Effectively Communicating For Change

When Crutzen (2002) wrote of the immensity of the task that was ahead for scientists trying to guide society to environmental sustainability through the era of the Anthropocene one could have easily have expected the greatest challenge would be the design of climate change mitigation technology and techniques. Now almost two decades later, the inaction, as well as the growing body of scholarship on climate change, is pointing us towards the fact that the challenge is actually one of communication design in order to inspire the social change required (Ring, 2015; Hart and Nisbet, 2012; Stern, 2012).

As the means of communication seem to evolve faster than the communication theories and recent research continues to disprove past communication models, the question we desperately need to answer is how do we express an urgent message in a way to inspire action around a dire, and potentially catastrophic reality, without using fear-inducing messaging and triggering polarisation and irrational rejection of scientific consensus?

Climate change is a scientifically proven fact with overwhelming consensus amongst the international scientific community that dire consequences are looming if we fail to act collaboratively and immediately. And yet, despite this, the truth of the matter is debated and diluted with polarised public opinion, which in turn relieves some of the pressure on political leadership to act with urgency.

Given that environmental activists have an understanding of the impending repercussions, and the grief and feelings of frustration that come with the awareness of that, the language of awareness-raising and mobilisation campaigns has been underpinned by a sense of future-loss and present fear. Research, however, has shown that negatively framed messaging, loss-framed messaging and even persuasive science-based messaging has an undesirable effect, and can, in fact, increase climate science cynicism, polarisation and the further exaggeration of ego-centric publics.

With a recent and growing body of research offering empirical data that does not corroborate many past communication theories, new frameworks and models are required for the design of communication for social change which can be applied for climate change action within this evolving communication landscape we find ourselves in.

The inability of the scientific community and environmental advocacy groups combined, to inspire the required behavioural and social change over the past three decades, is contributing to complacency on the government policy front (McCright & Dunlap, 2003; Nisbet, 2009) and even political debate as to the existence of climate change in some Western countries (Stern, 2012).

As the decades continue to pass and this widening distance between the clarity of the science and the confusion of the public continues to remain an issue, a growing number of academics have deemed this a topic that is worthy of investigation. Researchers from the fields of communications, psychology, philosophy, medicine and education have all added to the rich body of literature that exists (Nesbit & Mooney, 2007; Kretz, 2012; Norgaard, 2006; Cook, 2016; Ring, 2015; Shultz, 2000; Bartholomew, J. 2018). And the growing body of scholarship continues to shed light on some of the potential underlying reasons for the lack of conscientisation, as well as offering critique of communication models that are at odds with more recent empirical findings (Howard, 2000; McDivitt et al., 2011; Hart & Nisbet, 2012; Chess & Johnson, 2007; Goralnik & Nelson, 2011.)

As one might assume, the knee-jerk reaction to this desperate situation of late has been to ‘raise awareness’ around the dire implications of climate change in an effort to inspire collective action, and yet, the research proves this to be counter-productive on multiple fronts (Ring, 2015; Stern, 2012; Obermiller, 1995; Shellenberger and Nordhaus 2009; Bartholomew, J. 2018).

Admittedly, climate change communication is particularly challenging to design in that the impacts are perceived to be in distant places, in future times and not often made personally relevant (Gifford, 2008; Spence et al., 2011), however, the communication landscape has also changed dramatically since the peak of the environmental movement in the 1970s and even since the IPCC was formed in 1988.

One of the factors most significantly altered over the past 2 decades, is that of trust. The personal and interconnected nature that social media fosters is a heightened level of trust between users and this trust influences how users perceive the reliability of contacts as sources of news (Karimov et al., 2001). The finite nature of trust requires that in order for it to be invested in the reliability of the nodes in the network, is has been redirected from elsewhere; shifting from broadcast media monologues to social media dialogues and contributing massively to the democratisation of communications (Lai, 2015). Both the internet and web 2.0 platforms like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, which did not exist a single generation ago, are now a significant source of political news and information (Pepitone, 2010; Rak et al., 2018).

In a study of Filipino students, it was found that 63% of participants relied on social media for news (David, Pascual & Torres, 2019) and this corroborates the 62% of American students found to rely on social media for news (Gottfried & Shearer, 2016). Further to this, in a study of news media consumption in young Swedes, Sveningsson (2015) confirmed the findings of Marchi (2012) in that participants relied most significantly on social media networks to acquire their news rather than television or newspaper.

In researching the relationship between social media usage and political engagement, a correlation was found between the increased social media usage and increased political engagement and civic participation (Valenzuela et al., 2009). This implies that the design of communication for the social media space is a critical element of modern environmental advocacy. The currently existing social media platforms of Facebook and Twitter specifically, are said to be so powerful in influencing society, they have the potential to affect geopolitical stability when effectively harnessed with evidence of political interference already having been demonstrated (Prier, 2017). The 2008 US presidential election is another example of how powerful social media can be when it is implemented effectively, with Obama’s victory credited to a large degree to his social media campaign (Carr, D., 2008: Johnson & Kaye, 2015)

Using social media and web 2.0 platforms as if they were television, radio or print media is not an effective use, however, and Rak et al., (2018) found that information communication technologies have decreased the role and influence of leaders and instead brought to the forefront the power of networks. They found that ideas will spread faster than previously possible and consistent messaging across multiple nodes is more powerful than hierarchical communications (Rak et al., 2018). In expanding on the work of Nowak, Szamrey & Latané (1990) on the dynamic social impact model, they advise emerging social movements that in today’s mediascape the ‘queen’ no longer holds as much sway as she did, and instead the power now rests with the ‘pawns’ (Rak et al., 2018).

A great deal of research points to the fact that just raising awareness without nuance and expecting that to elicit a change in behaviour, as the diffusion of innovation method or information-deficit model was said to operate, is actually ineffective (Hart & Nisbet, 2012). Specifically discussing social media platforms and the algorithms they are governed by, Gil de Zúñinga et al., (2012) discuss how ‘ego-centric publics’ are more likely to be created as users are fed further content aligned with what they had previously engaged with, which adds to further fragmentation and fortified communities. Sunstein (2007) adds that due to these filtering and referencing algorithms there is a tendency for users to receive the same types of search results, which contributes to the further polarisation of increasingly homogenous communication networks.

Within this context, it has been noted that messaging employed by environmental NGOs for the purpose of ‘awareness raising’ and changing the public opinion on climate change is typically loss-framed, fear-inducing and dramatic, often featuring images of starving polar bears and floods forcing people off their lands (Moser, 2007).

There is growing consensus that the knowledge-attitude-behaviour model and the information deficit model (IDM) no longer hold true (Goralnik & Nelson, 2011; Hart & Nisbet, 2012; Byrne & Hart, 2009; O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009; McKenzie-Mohr, 2000; Howard, 2000) and it is said to be ‘naïve’ to believe that this is how people form opinions (Stern, 2012).

Not only is it possible that the more information participants receive regarding global warming the less personally responsible they feel (Kellstedt et al., 2008), but furthermore, Obermiller (1995) clarifies that when participants who are already concerned for a particular issue are given further information regarding the severity of the situation, they show a decreased desire to act towards mitigation.  Globally, it has also been noticed that as scientific consensus and media coverage has increased over the last two decades, rates of concern for climate change have also decreased (Ratter et al., 2012, Nisbet & Myers, 2007).

A review of the literature has revealed a number of reasons why simply raising awareness may have the opposite to desired effect, all of which broadly fit under the theme of the ‘boomerang effect’ (Byrne & Hart, 2009). In proposing a preliminary theoretical framework to understand the boomerang effect, Byrne and Hart (2009) provide an analysis of this phenomenon, elaborating on its influence and prevalence across multiple sectors, including health communication, advertising and marketing, educational entertainment as well as science and environmental communication (Byrne & Hart, 2009).

Byrne and Hart (2009) categorise the mechanisms of activation into two categories; intended and unintended. Of the 12 mechanisms identified, there are 5 which are particularly relevant to the case of climate change communication: the intended mechanisms of reactance and fear control, as well as the unintended mechanisms of priming, peripheral processing and the triggering of negative social norms.

Reactance is the mechanism whereby a person is prompted to reassert a freedom they believe they have a right to, i.e. driving their car to work and emitting carbon emissions. Peripheral processing is a situation whereby the receiver consumes and processes the least energy-intensive elements of a message, i.e. the imagery used rather than the underlying messaging. In addition, the triggering of negative social norms occurs when a receiver responds to a pro-environmental behaviour message by assuming the opposite is the social norm, i.e. an anti-littering campaign spurring the belief that littering is the norm (Byrne & Hart, 2009). The two mechanisms covered in the literature as most likely to activate the boomerang effect with regards to climate change communication are the mechanisms of fear control (also referred to as emotional management) and priming (also known as framing or worldview backfire effect).

It has been widely documented that conversations related to climate change induce feelings of fear, anxiety, grief, shame and loss (Norgaard, 2006; O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009; Ring, 2015). Not only does the contemplation of climate change provoke strong negative emotions in almost everyone, but it also acts to further fortify resistance (Ring, 2015). Imagery and text that portray ecological collapse are likely to activate the receiver’s fear minimisation mechanisms as a defence against a danger they feel they have no control over (Marshall, 2014; O’Neill & Nicholson, 2009).

In the findings of a year-long qualitative field research on climate denial and social movement non-participation, Norgaard (2006) noted that avoidance of unpleasant emotions of fear, shame, guilt and hopelessness were all significant factors in social movement non-participation and the generation of apathy. Rather than a lack of information on the issue of climate change, Norgaard noted deep knowledge and acceptance of the issue within the community, with non-involvement in climate action an actively produced response through a complex toolkit of emotional management techniques (Norgaard, 2006).

O’Neill and Nicholson (2009) found that powerful images portraying the negative effects of climate change, whilst attention-grabbing and captivating and leading to an increase in concern, it also left participants feeling disempowered, hopeless & less able to take effective action. Though provocative, this imagery was shown to decrease participants level of engagement with climate change and personal connection to the issue (O’Neill and Nicholson, 2009). Drawing from clinical practice, as well as climate science communication experience, Ring (2015) affirms that fear tactics do not work to promote engagement or activism, but rather provoke denial, passivity and fatalism.

Fiala (2010) points to the paradoxical dilemma of ‘Nero’s Fiddle’, in that, if the ecological crisis really is as bad as it is said to be, then why bother at all, one might as well play their fiddle if Rome is going to burn anyway.

Though science communicators generally present information in terms of potential future outcomes and impacts, which are dispassionate, objective and even modest, in psychological terms they can evoke fear in the audience (Stern, 2012). This is particularly the case when scientific reports and communications are sensationalised by the media in order to increase newsworthiness, as illustrated by Hume (2007), where adjectives such as ‘catastrophic’, ‘shocking’, ‘terrifying’ or ‘devastating’ were noted to have been added to reporting on IPCC statements when none were included in the original documentation. It seems even when news media decides to cover climate change in an attempt to inspire action, they might be doing more harm than good.

Though fear can be an effective motivator in the face of danger, decades of research has shown that it only inspires action in very specific conditions (Stern, 2012). The fear response is said to illicit action only in situations of a current and immediate threat as human beings are not cognitively wired to deal with slow-onset threats, such as climate change and future health implications (Marshall, 2014).

It has been further clarified that exposure to repeated stressful stimuli without effective preventative measures at hand will cause psychic numbing and information fatigue, which implies that simply raising awareness of a distant and slow-onset danger will not act to inspire engagement (Shellenberger & Nordhaus, 2009; Marshall, 2014), but only numb subjects to feeling any sense of urgency.

Even when the attitude is one of acceptance of the situation, Cohen (2011) discusses the phenomenon of implicatory denial, whereby people will downplay the psychological, political or moral implications of the information they have been exposed to in order to manage their own fears.

This is because evolutionary, our brains are wired to defend against both threats and thoughts of threat; if a practical solution is not at hand, it is the thought of the threat that is minimised (Marshall, 2014) through denial of the danger or mistrust of the source (Witte & Allen, 2000; Stern, 2012). In the case of climate change, danger messaging will only work if it includes practical actions coupled with the receiver’s faith in the efficacy of said preventative measures (Stern, 2012).

The challenge we face as groups and individuals advocating for action on climate change, or any issue of socio-economic justice for that matter, is definitely one of communication design, and not just a matter of simply ‘raising the alarm’. Raising awareness is in a way required, but it is not effective in the way a fire alarm is. Slow onset threats require a different approach to immediate personal threats, and even though climate change is here, it is still a slow onset threat that plays out like the big slow-motion train wreck that it is.

To adequately address the threats of climate change, and move towards socio-economic and environmental justice, we need to affect a change in culture, not just raise awareness. Sometimes it is the narrative that we wrap our facts in that is more effective in inspiring change, and at times the facts may not be the thing that inspires change. We know that humans are emotional beings, and not purely rational beings that act for their own best interests based on the facts at hand, so how do we convey an urgent message that requires immediate action and induces negative emotions to a largely disengaged and sceptical public who are already bearing the full weight of a rigged and unjust economic construct? With love.

Author of ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’, Brazilian educator, philosopher and academic, Paulo Freire, spent the majority of his life working with impoverished Brazilian communities in the hope of creating positive economic outcomes for them through improved literacy and the self-authoring of social change. In his paper ‘Cultural Action and Conscientisation’ Freire refers to the biophilic identity as an essential part of the identity of the true revolutionary (Freire, 1970a). This identity of a ‘lover of life’ should be the main motivational force of the true agent of change rather than an identity defined by opposition to the necrophilic identity of the Right.

He says “Revolutionary Utopia tends to be dynamic rather than static; tends to life rather than death; to the future as a challenge to man’s creativity rather than a repetition of the present; to love as liberation of subject rather than as pathological possessiveness; to the emotion of life rather than cold abstraction; to living together in harmony rather than gregariousness; to dialogue rather than mutism; to praxis rather than '“law and order”; to men who organise themselves reflectively for action rather than men who are organised for passivity; to creative communicative language rather than prescriptive signals; to reflective challenges rather than domesticating slogans; and to values that are lived rather than myths that are imposed.”

The critical consciousness Freire speaks of in ‘Cultural Action and Conscientisation’ is able to move beyond the partisan and adversarial identity of the transitive consciousness, and instead, evolve society and alter it, by imprinting upon it, their love of life and unequivocal respect and confidence in the people “not as a mere strategy but as an implicit requirement to being revolutionary” (Freire, 1970a).

The variance in the praxis of the revolutionary and that of the Right should be obvious and distinguishable, in that the revolutionary is, of course, the antagonistic counterpart of the Right, but that this antagonism should not be expressed in their behaviour, but rather by the light they offer to counter the lightlessness of the Right. He says those who wish to create change “cannot act like reactionaries and call themselves revolutionaries (Freire, 1970a).

And with that in mind perhaps basing our actions for social change on a firm foundation of love for human, love for life, applied through a service-orientated approach of building justice rather than fighting injustice, might just inform more effective communication design that connects rather than divides, that educates rather than alienates, that inspires change rather than just raises anxiety.

Perhaps if as activists, advocates and agents of change we took a leaf from the book of the very nature we so love to defend, we would finally understand that change is a process of growth and renewal and that eco-systems, whether socially constructed by humans or otherwise, change in an organic and gradual manner, and that it is cultivating the soil that changes the health of the tree and in turn the taste of the fruit. Perhaps if we combined our direct action and advocacy with some further study in ecology and the workings of natural systems, we would more clearly understand how anthropocentric the ‘defender of nature’ identity actually is and that it is ‘connection with’ that we require more than anything.

We require connection with nature, as much as with humans and our own selves. And a connection with those who differ and disagree with us, even more so than those who we may consider 'amongst our own ranks'. How else are we to build unity if we cannot converse and consult amongst ourselves to reach common understandings and solutions. If we approached awareness-raising more like a dialectic process of education then maybe our efforts to unite behind the banner of climate justice would have been more effective and we may sooner arrive at the world we wish to be living in.

- Erfan Daliri

NOTE - The references in this article have come from my masters thesis ‘Conscientisation for Climate Change - An Analysis of Social Media Communication Through an Ecopsychology Framework’. (See full references below)

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About the Author

Erfan Daliri is an author, poet, social change trainer and consultant with a Masters in Communication for Social Change. He has over 15 years of experience working with NGOs, community groups and government agencies in a diverse range of areas, including participatory development, cross-cultural communication, youth empowerment, education, mental health, settlement services, and social justice advocacy.

Erfan is the founding director of Newkind Social Justice Conference and programme coordinator of the National Unity in Diversity Conference. He consults and advises on communication and project design for organisations such as Amnesty International and the Australian Red Cross.

He is particularly passionate about empowering organisations and communities to address issues of social, environmental and economic justice and to help them build a more inclusive, cohesive, sustainable and equitable society. His most recent book Raising Humanity discusses the underlying causes of socio-economic injustice and covers the themes of ecology and economy, resilience, resistance and what it takes to be an effective changemaker.