Matthew Nisbet: Communicating Climate Change | Environment
A frame links two concepts, so that after exposure to this linkage, the intended audience now accepts the concepts’ connection. However, in many cases, a specific frame only is effective if it is relevant — or applicable — to the audience’s preexisting interpretations. For example, by emphasizing the religious and moral dimensions of climate change, biologist and Pulitzer Prize–winning author E. O. Wilson, along with other scientists, has convinced many religious leaders that the issue is directly applicable to their faith and their respective communities.
Alternatively, many climate change advocates have used an unsuccessful frame that compares distortion of climate science to the George W. Bush administration’s misuse of evidence in making the case to go to war in Iraq or formulating policy on stem cell research. Among liberals and science enthusiasts, this connection activates negative emotions, yet for many Americans, the frame either cuts against their partisan leanings, and is therefore likely to be rejected, or does not hold strong personal significance, ignored as inside-the-beltway bickering.
