
   "Our findings suggest that people have gotten used to doom-and-gloom   
   reporting around climate change and what may be more important for   
   motivating them to take action is that they see coverage of it on a   
   daily basis," Myrick said.   
      
   "This is called an agenda-setting effect, where a topic that is covered   
   more often in the news is then viewed as more important by people   
   who consume the news."  According to Skurka, decades of research in   
   communication and psychology show that under certain circumstances,   
   fear can be motivating.   
      
   "We found that people exposed to the high-threat headlines, which tended   
   to evoke more fear, generally expressed greater intentions to share   
   the information than people exposed to the low-threat headlines, which   
   means there may be an advantage to evoking fear," Skurka said. "However,   
   people's responses over time were essentially the same regardless of   
   whether they were shown the high-threat or low-threat news headlines. That   
   tells us that when it comes to over-time responses to repeated media   
   exposure, simply mentioning climate change in the news activates   
   pre-existing emotions and thoughts associated with climate change."   
   Myrick added that this does not mean that fear-appeals should be used   
   for all climate change communication. Instead, the more important factor   
   may be communicating hope and solutions.   
      
   "For communication to be most impactful, people need to feel like   
   there is still something we can do about it to make a difference,"   
   Myrick said. "That should hopefully motivate reporters and strategic   
   communicators to include information about solutions to climate change   
   in their messaging."   
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   provided by Penn_State. Original written by Kevin Sliman. Note: Content   
   may be edited for style and length.   
      
      
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   Journal Reference:   
      1. Skurka, C., Myrick, J.G. & Yang, Y. Fanning the flames or burning   
      out?   
         Testing competing hypotheses about repeated exposure to   
         threatening climate change messages. Climatic Change, 2023 DOI:   
         10.1007/s10584-023- 03539-8   
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   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230707153841.htm   
      
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