Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Stories that Stick: Cultural Narrative and Mass Opinions on Climate Change

University Of Oklahoma Norman Campus, Norman OK

Investigators

Abstract

Climate change is easily identified as one of the most contentious and pressing policy problems facing the United States. While scientific opinions on the reality of climate change show high levels of agreement, a non-trivial component of the public rejects the claims of these scientists. Why? Current social science explanations of this divergence in opinion have tended to focus on either the public's lack of accurate knowledge or media bias that misleads the public. These explanations focus on message structure influence, but fail to account for characteristics internal to the individual that most certainly interact with these message structures. This dissertation addresses this gap in our knowledge. Two theories that account for both individual internal factors and external stimuli in opinion formation and change are merged to create a Cultural Narrative Model (CNM). Specifically, Cultural Theory metrics assess individual cultural predispositions, while narrative provides the message structuring theory. This model is tested using a web-based experimental manipulation of over 2500 nationally representative respondents. Among other findings, the CNM may suggest that narrative structure plays a significant role in helping respondents develop emotional responses to groups, determining how much of a threat climate change is, and, how willing a respondent is to act on the threat of climate change. One broader impact of this project is that the new knowledge should be beneficial to society through its utility to risk communicators.