Wild Ones #11: Why it matters how we frame the environment
The information-deficit-hypothesis (and why it's a myth).
Thanks again as always for being here! Today on Wild Ones, I’m sharing one insight from an important environmental communication research study (from way back in 2009, it’s an oldie but a goodie).
“You have to see it to believe it!” Right?
In their 2009 article, What’s next for science communication? Promising directions and lingering distractions, Matthew Nisbet and Dietram Scheufele review decades of research on the effectiveness of science communication. In the end, they come to the conclusion that we need to “challenge the still dominant assumption that science literacy is both the problem and the solution to societal conflicts.”
In other words, there’s a common belief about science communication that ignorance is at the root of public conflicts over ‘controversial’ scientific topics, from evolution and GMOs to climate change and nanotechnology.
This is also known as the ‘information-deficit-hypothesis’: the idea that people reject science only because they lack knowledge about an issue.
The remedy? Well, historically this has involved something like ‘awareness campaigns.’ This idea of raising awareness about an issue has been a central tenet of traditional environmental activism for decades. From this perspective, ‘the facts speak for themselves,’ so we just need to get the facts – about climate change or vaccines – in front of people. This suggests that climate denialists are simply people who ahven’t been exposed to the facts in sufficient quantities due to their anti-climate media bubble.
Unfortunately, a mounting body of research in environmental communication shows that “science literacy only accounts for a small fraction of the variance in how lay publics form opinions about controversial areas of science.” Instead of our literacy in science, our support for environmental issues like climate change relies much more on our political ideology or religious identity.
The takeaway?: Use communication that appeals to our values, not just our intellect. It’s way more effective.
As Nisbett and Scheufele underscore, one of the most important research findings in environmental communication over the past decade is that the power of communication lies not so much in allowing us to transmit facts to one another about an issue, but in how it enables us to (re)frame issues from a particular point of view.
Take climate change. Below are 3 real-world examples of effective ‘frame-shifts’ scientists are using to nudge climate-resistors – or even outright climate-denialists – towards actually acknowledging the threat of climate change, and even to support the technological and political solutions needed to address it. As you’ll see, the key idea in all of these frame shifts is to know your audience: if your audience doesn’t care about the environment, what do they care about? And how can you use that in your communication strategy?
First, one tactic has been to re-frame action on climate from something that feels like an unfair economic burden to an economic opportunity. Think of the slogan “let’s create green jobs!”
Second, E.O. Wilson, the famous conservation biologist has been able to reach (some) evangelical audiences by re-framing environmentalism as ‘environmental stewardship’ involving religious morality and ethics. Al Gore, after witnessing how his film Inconvenient Truth which focused on the science fell flat with many on the right of the political spectrum, took up E.O. Wilson’s re-framing strategy in his “We” campaign, only this time invoking a secular version of Wilson’s morality/ethics approach.
Finally, scientists are increasingly reframing climate change impacts as a ‘public health issue.’ This public health frame highlights climate impacts like infectious disease and heatstroke that especially might affect children and the elderly. Reframing the climate crisis as a public health crisis also shifts how people tend to visualize climate change. Rather than melting ice caps and starving polar bears in the arctic as the primary representation of climate change in people’s minds, people begin to see how the threats of climate change will impact them closer to home (floods, droughts, diseases, wildfires, etc…).
Further reading? If you’re curious about reading more about what ‘framing’ is and how to use it in your environmental communication and activism, cognitive scientist George Lakoff wrote the foundational article in the field. It’s also a great read!
Update 8/14: I’ve expanded on this post in a Medium essay: ‘Framing’ Climate Threats: Why We Need To Appeal To Values, Not Just The Intellect: A brief guide to environmental framing with 3 strategies to use in your own communication and activism.
Also, two recent essays from my desk:
8 Evidence-Based Principles For Impactful Visual Communication of Climate Change: Eight principles to guide you in making better visual choices in your climate communication and activism
‘Write as an Ecosystem’: One Simple Writing Prompt: How writing as an ‘ecosystem of the imagination’ can energize your environmental storytelling
Thanks as always, until next Thursday!
Aloha, Gavin