Ok let me wade into the climate comm/polarization/communicating to conservatives conversation. I’ll admit I may have a sourer outlook on this than others in the field, but it’s borne out of my research (tinyurl.com/y7xpr39w) and how I understand polarization to work 1/
On that note, feel free to light me up, polisci and scicomm fam. In a nutshell: issue polarization (like on climate change) constrains the possibility for effective persuasive framing, meaning changing someone’s opinions and attitudes on that issue. 2/
This is due to motivated reasoning aka “this is who I am and I want to believe in who I am.” As many scholars have noted (holler @BrendanNyhan), motivated reasoning is a helluva thing. Once certain concepts (like I am a Republican, I am an environmentalist, I am a Knicks fan) 3/
become integrated into someone’s identity, their motivation is to defend those aspects of themselves. For many reasons, over the past three decades, climate skepticism has worked its way into the mainline conservative/Republican identity 4/
Part of why (in my view) is that climate change is both high visibility (many people have heard about it) but low knowledge (not many people care to dig into it) as an issue. That makes it easy for people to rely on convenient information (like elite cues) to derive their 5/
own thoughts on the issue. Look at @RealDonaldTrump. I doubt he cares about climate change but he is Real Loud and Real Skeptical because it’s part of signalling that you're a Republican. It’s rote and easy at first, but then you’re drawn in with repeated exposure until you 6/
really believe it. #NotAllIssues trigger motivated counterarguing, but spicy ones like climate change definitely do and definitely do now in the Peak Polarization era. Climate change has become a trigger for the right – just hearing it turns them off and makes them defensive 7/
And it makes sense for them to them to do so! They are suspicious that someone’s trying to attack their identity and they don’t want to get into a fight, which is how discussions of climate change and framing are often portrayed (me vs. you). 8/
(The greater alignment of ideology and party ID over this same time period is also a big part of the larger polarization story in American politics, which is well covered in the polisci literature) 9/
I DO believe that strategic messaging and persuasive framing on climate change might have once been effective, but that was long ago before the issue worked its way into political cores. Back then, appeals to values (markets, nat security, etc.) might have worked. No longer. 10/
This is how polarization works: it is its own form of pol institution that is strengthened and reinforced over time. There is a momentum to polarization. There is an inertia to polarization. Once it’s rolling, it’s hard to stop. And the more the issue divides us, the harder 11/
it is to bridge the gap with communication. The issue’s simply too hot and promotes too much motivated reasoning (probably on both sides). Conservatives/Republicans are unlikely to be persuaded en masse at this point barring some massive external shock or internal realignment 12/
So where do we go from here? One goal might be to stick with the mission by microtargeting and trying to message to the margins (like FL Rs dealing with sea-level rise). Another might be to find the right messengers or sources (a whole nother topic I have Opinions on) 13/
My usual recommendations are to instead lean into recruiting latent liberals and democrats to the cause and raising their issue salience, similar I think to @drvox’s point and which I’ve talked about in the past (e.g., tinyurl.com/ja4bzab). 14/
Another, for bipartisan appeal, is to pivot towards clean energy policy, which can provide climate co-benefits and is, at least currently, largely depolarized. Many different tribes like rooftop solar and smart grids. However, that caveat is real: clean energy could become 15/
polarized in the future (any issue can) so the onus is on practitioners to strike while the iron is hot and make gains before the path closes off. This is why I (personally) am hesitant about slow carbon transition plans but that’s a different convo 16/
Last, I want to bring up is @drvox’s view that public opinion change can only come through elite cues. With social media and memes, the franchise for comms is no longer exclusively held by trad elites. I’m not sure exactly HOW this changes things, but I think it does. End/
Now let me call out my own execution squad to flay me online (follow them!): @mullinmeg @JosephMajkut @MattGrossmann @redunlap1 @DavidKonisky @ScottClif @kesearles @prowag @enviro_prof @BrendanNyhan @joshscacco @leahstokes @mmildenberger @NaomiOreskes @profmusgrave @thosjleeper
ran out of room so you get your own tweet! @atrembath
oh my gosh, also @MichaelEMann and @ClimateOfGavin
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