User:Upuslay/Climate communication

Tentative Outline
I hope to reorganize the layout of this article as below, and then to adjust the lead section to follow this structure and briefly introduce the contents of the article. As the article stands, the lead section does not appropriately introduce the article. Prior to writing this lead though, I plan to propose this reorganization on the talk page in order to get feedback.


 * History
 * Primary Goals of Climate Communication
 * Increasing Understanding and Perception
 * Health(?)
 * Connecting to Values and Emotions
 * Producing Engagement and Action
 * Major Issues
 * Barriers to Understanding
 * Climate Literacy
 * Audience Segmentation (?)
 * Changing Rhetoric (?)
 * Media Coverage (?)
 * Creating Change
 * Effective Climate Communication
 * Guides and Frameworks
 * Importance of Storytelling
 * Knowing the Audience (?)
 * Popular Culture (?)
 * Relevant Organizations

Rewrite
Climate communication or climate change communication is a field of environmental communication and science communication focused on facilitating communications regarding the effects of anthropogenic climate change. This facilitation occurs through the study and improvement upon existing communications strategies. Research in the field emerged in the 1990s and has since grown and diversified to include studies concerning the media, conceptual framing, and public engagement and response. Since the late 2000s, a growing number of studies have been conducted in developing countries and have been focused on climate communication with marginalized populations. Most climate communication and related research focuses on raising public knowledge and awareness of climate change, understanding the underlying cultural values and emotions concerning climate change, and bringing about public engagement and action in response to climate change. Barriers to public understanding, such as limited climate literacy, audience segmentation, changing rhetoric, varied media coverage, as well as creating change are major issues within climate communication. Several handbooks and guiding frameworks have been published in order to facilitate effective climate communication. Some takeaways from these publications include the importance of storytelling and being familiar with the audience. Improving climate change communication has become the focus of several major research institutes (e.g. the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and Climate Outreach in the UK), major international organizations (the IPCC and UN Climate Change Secretariat), and NGOs (e.g. Climate and Development Knowledge Network).

History
In "Climate Change Communication” (from Oxford's Communications Research Encyclopedia), communications scholar Amy E. Chadwick identifies Climate Change Communication as a new field of scholarship that truly emerged in the 1990s. In the late 80s and early 90s, research in developed countries (e.g. the United States, New Zealand, and Sweden) was largely concerned with studying the public's perception and comprehension of climate change science, models, and risks and guiding further development of communication strategies. These studies showed that while the public was aware of and beginning to notice climate change effects (increasing temperatures and changing precipitation patterns), the public's understanding of climate change was interlinked with ozone depletion and other environmental risks but not human-produced CO2 emissions. This understanding was coupled with varied yet overall increased net concern that continued through the mid-2000s. In studies from the mid-2000s to the late 2000s, there is evidence of rising global skepticism despite growing consensus and evidence of increasingly polarized views due to climate change's growing use as a political "litmus test." In 2010, researcher Susanne C. Moser viewed both the expansion of climate change communication's focus, which began to include subjects such as materialized evidence of climate change effects in addition to science and policy, as well as more prolific conversation/communication from a variety of voices as increasing climate change’s relevance to society. Surveys through the mid-2010s showed mixed concern for climate change depending on global region —notably consistent concern in developed Western countries but a trend towards global unconcern in countries such as China, Mexico, and Kenya. In 2016, Moser noted an increase in the total number of climate communication studies in both Westernized countries and the Global South and an increased focus on climate communication with indigenous peoples and other marginalized communities since 2010. As of 2017, research remained focused on public understanding and had since begun to also analyze the relevance of the media, conceptual framing, public engagement and response, and persuasive strategies. This expansion has legitimated climate change communication as its own academic field and has yielded a group of experts specific to it.

Primary Goals of Climate Communication
Most climate communication and research within the field is concerned with (1) the mechanisms related to the public's understanding/awareness of and perception of climate change which are intertwined with (2) personal cultural values and emotions related to social norms and (3) how these components can influence the engagement and action that may emerge as a response to communication. Within the academic field, there are debates over which is more important: knowledge-based communication or emotion-driven communication. Though both are inherently linked to action, researchers often view increased understanding as leading to increased action. A 2020 study by Kris De Meyer et al attempts to push back against that notion and argues that action produces belief.

Increasing Understanding and Perception
One line of climate communication study is concerned with analyzing public understanding and risk perception. Understanding public perception of risk and its relevant influences, as well as public knowledge, concern, consensus, and imagery is thought to help policymakers better address the concerns of constituents and inform further climate communication. This notion has opened the realm of climate communications to political communications, sociology, and psychology. Achieving increased public understanding is often associated with communicating levels of scientific consensus and other scientific facts or futures in order to spur action and address the "information-deficit" model but can also be related to connecting with values and emotions. Perception is often related to personal recognition to impacted locations, times (the present vs. the future), weather events, or economics, which has placed emphasis on different methods of framing (linking concepts) and rhetoric when communicating. These methods of communication presently include scientific communication, knowledge transfer, social media, news media, and entertainment amongst others, which are also studied individually regarding climate change.

Connecting to Values and Emotions
In addition to studies regarding knowledge, climate communication researchers inspect existing values and emotions related to climate change and how they are impacted by various communication strategies and can influence the effects of communication modes. Understanding and relating to the audiences' moral, cultural, religious, and political values, identities, and emotions (like fear) are viewed as imperative to appropriate and effective communication because climate change can otherwise seem intangible due to uncertainty and distance (physical, social, temporal). Recognizing and understanding these values is key to impacting perception of climate science and mitigative action because values serve as filters through which information is processed. Emotional reactions to climate change and the role emotions can play in decision-making have encouraged researchers to study the emotional side of climate change. Appeals to emotions (such as fear and hope) and to values can also be used in communication strategies. It is unclear whether negative emotions (e.g. concern and fear) or positive emotions (e.g. hope) better promote climate change action. Emotions can also be analyzed by their level of pleasantness and/or to the extent they evoke action, which is often understudied.

Producing Engagement and Action
Studying climate communications can also be focused on civic engagement and the production of behavior changes for adapting or increasing resiliency to climate change. Engagement and action can occur on multiple geographic scales (local, regional, national, or international), and examples include participation in climate justice movements, support for policies or politics, changes to agricultural practices, and addresses to vulnerabilities to extreme weather vulnerabilities. Behavioral changes can also address more fundamental norms and values that influence lifestyles, life choices, and society as a whole. Engagement can also involve how those who communicate climate change interact with researchers studying the field of communications. Studies have recognized that increased understanding and perception does not automatically produce action and have argued for increased means of enabling action in communication methods. Research into engagement and action often focuses on the perception and understanding of different demographics and geographic locations.