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Shifting public engagement: How media coverage of climate change conferences affects climate change audience segments

While it is often assumed that media attention for events, such as international climate change conferences, can influence public opinion, research studying changes in public opinion concerning climate change is scarce. Research on climate change audience segments and the theory of motivated reasoni...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wonneberger, Anke, Meijers, Marijn H. C., Schuck, Andreas R. T.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7323770/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31709905
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0963662519886474
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author Wonneberger, Anke
Meijers, Marijn H. C.
Schuck, Andreas R. T.
author_facet Wonneberger, Anke
Meijers, Marijn H. C.
Schuck, Andreas R. T.
author_sort Wonneberger, Anke
collection PubMed
description While it is often assumed that media attention for events, such as international climate change conferences, can influence public opinion, research studying changes in public opinion concerning climate change is scarce. Research on climate change audience segments and the theory of motivated reasoning suggest that media effects depend on the level of audience engagement with climate change. We analyze how exposure to media coverage of the COP21 affected public opinion in the Netherlands. Based on a two-wave online panel survey (N = 876), we identified five audience segments that varied in their degree of climate change beliefs, involvement, policy preferences, and behavioral intentions. Different media effects across segments were found indicating (dis)confirmation bias, specifically, for medium levels of positive and negative engagement. The findings indicate that important events may cause limited changes in public opinion and emphasize the importance of studying segment-specific and content-specific media effects.
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spelling pubmed-73237702020-07-09 Shifting public engagement: How media coverage of climate change conferences affects climate change audience segments Wonneberger, Anke Meijers, Marijn H. C. Schuck, Andreas R. T. Public Underst Sci Articles While it is often assumed that media attention for events, such as international climate change conferences, can influence public opinion, research studying changes in public opinion concerning climate change is scarce. Research on climate change audience segments and the theory of motivated reasoning suggest that media effects depend on the level of audience engagement with climate change. We analyze how exposure to media coverage of the COP21 affected public opinion in the Netherlands. Based on a two-wave online panel survey (N = 876), we identified five audience segments that varied in their degree of climate change beliefs, involvement, policy preferences, and behavioral intentions. Different media effects across segments were found indicating (dis)confirmation bias, specifically, for medium levels of positive and negative engagement. The findings indicate that important events may cause limited changes in public opinion and emphasize the importance of studying segment-specific and content-specific media effects. SAGE Publications 2019-11-11 2020-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7323770/ /pubmed/31709905 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0963662519886474 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Articles
Wonneberger, Anke
Meijers, Marijn H. C.
Schuck, Andreas R. T.
Shifting public engagement: How media coverage of climate change conferences affects climate change audience segments
title Shifting public engagement: How media coverage of climate change conferences affects climate change audience segments
title_full Shifting public engagement: How media coverage of climate change conferences affects climate change audience segments
title_fullStr Shifting public engagement: How media coverage of climate change conferences affects climate change audience segments
title_full_unstemmed Shifting public engagement: How media coverage of climate change conferences affects climate change audience segments
title_short Shifting public engagement: How media coverage of climate change conferences affects climate change audience segments
title_sort shifting public engagement: how media coverage of climate change conferences affects climate change audience segments
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7323770/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31709905
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0963662519886474
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