International Communication Association's Environmental Communication Division Post-conference on Climate and Sustainability Campaigns

Tuesday, May 26, 2015 Caribe Hilton, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Sponsored by the Environmental Communication Division, Health Communication Division, Political Communication Division. Funded by the Rupe Chair in the Social Effects of Mass Communication, Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Anthropogenic climate change has now come of age as a widely recognized global risk and a profound peril to the health and wellbeing of human and nonhumans alike (Maibach, Roser-Renouf & Leiserowitz, 2008). It demands global responses and actions to reduce its threats (Beck, 2010). According to one recent analysis, climate legislation is unlikely without a large, well-orchestrated and sustained climate movement and climate action (Skocpol 2013). The aim of this post-conference is to help shift research on climate communication from its early focus on media coverage of climate change to mapping and understanding the global terrain of climate and sustainability campaigns waged by diverse actors across the world, and targeting various audiences.  This post-conference sought to improve our understanding of campaign types, scope, organizational nature and actors, topics, goals, strategies, tactics, capacities, effects, audience psychology, and similar relevant issues.

For extended abstracts (5 pages or so), click where indicated.

8:30 – 8:45 Greetings: Lucy Atkinson (University of Texas at Austin)

8:45 – 9:15 Guest speaker

• Keynote speaker: Ronald E. Rice, Arthur N. Rupe Professor in the Social Effects of Mass Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara, “An overview of public communication campaigns, with applications to sustainability and climate change”
• Moderator: Lee Ahern (Pennsylvania State University)

9:15 – 10:45 Session 1: Source and Channel Factors in Climate Communication Campaigns

• Discussant: Connie Roser-Renouf, George Mason University
• Serena Carpenter, Bruno Takahashi, Carie Cunningham and Alisa P. Lertpratchya (Michigan State University), “Higher education and public communication campaigns: The role of social media in promoting sustainability” [abstract]
• Ever Figueroa (University of Texas at Austin), “Exploring the organizational influences on environmental journalist's efforts to include scientific sources in green news stories” [abstract]
• Andreas R.T. Schuck and Magdalena Wojcieszak (University of Amsterdam), “Discussing climate change – the impact of the quality of discussion in media coverage on citizen engagement and political behavior” [abstract]
• Adam M. Rainear and John L. Christensen (University of Connecticut), “The Health Belief Model as an explanatory framework for climate change cultivation effects” [abstract]

11:00 – 12:30 Session 2: Campaign Considerations and Message Strategies: Framing, Social Norm Activation and Visual Content

• Discussant: Lee Ahern, Pennsylvania State University
• Lauren Feldman (Rutgers University) and P. Sol Hart (University of Michigan), “Using political efficacy messages to increase climate activism: The mediating role of emotions” [abstract]
• Judith Friedlander and Chris Riedy (University of Technology, Sydney), “The meme is the message” [abstract]
• Kelly Page Werder (University of South Florida), “An analysis of the effects of strategic messaging on the perceptual, cognitive, and motivational antecedents to climate activism in youth” [abstract]
• Yoon Hi Sung (University of Texas at Austin), “The effect of social norms and cultural context on pro-environmental behaviors” [abstract]
• Stacy Rebich-Hespanha and Ronald E. Rice (University of California, Santa Barbara), “Formative evaluation of visual content in news stories for use in climate change campaigns” [abstract]

12:30 – 1:30 Lunch

1:30 – 2:45 Session 3: Individual--level Factors and Environmental Behaviors and Beliefs

• Discussant: Andreas R.T. Schuck, University of Amsterdam
• Jonathon P. Schuldt (Cornell University) and Adam R. Pearson (Pomona College), “Beyond politics: Exploring the role of race/ethnicity and environmentalist identity in climate change beliefs” [abstract]
• Connie Roser-Renouf (George Mason University), Edward W. Maibach (George Mason University) and Anthony Leiserowitz (Yale University), “Climate change consumer activists: Objectives, beliefs and behaviors” [abstract]
• Lucy Atkinson (University of Texas at Austin), “When buying in means selling out: Sustainable consumption and unintended uncivic boomerang effects” [abstract]
• Benjamin H. Detenber, Sonny Rosenthal, K. Youqing Liao and Shirley S. Ho (Nanyang Technological University), “Environmental campaigns: Audience segmentation of Singaporean consumers” [abstract]
• Colleen Connolly-Ahern and Lee Ahern (Pennsylvania State University), “Philadelphia Story: Documentary film, community connections and green public policy support” [abstract]

3:00 – 4:45 Session 4: Time and Place: Case Studies of Specific Climate Campaigns

• Discussant: Bruno Takahashi, Michigan State University
• Charlotte Ryan (University of Massachusetts, Lowell), “The movement is the message: Building public will for health and climate justice via social movement campaigns” [abstract]
• Pauline Hope Cheong (Arizona State University), Boris H. J. M. Brummans and Jennie M. Hwang (Université de Montréal), “Faith-based organizing for climate justice: Campaigning for compassionate and sustainable diets” [abstract]
• Kjerstin Thorson (University of Southern California), Stephanie Edgerly (Northwestern University), Liana Gamber Thompson, Yu Xu, Neta Kliger-Vilenchik (University of Southern California) and Kevin Driscoll (Microsoft Research), “Activist communication across platforms: Social media and the People’s Climate March” [abstract]
• Mikkel Fugl Eskjaer (Aalborg University, Copenhagen), “Climate campaigns as development: On the convergence of development and climate resilience in Bangladesh” [abstract]

4:45 – 5:00 Closing Remarks:

• Lucy Atkinson (University of Texas at Austin)