The social resonance of environmental media messages: a connectionist-inspired reception analysis
Pascal Verhoest, Joke Bauwens, Petrus te Braak & Marijke Huysmans
This study examines the reasons why certain environmental messages are received negatively by some social groups and not by others. In particular, the study provides insights into the influence of fear appeals in environmental communication and explores how communication strategies can be optimised to encourage environmentally friendly behaviour. In contrast to many studies that adopt a linear perspective on media effects, this study analyses the reception of environmental information as an interaction between media representations and the socially situated cognitive representations of reality stored in recipients’ memories. To operationalise this approach, a method of reception analysis is proposed that combines thought elicitation, semantic coding and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA). This method was used to assess the cognitive resonance of a minimal information condition and three differently framed newspaper-like articles on wastewater reuse in agriculture, which were randomly assigned to four panels with a total of 1040 participants. The results indicate that, independent of framing effects, these articles evoke different interpretations depending on the interplay between the media frames presented and the prior cognitive representations of different groups.
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The resonance of messages about wastewater reuse: recommendations for environmental communication
P. Verhoest, J. Bauwens, Yue Gao, Mark Elskens and M. Huysmans
Numerous studies have examined the factors influencing public perception of the reuse of treated wastewater and have consistently identified sensitivity to contamination and feelings of repulsion as the most significant barriers to acceptance. However, far fewer studies have examined the positive arguments that can promote the acceptance of reuse of treated wastewater. This study investigates how individuals cognitively respond to media messages on this topic by testing the cognitive resonance of four news-like messages with different framing manipulations (N = 1040 adults). Depending on their framing, these messages elicited more or less negative responses from individuals concerned with pollution and personal health compared to those focused on sustainability and environmental benefits. These findings highlight the importance of tailoring communication strategies to different audience profiles. The recipients' responses also underscore why scientists, particularly chemists, need to adopt communication approaches that may feel counterintuitive to them in order to be persuasive. Based on these findings, this study suggests ways of designing messages that can effectively promote the reuse of treated wastewater among resistant social groups. Finally, broader lessons for environmental communication are drawn.
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