Samenvattingen artikelen
Week 2: Subtopic 1 - Framing
Communicating climate change to a local but diverse audience: on the positive impact of locality framing
Degeling & Koolen (2021)
Introduction
Effectively communicating scientific knowledge to the general public is essential in stimulating anthropogenic
(= door menselijke activiteit) climate change (ACC) mitigating (= verzachtende) behavioral changes. As predicted
by influential models of behavioral change, developing a positive attitude towards a behavior significantly
increases the likelihood of that behavior to be performed in the future. This means that convincing the general
public that ACC mitigating behaviors are effective, is essential in obtaining their support in the attenuation of
ACC.
While the general public’s attitude towards ACC mitigating behaviors is of course dependent on a large variety
of factors, the current study investigates the impact of locality framing in information graphics (hence referred
to as infographics) on attitude towards ACC mitigating behaviors. We manipulated two infographics about sea
level rise: one focusing on the acceleration of sea level rise on a general, global scale, and one emphasizing the
specific, local consequences of sea level rise for a coastal town in the Netherlands: Hoek van Holland (HvH). In a
low-lying country such as the Netherlands, acceleration of sea level rise is a pertinent issue, especially for
coastal towns such as HvH. Our experiment only sampled inhabitants of HvH, which allowed us to test the
hypothesis that infographics with a specific, local frame leads to a more positive attitude than infographics with
a more general, global frame.
Since we know that people’s perspective on ACC can be influenced by their gender, age, income, education
level, political background, and religiosity, we analyze these demographic characteristics systematically to see if
they also moderate the hypothesized effect of locality framing.
We argue that infographics, which establish a narrative by combining verbal and visual elements, are
particularly useful for ACC communication, for a couple of reasons:
1. The narrative supports the reader in obtaining, understanding, and remembering the represented
information
2. The visual elements help to give greater personal meaning to climate change, which is often seen as a
diffuse global problem
3. Infographics are especially effective on individuals with little knowledge on a topic, which is the case
for the majority of the general public regarding ACC and its consequences.
Theoretical background
2.1 locality framing in climate change communication
A communication tool that has proven its efficacy in significantly influencing the impact a message has on its
receivers, is framing. Framing theory is used to explain how the presentation of a message influences people
on a psychological and cognitive level. The current study employs emphasis framing, which is used to highlight
an aspect of a larger message to increase its salience. When locality framing is applied to a message about ACC,
its local consequences (e.g., sea level rise off a nearby coast) are emphasized over its global consequences (e.g.,
sea level rise on a global scale, without mentioning the local consequences).
In our experiment, the locally framed infographic makes the consequences of sea level rise for HvH salient for
its inhabitants, for example that their town will flood if we as humans do not change our behavior. This local
perspective is expected to promote emotional and cognitive engagement with the issue, since it makes climate
change and the resulting sea level rise a psychologically close issue.
Local information is more:
, • Explicit;
• Accessible;
• Personally relevant and thus more persuasive;
• Tangible;
• Comprehensible
The concept of psychological distance stems from Construal Level Theory (CLT), which often serves as the
theoretical foundation for the debate on the effects of locality framing. CLT defines psychological distance as
"the subjective experience that something is close or far away from the self, here, and now”. Therefore, local
messages lead to lower psychological distance, which makes them more concrete and imaginable. For that
reason, they may impact people’s evaluations of the subject matter, which can result in a higher concern about
ACC, and more preparedness to act upon it.
However, also negative effects of local framing were found, for example in an experiment that made use of
local videos.
The explanation for the negative impact of local videos seems to be related to a so-called culture preservation
response. That is, when the consequences of ACC are expected to exert influence on people's direct
environment, this could entail the need for behavioral changes that require an unpleasant, forced adjustment
of social norms. This adjustment can stimulate people to attribute the consequences of ACC to non-human
factors, and negatively impact their ACC perspective. In this scenario, globally framed messages have a more
positive impact on people’s attitude towards ACC mitigating behaviors, as they do not force adjustment of
social norms as strongly as messages with a local frame.
In the search for explanations of why previous findings on the effect of locality framing are not consistent,
three observations can be made regarding methodological differences between studies:
1. Different dependent variables were used;
2. A variety of materials was used;
3. There was substantial demographic variation between participant samples.
→ this makes it interesting to test how demographics could moderate the effect of locality framing
2.2 The role of demographic characters in locality framing
When it comes to demographics, we know that characteristics such as gender, age, income, education level,
political background, and religiosity can influence people’s perspective on ACC.
In an earlier study, substantial differences between worldwide geographical areas on the influence of people’s
demographic characteristics on their perspective on ACC were exposed. This finding suggests that the results of
ACC communication studies on the impact of demographic characteristics on people’s ACC perspective are not
universally generalizable. The only characteristic that was consistent in previous studies is political orientation
(an American study, which showed: informative videos with a local frame increased behavioral intentions to
address ACC more than videos with a global frame, but only for Republicans, and not for Democrats. At first
sight, this result is somewhat surprising, given that Republicans are assumed to be more conservative than
their more liberal Democratic counterparts. However, closer inspection of the data revealed that there was a
ceiling effect for the Democratic sample, whose behavioral intention was already quite high before taking part
in the survey. With regard to the pattern for the Republicans, the information in the videos was mostly new to
them, and communicated by a credible source, which made them acquire new knowledge that affected their
behavioral intention).
Therefore, in the current study, we test if we can replicate the moderation effect of political orientation with a
Dutch sample while using infographics, and we explore if gender, age, education level, income, and religion
have a similar impact. These kinds of insights into the impact of locality framing in infographics about ACC, and
how this impact is moderated by the characteristics of their receivers, make it possible to tailor ACC
communication to geographic areas, and to specific target audiences within these areas.
,2.3 Research question and hypotheses
The current paper sets out to answer the following research question:
“What is the effect of locality framing in ACC communication on people’s attitude towards ACC mitigating
behaviors, and to what extent is this effect moderated by the receivers’ demographic characteristics?”
Since the acceleration of sea level rise is a geographically (highly) relevant consequence of ACC for inhabitants
of HvH, we hypothesize that the locally framed infographic has a higher positive impact on people’s attitude
towards ACC mitigating behaviors than the globally framed infographic. Needless to say, this hypothesis implies
that we expect this strong geographical relevance to surpass the likelihood that a culture preservation
response is instigated.
We expect at least political orientation to moderate the expected effect of locality framing. We hypothesize
that the expected effect of locality framing is stronger for people with a left-wing rather than a right-wing
political orientation.
Finally, for the remaining demographics, our hypotheses are exploratory. One would hypothesize that the
effect of locality framing is strongest for people who score generally high on concern about ACC: females,
younger people, higher educated people, people with a relatively high income, and non-religious people. On
the other hand, it could also be that the impact of certain demographics on their general ACC perspective is so
strong, that it will lead to ceiling effects on attitude towards ACC mitigating behaviors that would overrule any
moderation effects on locality framing.
Methods
The manipulation of locality framing was a type of emphasis framing. Two versions of the sea level rise
narrative were created: a version with a global frame that focused on the acceleration of sea level rise on a
general, global scale, and a version with a local frame that focused on the acceleration of sea level rise off the
coast of HvH (see next page).
, Discussion The
results confirmed
our hypothesis: the infographic with the local frame had a stronger positive impact on people’s attitude
towards ACC mitigating behaviors than the infographic with the general, global frame. We reason that the
locally framed infographic was more personally relevant to our participants than the global one, making the
problem of sea level rise more tangible, and the complexity of ACC more manageable. As such, the local frame
has probably lowered the (psychological) distance that people felt towards ACC, making it more concrete as an
issue to at least change their attitude about.
So, our results do not provide evidence for a culture preservation response to occur.
One of the limitations of the current study: since we only measured attitude, we cannot extend our findings
directly to other variables such as behavioral intention or even actual behavior.
Week 2: Subtopic 1 - Framing
Communicating climate change to a local but diverse audience: on the positive impact of locality framing
Degeling & Koolen (2021)
Introduction
Effectively communicating scientific knowledge to the general public is essential in stimulating anthropogenic
(= door menselijke activiteit) climate change (ACC) mitigating (= verzachtende) behavioral changes. As predicted
by influential models of behavioral change, developing a positive attitude towards a behavior significantly
increases the likelihood of that behavior to be performed in the future. This means that convincing the general
public that ACC mitigating behaviors are effective, is essential in obtaining their support in the attenuation of
ACC.
While the general public’s attitude towards ACC mitigating behaviors is of course dependent on a large variety
of factors, the current study investigates the impact of locality framing in information graphics (hence referred
to as infographics) on attitude towards ACC mitigating behaviors. We manipulated two infographics about sea
level rise: one focusing on the acceleration of sea level rise on a general, global scale, and one emphasizing the
specific, local consequences of sea level rise for a coastal town in the Netherlands: Hoek van Holland (HvH). In a
low-lying country such as the Netherlands, acceleration of sea level rise is a pertinent issue, especially for
coastal towns such as HvH. Our experiment only sampled inhabitants of HvH, which allowed us to test the
hypothesis that infographics with a specific, local frame leads to a more positive attitude than infographics with
a more general, global frame.
Since we know that people’s perspective on ACC can be influenced by their gender, age, income, education
level, political background, and religiosity, we analyze these demographic characteristics systematically to see if
they also moderate the hypothesized effect of locality framing.
We argue that infographics, which establish a narrative by combining verbal and visual elements, are
particularly useful for ACC communication, for a couple of reasons:
1. The narrative supports the reader in obtaining, understanding, and remembering the represented
information
2. The visual elements help to give greater personal meaning to climate change, which is often seen as a
diffuse global problem
3. Infographics are especially effective on individuals with little knowledge on a topic, which is the case
for the majority of the general public regarding ACC and its consequences.
Theoretical background
2.1 locality framing in climate change communication
A communication tool that has proven its efficacy in significantly influencing the impact a message has on its
receivers, is framing. Framing theory is used to explain how the presentation of a message influences people
on a psychological and cognitive level. The current study employs emphasis framing, which is used to highlight
an aspect of a larger message to increase its salience. When locality framing is applied to a message about ACC,
its local consequences (e.g., sea level rise off a nearby coast) are emphasized over its global consequences (e.g.,
sea level rise on a global scale, without mentioning the local consequences).
In our experiment, the locally framed infographic makes the consequences of sea level rise for HvH salient for
its inhabitants, for example that their town will flood if we as humans do not change our behavior. This local
perspective is expected to promote emotional and cognitive engagement with the issue, since it makes climate
change and the resulting sea level rise a psychologically close issue.
Local information is more:
, • Explicit;
• Accessible;
• Personally relevant and thus more persuasive;
• Tangible;
• Comprehensible
The concept of psychological distance stems from Construal Level Theory (CLT), which often serves as the
theoretical foundation for the debate on the effects of locality framing. CLT defines psychological distance as
"the subjective experience that something is close or far away from the self, here, and now”. Therefore, local
messages lead to lower psychological distance, which makes them more concrete and imaginable. For that
reason, they may impact people’s evaluations of the subject matter, which can result in a higher concern about
ACC, and more preparedness to act upon it.
However, also negative effects of local framing were found, for example in an experiment that made use of
local videos.
The explanation for the negative impact of local videos seems to be related to a so-called culture preservation
response. That is, when the consequences of ACC are expected to exert influence on people's direct
environment, this could entail the need for behavioral changes that require an unpleasant, forced adjustment
of social norms. This adjustment can stimulate people to attribute the consequences of ACC to non-human
factors, and negatively impact their ACC perspective. In this scenario, globally framed messages have a more
positive impact on people’s attitude towards ACC mitigating behaviors, as they do not force adjustment of
social norms as strongly as messages with a local frame.
In the search for explanations of why previous findings on the effect of locality framing are not consistent,
three observations can be made regarding methodological differences between studies:
1. Different dependent variables were used;
2. A variety of materials was used;
3. There was substantial demographic variation between participant samples.
→ this makes it interesting to test how demographics could moderate the effect of locality framing
2.2 The role of demographic characters in locality framing
When it comes to demographics, we know that characteristics such as gender, age, income, education level,
political background, and religiosity can influence people’s perspective on ACC.
In an earlier study, substantial differences between worldwide geographical areas on the influence of people’s
demographic characteristics on their perspective on ACC were exposed. This finding suggests that the results of
ACC communication studies on the impact of demographic characteristics on people’s ACC perspective are not
universally generalizable. The only characteristic that was consistent in previous studies is political orientation
(an American study, which showed: informative videos with a local frame increased behavioral intentions to
address ACC more than videos with a global frame, but only for Republicans, and not for Democrats. At first
sight, this result is somewhat surprising, given that Republicans are assumed to be more conservative than
their more liberal Democratic counterparts. However, closer inspection of the data revealed that there was a
ceiling effect for the Democratic sample, whose behavioral intention was already quite high before taking part
in the survey. With regard to the pattern for the Republicans, the information in the videos was mostly new to
them, and communicated by a credible source, which made them acquire new knowledge that affected their
behavioral intention).
Therefore, in the current study, we test if we can replicate the moderation effect of political orientation with a
Dutch sample while using infographics, and we explore if gender, age, education level, income, and religion
have a similar impact. These kinds of insights into the impact of locality framing in infographics about ACC, and
how this impact is moderated by the characteristics of their receivers, make it possible to tailor ACC
communication to geographic areas, and to specific target audiences within these areas.
,2.3 Research question and hypotheses
The current paper sets out to answer the following research question:
“What is the effect of locality framing in ACC communication on people’s attitude towards ACC mitigating
behaviors, and to what extent is this effect moderated by the receivers’ demographic characteristics?”
Since the acceleration of sea level rise is a geographically (highly) relevant consequence of ACC for inhabitants
of HvH, we hypothesize that the locally framed infographic has a higher positive impact on people’s attitude
towards ACC mitigating behaviors than the globally framed infographic. Needless to say, this hypothesis implies
that we expect this strong geographical relevance to surpass the likelihood that a culture preservation
response is instigated.
We expect at least political orientation to moderate the expected effect of locality framing. We hypothesize
that the expected effect of locality framing is stronger for people with a left-wing rather than a right-wing
political orientation.
Finally, for the remaining demographics, our hypotheses are exploratory. One would hypothesize that the
effect of locality framing is strongest for people who score generally high on concern about ACC: females,
younger people, higher educated people, people with a relatively high income, and non-religious people. On
the other hand, it could also be that the impact of certain demographics on their general ACC perspective is so
strong, that it will lead to ceiling effects on attitude towards ACC mitigating behaviors that would overrule any
moderation effects on locality framing.
Methods
The manipulation of locality framing was a type of emphasis framing. Two versions of the sea level rise
narrative were created: a version with a global frame that focused on the acceleration of sea level rise on a
general, global scale, and a version with a local frame that focused on the acceleration of sea level rise off the
coast of HvH (see next page).
, Discussion The
results confirmed
our hypothesis: the infographic with the local frame had a stronger positive impact on people’s attitude
towards ACC mitigating behaviors than the infographic with the general, global frame. We reason that the
locally framed infographic was more personally relevant to our participants than the global one, making the
problem of sea level rise more tangible, and the complexity of ACC more manageable. As such, the local frame
has probably lowered the (psychological) distance that people felt towards ACC, making it more concrete as an
issue to at least change their attitude about.
So, our results do not provide evidence for a culture preservation response to occur.
One of the limitations of the current study: since we only measured attitude, we cannot extend our findings
directly to other variables such as behavioral intention or even actual behavior.
