Ignorance or bias? Evaluating the ideological and informational drivers of communication gaps about climate change

Abstract

Does the relationship between media use and learning about climate change depend more on audiences’ scientific literacy on their ideological biases? To answer this question, we evaluate both the knowledge gap and belief gap hypotheses as they relate to climate change. Results indicate belief gaps for news and entertainment content and a knowledge gap for edutainment content. Climate change knowledge among conservatives decreased with greater attention to political news, but increased with greater attention to science news. TV entertainment was associated with a significant decrease in knowledge about climate change among liberals to similar levels as conservatives. Edutainment was associated with a widening gap in knowledge based on respondents’ scientific literacy. Implications for informal learning about controversial science through the media are discussed.

Keywords

belief gap climate change ideology knowledge gap media effects motivated reasoning science communication scientific literacy

1. Introduction

Climate change is a serious and growing threat to humans and the environment (Solomon and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007). Despite increasing evidence of widespread temperature changes, as well as scientific consensus that these changes are largely anthropogenic, only 69% of the US public believes that the Earth is warming, and of out these only 42% agree that human activities are the primary cause (National Research Council, 2010; Pew Research Center, 2013). In addition, global surveys indicate that the American public accepts the idea of anthropogenic climate change less than publics in other countries (Weber and Stern, 2011). Why is acceptance of scientific consensus on climate change so low in the United States?

The deficit model of science communication implies that public skepticism around scientific issues stems primarily from a lack of accurate knowledge (Bauer et al., 2007; Brossard and Lewenstein, 2009). The solution to this problem, therefore, is to provide accurate information to the public through formal (i.e. educational institutions) and informal (i.e. mass media) learning. Informing citizens about the issue is considered sufficient means to create public consensus matching that of scientists, according to the deficit model of science learning. However, considerable evidence contradicts this basic assumption, especially when considering politically controversial issues like climate change. For instance, ideological differences in beliefs about climate change are greatest among the most highly educated (Hamilton, 2011). Well-informed individuals are more likely to possess greater ideological coherence and sophisticated political schema, and thus are more likely to process information about climate change in a biased manner that reinforces their pre-existing political orientations (Hart and Nisbet, 2012).

The primary flaw in the deficit model is that it assumes that scientific facts will be interpreted the same way by all citizens (Nisbet, 2005; Sturgis and Allum, 2004). For many Americans, differences in opinions about climate change are not necessarily rooted in public ignorance but are instead largely driven by partisanship and political ideology (Guber, 2013; McCright, 2011). For example, since the late 1990s, a robust conservative movement has challenged climate change science and policy, and this has contributed to ideological polarization about the issue (Dunlap and McCright, 2011; McCright and Dunlap, 2003). In 1997, nearly identical percentages of Democrats and Republicans (52% and 48%, respectively) agreed that global warming had already begun (Dunlap and McCright, 2008). In 2013, however, 87% of Democrats believed that climate change had already begun, while only 44% of Republicans did (Pew Research Center, 2013). Alarmingly, in spite of scientific consensus, Republicans were actually slightly less likely in 2013 to believe that global temperatures are rising than they were 16 years before.

Complicating the issue of whether scientific literacy (ignorance) or ideologically-based motivated reasoning (bias) drives gaps in climate change knowledge is the heterogeneous nature of climate change information found in the American media. The media have long been seen as a resource for informal learning about complex political and scientific issues in the public sphere (Bell et al., 2009; Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1997; Dhingra, 2003). However, climate change has become an issue about which audiences are exposed to a range of both accurate and inaccurate information in political news, science news, entertainment, and edutainment programming. The relationship between media use and knowledge may vary depending not only on the valence and informational content of media (Feldman et al., 2012; Shanahan et al., 1997), but also on audience traits such as prior education and ideology (Hindman, 2009, 2012; Tichenor et al., 1970).

Therefore, our present study focuses on the interactions between audiences’ possible “ignorance” or “bias” and different types of media formats to test possible communication or belief gaps that hamper informal learning about climate change. We draw upon previous research that has identified how media use may result in knowledge gaps (the most knowledgeable gain the most from an increase of information; Tichenor et al., 1970) or belief gaps (prior ideology will lead to differential gains in knowledge; Hindman, 2009, 2012) about technical, scientific, or environmental issues to provide three contributions to scholarship on public understanding of science. First, though some previous studies have directly examined how either the knowledge gap or belief gap hypotheses have varied by medium (Cacciatore et al., 2012), few if any studies have examined each simultaneously across a range of different media content types such as news, entertainment, and edutainment. As a result, scientific information in the media has been treated as monolithic, and simultaneous comparison of the effects of different media genres or formats on public knowledge about salient scientific issues needs to be further pursued. Second, most studies have focused on news content alone, thereby ignoring the effects of entertainment TV content or the burgeoning (and understudied) edutainment genre on informal learning about science. This study addresses these issues and provides evidence for how belief gaps, knowledge gaps, and media formats are related to differences in climate change knowledge across groups. This study, furthermore, addresses a third disparity in scholarship by examining scientific knowledge gaps specifically in terms of scientific literacy, rather than by employing educational attainment as an approximate indicator of prior scientific knowledge.

2. Communication gaps: prior knowledge and ideology

The knowledge gap hypothesis is a theoretical framework for explaining differential gains in knowledge within a population as mass media information or use in a social system increases (Eveland and Scheufele, 2000; Nisbet, 2008; Tichenor et al., 1970). Although causal explanations for observed gaps have varied (e.g. structural, cultural), the most prominent explanations have focused on individual differences in cognitive abilities and information processing based on levels of educational attainment (Nisbet, 2008). Those with more formal education have had more experience learning and integrating new information and are thus more likely to process mediated information in an elaborative and sophisticated fashion (Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1997; Eveland, 2001). In addition, research consistently shows that prior knowledge facilitates information processing and recall, probably due to the existence of schema to facilitate interpretation and storage of new information (Hsu and Price, 1993; Rhee and Cappella, 1997).

Although much of the previous research on the knowledge gap hypothesis has used general educational attainment to explain differential knowledge gain from media, employing general educational attainment to approximate prior knowledge about a specific domain may be problematic. Hwang and Jeong’s (2009) meta-analysis found that knowledge gaps around social and political topics are highly correlated with education level, while gaps in health and science knowledge are only weakly correlated with this indicator. Their analysis also revealed that although there is a consistent positive correlation between education level and knowledge, there were no differences in the size of the resultant knowledge gap over time or between issues. These findings raise questions about the validity of using educational attainment as the key variable to differentiate prior knowledge between groups in a population. Instead, measuring knowledge about specific domains and then examining knowledge gaps within those domains may be a more valid means to understanding how these gaps emerge.

An alternative conceptualization of how media use may drive differential gains in knowledge is the belief gap hypothesis (Hindman, 2009, 2012). According to this hypothesis, ideology is a more apt predictor than prior knowledge of differential gains in knowledge from media use for salient and controversial issues. This conclusion is based on analyses showing that knowledge gaps between liberals and conservatives about climate change and health care reform have grown over time as these issues become salient in the media, but knowledge gaps based on educational attainment did not (Hindman, 2009, 2012).

A causal mechanism for belief gaps is thought to be motivated reasoning (Hart and Nisbet, 2012; Kunda, 1990; Lodge and Taber, 2000). Motivated reasoning is the desire to arrive at particular conclusions consistent with previously held beliefs and leads to biased processing of information (Kunda, 1990). Research has shown that citizens do not approach evidence and arguments about controversial issues in an even-handed manner (Lodge and Taber, 2000). Instead, their prior attitudes and political ideologies strongly bias how they process these arguments through selective exposure, attention, comprehension, and/or recall (Kunda, 1990; Lodge and Taber, 2000; Lord et al., 1979; Taber et al., 2009). In general, those with greater issue involvement or with strongly held opinions are less likely to change their beliefs and so will frequently ignore and misinterpret ideologically incongruent arguments (Johnson and Eagly, 1989).

Therefore, equally informed citizens may employ received knowledge in very different ways depending on their ideological predispositions (Hart and Nisbet, 2012; Scheufele, 2006). For example, ideological predispositions may bias the interpretation of information about climate change, even possibly resulting in opinion or knowledge outcomes that were unintended by the message creators (i.e. boomerang effects; Hart and Nisbet, 2012). Strong ideological positions can act as the perceptual lenses through which individuals view particular arguments, leading to rejection of value-incongruent ones (Zaller, 1992). As a result, those with differing ideologies become more polarized in their beliefs upon receiving the same information, contingent upon how biased their processing is (Hart and Nisbet, 2012; Taber et al., 2009), thus creating belief gaps in knowledge (Hindman, 2009, 2012).

In sum, although based on different mechanisms, both the knowledge and belief gap hypotheses may be viewed as manifestations of the broader concept of “communication gaps” (Nisbet, 2008). Using this approach, a communication gap is defined as a communicative situation in which mass media use impacts individuals within a social system differently in ways that influence overall systemic-level social differentiation in knowledge or beliefs (Nisbet, 2008; Shingi and Mody, 1976). These differential effects of media may not always lead to a widening gap of knowledge or beliefs between social groups (polarization) but may also result in a perceptual convergence between groups (Hindman, 2009, 2012; Nisbet and Myers, 2010; Tichenor et al., 1970; Zaller, 1992).

3. Communication gaps: media content

Prior knowledge and ideology alone may not drive communication gaps stemming from media use, but may also interact with systemic/structural differences in the media content (Eveland and Cooper, 2013; Eveland and Scheufele, 2000; Feldman et al., 2012; Nisbet, 2008; Shanahan and Morgan, 1999). For example, Eveland and Scheufele (2000) found that more information-rich media content was more likely to produce knowledge gaps across levels of educational attainment than was less information-rich content. Similarly, research has shown that highly homogenous news or entertainment media content is often able to overpower processes of motivated cognition driven by ideological differences, resulting in a convergence of knowledge or beliefs between groups rather than a divergence (Nisbet and Myers, 2010; Shanahan and Morgan, 1999; Zaller, 1992). Therefore, when examining how media use may influence informal learning about a salient scientific topic such as climate change, we must consider how not only individual differences but also systemic differences in various forms of media content may influence communication gaps.

Journalistic portrayals of climate change provide an illustrative case study. Coverage of scientific issues varies greatly by both the journalistic focus of the reporter and by media outlet. Political reporters and opinion writers are more likely to engage in “false balance” and thus over-represent conflicting or “inaccurate” information when covering a scientific or environmental issue compared to science and environmental reporters and/or outlets (Mooney and Nisbet, 2005; Nisbet and Huge, 2006). For instance, in an effort to evenly represent both sides of the issue, American news coverage of climate change tends to downplay scientific consensus by giving equal air time to dissenting opinions (Boykoff, 2008).

Misrepresentation of climate change and inaccurate knowledge claims in news media are more prevalent in conservative outlets such as the Fox News Channel relative to other news outlets such as CNN or MSNBC (Feldman et al.,2012; Hart, 2008). As Americans increasingly choose to watch only those political news and media sources that conform to their ideological predispositions, we may expect to see greater polarization in knowledge about climate change across ideological divides (belief gaps) due to motivated cognition as attention to political news increases (Bennett and Iyengar, 2008; Feldman et al., 2012; Hindman, 2009; Krosnick and MacInnis, 2010).

In contrast, science reporters and outlets are more likely to accurately and consistently communicate the established facts underlying a scientific issue (Nisbet and Huge, 2006; Waaijer et al., 2010). As a result, climate change information in science outlets tends to be more factually accurate and homogenous because these reporters are less likely to engage in “false balance” reporting. Thus, in comparison to political news, media cues in science news coverage about climate change tend to be clearer in favor of scientific consensus and thus may be able to overcome biased partisan processing (Druckman and Parkin, 2005; Feldman, 2011; Kahn and Kenney, 2002; Zaller, 1992). In other words, because science news reflects a more homogeneous and accurate information environment about climate change, attention to this type of news content should produce a convergence of accurate beliefs about climate change across political orientations (i.e. a mainstreaming effect; Zaller, 1992).

Unfortunately, most communication gap research around science issues ignores the role that entertainment TV may play in producing systematic differences in citizen knowledge. This is likely due to the fact that entertainment TV content is more difficult to define and quantify than is journalistic content due to its diverse forms. For the purposes of this study, we consider entertainment TV to be episodic crime, comedy, drama, reality, and science fiction/fantasy programs. A great deal of communication scholarship suggests that despite the seeming diversity of TV programming, commercial imperatives result in fairly consistent representations of the world across channels and programs (Morgan and Shanahan, 2010). The cultivation hypothesis posits that high levels of TV exposure will lead heavy viewers to be more likely to express worldviews that mirror the dominant values, lessons, and messages found in entertainment TV (Gerbner, 1970, 1973; Shanahan and Morgan, 1999). Understanding the influence of entertainment content on informal learning about climate change is therefore of great importance due to its ubiquitous presence and substantial impact on audiences (Morgan and Shanahan, 2010; Shanahan and Morgan, 1999).

Although scholarship in this area is somewhat scant, analyses have found that environmental content on primetime TV has declined over the past several decades (McComas et al., 2001; McComas and Shanahan, 1999; Shanahan et al., 1997). Besley and Shanahan (2004) argue that this lack of environmental narratives causes “symbolic annihilation.” By not showing environmental problems, the mass media cultivates the perception of a reality in which these problems are minimal or do not exist; thus, heavy TV viewers tend to be less knowledgeable and may have less accurate beliefs about environmental issues (Shanahan et al., 1997). These content trends are reflected in the relationship entertainment TV has with knowledge and beliefs about science and environmental issues. For instance, heavy TV viewing was associated with decreased factual science knowledge, leading to a convergence, or so-called mainstreaming effect, of beliefs between groups that in some cases dampened pro-environmental beliefs among liberal or environmentalist audience segments (Dudo et al., 2011; Good, 2007, 2009; Nisbet et al., 2002).

Finally, a media genre that has grown substantially in recent years is nonfiction content that frequently includes dramatic features and visuals traditionally associated with entertainment media (Bagust, 2008; LaMarre and Landreville, 2009). This hybrid “edutainment” genre integrates information-rich content with narratives as a means to enhance audience learning while simultaneously keeping the content engaging enough to hold audience interest (Aldridge and Dingwall, 2003).

Edutainment has become a valued commercial enterprise for popular cable TV networks (Nisbet and Aufderheide, 2009). However, despite its growing impact on the media environment, the effects of edutainment content on audiences have been largely overlooked by mass media scholars. Research on this genre has found that edutainment narratives are as emotionally engaging as fictional programs and are processed similarly (LaMarre and Landreville, 2009). In addition, edutainment is associated with increased issue concern, affect, and learning, suggesting that it has the potential to strongly influence citizen knowledge and beliefs (LaMarre and Landreville, 2009). Research on informal science learning suggests that people are indeed receiving science information through these sources (Bell et al., 2009; Lucas, 1991; Nisbet et al., 2002; Rosteck and Frentz, 2009; Stocklmayer et al., 2010).

However, we are not aware of any research to date that has examined how exposure to this media genre may be associated with communication gaps and/or may interact with prior knowledge or ideological orientations. Previous scholarship on narrative persuasion suggests that edutainment may reduce the likelihood of belief gaps by situating factual messages within emotionally engaging narratives that are difficult to counterargue (Slater and Rouner, 2002). At the same time, edutainment tends to contain more information than either typical journalistic or entertainment content. Consequently, prior knowledge likely plays a role in influencing audience ability to process and integrate this type of content. We may therefore expect knowledge gaps (rather than belief gaps) to emerge between audience members with differing levels of scientific literacy for this genre.

In sum, the four types of media content we have discussed—political news, science news, TV entertainment, and edutainment—have the potential to influence public understanding about the scientific facts of climate change. However, the relationship between these genres and informal learning about climate change may vary not only due to substantial differences in their content, but also in how that content may interact with audiences’ prior knowledge or ideological orientations. As a result, communication gaps leading to differentiation in scientific knowledge (i.e. accurate beliefs about climate change) across groups may emerge.

4. Hypotheses

At the outset of this article, we posed the question of how the mass media, in conjunction with audiences’ ideology or scientific literacy, is associated with informal learning by citizens about climate change. Based on previous research about the relationships between different types of media content, audience predispositions, and the potential for communication gaps around science and environmental issues, we propose four hypotheses about how media use and audience predispositions may interact and be associated with citizen knowledge about climate change:

H1. The gap in accurate beliefs about climate change between liberals and conservatives will increase as attention to political news increases.

H2. The gap in accurate beliefs about climate change between liberals and conservatives will decrease as attention to science news increases.

H3. The gap in accurate beliefs about climate change between liberals and conservatives will decrease, especially among liberals, as attention to TV entertainment increases.

H4. The gap in accurate beliefs about climate change between audiences who have low and high levels of prior scientific knowledge will increase as attention to edutainment increases.

5. Method

Data collection

A total of 1098 respondents participated in an online survey between 25 June and 1 July 2012, with the sample drawn from a national survey panel managed by Survey Sampling International. Although the sample is not generalizable to the US population as a whole, it was highly heterogeneous with characteristics very similar to national distributions. Furthermore, as Hayes (2005) notes, the representativeness of a sample compared to the population is of low concern when evaluating theoretical communication processes (Baker et al., 2013; Mook, 1983).

Independent variables

Three sets of variables were included in our analyses: (a) socio-demographics, (b) ideology and scientific literacy, and (c) media use behaviors. Socio-demographics included measures of age (M = 45.8, standard deviation (SD) = 16.4), biological sex (50.2% women), and race (dummy coded with Whites at 80.1% of the sample). Educational attainment (M = 5.7, SD = 1.5) was assessed on an eight-point scale ranging from “no education” to “post-graduate,” with 32.6% of the respondents having a 4-year college degree or higher. In addition, 34.5% of the sample identified as evangelical Christians and 28% of the sample believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible (M = 2.0, SD = 0.72).

Our hypotheses center on how communication gaps occur based on audience differences in ideology or scientific knowledge. We measured ideology by asking respondents how liberal or conservative they were on economic issues and social issues. Respondents rated themselves on a seven-point scale for each area, ranging from “very liberal” to “very conservative” with the items averaged together to create a measure of overall ideology (M = 4.0, SD = 1.5, r = .82).

In regard to general scientific literacy, we employed a slightly modified version of the same measurement index employed biannually by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (2012) to assess the public’s accuracy about “factual science knowledge questions covering a range of science disciplines” (p. 19).¹ In this context, we differentiate between general knowledge about basic scientific concepts and public knowledge about a specific scientific topic (e.g. climate change). It is the latter, rather than the former, that has been shown to be most predictive of attitudes about specific scientific issues in cross-cultural meta-analyses and thus should be differentiated as a separate knowledge construct (Allum et al., 2008). Scientific literacy of survey respondents rather than relying on education was thus used as a proxy indicator for the respondent’s scientific knowledge. The survey items were scored on a five-point true/false scale, with accuracy scored high, and averaged into one overall measure of biophysical scientific knowledge (M = 3.6, SD = 0.73).

Six different media use behaviors were included in the analyses. The first two were measures of general TV exposure (in average number of hours per day, M = 4.6, SD = 2.7) and newspaper use (in average number of days per week, M = 3.7, SD = 2.2), which were employed as controls. The second set of measures focused attention on specific media content. Attention to political news was assessed by averaging together two seven-point survey items about how much attention respondents paid to news about the 2012 presidential campaign and to national politics in general (M = 4.3, SD = 1.9, r = .87). Attention to science and environmental news was assessed by averaging together two seven-point survey items about how much attention respondents paid to news about science and technology and to news about the environment (M = 4.3, SD = 1.9, r = .67).

We measured TV entertainment exposure using items on a seven-point scale that asked respondents how often they viewed each of five major entertainment genres (crime, comedy, drama, reality, and science fiction/fantasy) when watching TV. The five items were averaged into one overall measure of attention to TV entertainment (M = 3.6, SD = 1.4, α = .70). Attention to edutainment was measured by combining four items on a seven-point scale asking respondents how often they viewed four major edutainment genres (nature and wildlife, science and technology, outdoor adventure, and space and astronomy) on TV or film. The four items were averaged into one overall measure (M = 3.4, SD = 1.6, α = .87).

Dependent variable

The dependent measure for our analyses was public knowledge about a specific scientific issue: climate change. Respondents answered four knowledge questions about climate change on a five-point true/false scale. These items were selected based on common public knowledge inaccuracies about climate change according to Leiserowitz et al. (2010), as well as on factual inaccuracies promoted by economic and political interests through the media (Dunlap and McCright, 2011; Karl et al., 2009). Respondents were asked whether the following inaccurate statements were true or false: (a) “In the past, rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have never caused global temperatures to increase” (52% correct), (b) “Climate often changes from year to year” (10% correct), (c) “Any recent global warming is caused by the sun” (65% correct), and (d) “The Earth’s climate has pretty much been the same for millions of years” (75% correct). The scores on the four items were averaged into one overall measure of knowledge about climate change with accuracy scored high (M = 3.3, SD = 0.73).

6. Results

Analyses are based on hierarchal ordinary-least-squares (OLS) regression models. Table 1 presents the results of these analyses, with the standardized coefficients and p values reported for each variable in the models. Model 1 indicates that socio-demographic control variables accounted for 11.5% of the variance in climate change knowledge. Model 2 added ideology (with conservatism coded high) (β = −.09, p ⩽ .001) and scientific literacy (β = .28, p ⩽ .001) to the analyses, with both being significant predictors of climate change knowledge and explaining an additional 6.2% of variance.

Table 1.

OLS regression predicting climate change knowledge.

Variable	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5
	β	β	β	β	β
Age	−.02	−.04	−.03	−.05	−.06
Educational attainment	.16***	.20**	.09**	.10**	.09**
Sex	−.01	.03	.03	.02	.02
Race (White coded high)	.01	−.01	−.02	−.02	−.01
Biblical literalism	−.21***	−.11**	−.11**	−.11**	−.09**
Evangelical Christian	−.12***	−.06	−.06	−.05	−.03
Scientific literacy		.28***	.27***	.27***	−.07
Ideology (conservative high)		−.09**	−.10**	−.09**	−.37***
TV use			−.07*	.04	−.03
Newspaper use			.03	.05	.07*
Attention to political news				−.10	.30**
Attention to science/environment news				.06	−.27*
Attention to TV entertainment				−.05	−.29***
Attention to edutainment				−.05	−.85***
Political News × Ideology					−.51***
Science News × Ideology					.45***
Entertainment × Ideology					.33***
Edutainment × Science Literacy					.87***
Variance explained (total R²)	.115	.176	.181	.190	.243

OLS: ordinary-least-squares.

Standardize coefficients reported.

p ⩽ .05; **p ⩽ .01; ***p ⩽ .001.

Models 3 and 4 added media variables as predictors. Block 3 contained general TV use and newspaper use, and did not comprise a significant increase in variance. Newspaper use was not a significant predictor of climate change knowledge. However, general TV exposure was significantly associated with less knowledge (β = −.07, p ⩽ .05). In Model 4, none of the additional four media (political news, science news, TV entertainment, edutainment) variables appeared to have a significant so-called main effect on climate change knowledge, though their entry into the analyses did significantly explain an additional 0.9% of variance in climate change knowledge.

However, after testing the interaction between respondents’ ideology (ideology gap) or scientific literacy (knowledge gap) and different types of media on informal learning about climate change, the influence of these different types of media content on knowledge becomes apparent. Ideology significantly moderated the relationships between accurate climate change beliefs and attention to political news (β = −.51, p ⩽ .001), science news (β = .45, p ⩽.001), and TV entertainment (β = .33, p ⩽ .001; Model 5). However, ideology did not significantly moderate the effects of edutainment content on climate change knowledge, but scientific literacy did (β = .87, p ⩽ .001). In all, the interactions in Model 5 explained an additional 5.3% of the total variance in respondent climate change knowledge.

We plotted the interaction terms using analytical procedures for SPSS developed by Hayes (2013). Figure 1 shows that as attention to political news increases, conservatives have less accurate knowledge about climate change (b = −0.07, p ⩽ .001), whereas moderates and liberals do not (i.e. graphed slopes are not significant), thus widening the knowledge gap between ideological groups in support of H1.

Figure 1.

Interaction between ideology and political news attention on climate change knowledge. *Slope varies significantly.

In contrast, greater attention to science news was significantly associated with increased climate change accuracy among conservatives (b = 0.07, p ⩽ .01), while liberals and moderates did not change (Figure 2). This resulted in a convergence toward more accurate knowledge, supporting H2.

Figure 2.

Interaction between ideology and science news attention on climate change knowledge. *Slope varies significantly.

When examining the relationship between TV entertainment and climate knowledge, liberals were the group whose knowledge about climate change varied with TV entertainment use (Figure 3). As entertainment TV viewing increased, climate change knowledge among liberals became significantly less accurate (b = −0.07, p ⩽ .01), with no significant changes in knowledge among moderates or conservatives, resulting in what cultivation research terms a “mainstreaming effect” (Shanahan and Morgan, 1999) toward less accurate knowledge, supporting H3.

Figure 3.

Interaction between ideology and entertainment television attention on climate change knowledge. *Slope varies significantly.

For edutainment, the communication gap between those with higher and lower levels of scientific literacy widened as attention to edutainment increased, supporting H4 (Figure 4). Respondents who possess a high degree of scientific literacy have more accurate climate change knowledge as attention to edutainment content increases (b = 0.05, p ⩽ .01), while respondents with lower scientific literacy possess less accurate climate change knowledge as edutainment viewing increases (b = −0.08, p ⩽ .001). There was no significant change in knowledge about climate change as edutainment attention increased for those with an average level of scientific literacy.

Figure 4.

Interaction between science literacy and edutainment attention on climate change knowledge. *Slope varies significantly.

7. Discussion

Theoretical implications

Knowledge and belief gaps can be reframed under the more general conceptual umbrella of communication gaps, in which media use may either widen or narrow differentiation of knowledge in a social system. In this context, the association between media use and informal learning is driven by the interaction of structural differences and audience prior knowledge or ideological orientations, answering the question of whether and in what circumstances ignorance (low scientific literacy) or bias (ideology) predicts climate change knowledge.

Our hypotheses focused on whether media use and audience predispositions were associated with the narrowing or widening of knowledge gaps, but the overall valence of the media’s relationship with public knowledge is also worthy of discussion. For example, increased political news use was associated with less accurate knowledge in the social system as a whole, driven by the fact that as political news use increases, conservatism is associated with less accurate climate change knowledge, while liberals and moderates remain unchanged. In comparison, science news use was associated with greater accuracy of conservative beliefs about climate change, reducing social differentiation and increasing the overall accuracy of climate change knowledge in the social system. Despite no change in liberals and moderates, this difference between political and science news as they relate to knowledge and learning is challenging for science communicators as some groups continue to promote inaccuracies about climate change in political news (Dunlap and McCright, 2011).

Like science news, TV entertainment is associated with less social differentiation of knowledge across ideological divides. Unfortunately, however, greater TV entertainment use is associated with less rather than more accurate climate knowledge. The relationship between edutainment attention and knowledge, however, is more complex. Audiences with high scientific literacy report more climate change knowledge at high levels of edutainment attention, while audiences with low scientific literacy were troublingly significantly less knowledgeable about climate change at higher levels of attention to edutainment.

From a theoretical perspective, the question arises of why science and nature edutainment is associated with a knowledge gap based on prior scientific knowledge, while other forms of media use are associated with ideological belief gaps. A possible explanation is that science and nature edutainment is such a specialized form of media use that audiences with a high level of scientific literacy or more liberal ideology self-select into this genre more so than do other audiences. However, upon examination, neither scientific literacy nor ideology was a significant predictor of science and nature edutainment exposure after accounting for socio-demographic controls.

A second possible explanation may be the unique nature of edutainment content compared to journalistic or entertainment genres. Although focused on communicating factual information, edutainment is also designed to entertain. Therefore, its narrative format may be less open to biased processing compared to journalistic content, though not as overpoweringly as entertainment media (Slater and Rouner, 2002). Audience motivations in seeking edutainment may also drive differential outcomes (So, 2012). High viewers of edutainment who are primarily seeking to be informed may gain more knowledge from edutainment use than will viewers who are primarily seeking to be entertained. If this is the case, the moderating role of scientific literacy in our analysis may be driven by audience motivations based on prior science knowledge, thus motivating audiences to attend to edutainment content for different reasons, resulting in gaps in climate change knowledge. Future research should explore these questions in greater depth.

Limitations and future directions

There were several limitations to this study that should be acknowledged. First, this study relied upon a correlational analysis of survey data and thus we cannot make strong causal statements regarding the direction of the relationships between media use and climate change knowledge. Optimally, a longitudinal panel survey could be employed in the future to examine how media use is associated with communication gaps between different groups over time.

A second limitation of the study is that we did not examine how communication gaps may vary depending on the specific media channel or source. However, this question is not relevant as we are concerned with differences in communication gaps based on media content type rather than on specific content source. For example, our goal was not to show how specific news outlets (e.g. Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Wall Street Journal, or The New York Times) may have different relationships with knowledge. Our goal was instead to examine the aggregate influence of political news attention in combination with audience predispositions, especially given the myriad news sources available to audiences that are often used in combination, even across ideological lines, contrary to popular belief (see Webster and Ksiazek, 2012).

The measures used for attention to different types of news and TV entertainment content also differed somewhat from each other. In the case of news, we focus on different types of news content across mediums, and in the case of entertainment, we focus on different types of content within a specific medium. These measures vary due to differences in how news and entertainment content are communicated within our media ecosystem. The consumption of news content is more diversified across platforms (i.e. TV, Internet, newspaper, radio) as compared to entertainment or edutainment content. In contrast, TV remains the dominant storyteller in our society (Morgan and Shanahan, 2010), as TV content also cuts across platforms to some degree (i.e. Internet streaming, downloads) and incorporates content from other mediums (i.e. movies, documentaries) more so than news. We therefore assert that the media measures employed in this study strike a balance between external and internal validity when attempting to compare news and entertainment content effects on knowledge about climate change. Moving forward, researchers should examine the relationship between media use and accurate beliefs about scientific topics or issues of public concern across a range of issues that vary in salience within the public discourse. For instance, are there similar patterns of social differentiation in knowledge stemming from media use when considering moderate (e.g. genetically modified food) or low (e.g. nanotechnology) salience science and environmental issues?

Beyond the attributes of the topic, audience predispositions other than ideology or scientific literacy may moderate interactions with different types of media. One such predisposition may be audiences’ need for closure, or amount of close-mindedness. Research has shown that open-minded people are more likely to see the benefits of change than are close-minded people (Kruglanski, 2004). Need for closure has been found to influence how audiences process information and weigh competing costs and benefits of climate change mitigation, with open-minded people more supportive of climate mitigation than close-minded people after exposure to messages about the impact of climate change (Nisbet et al., 2013).

Our study demonstrates that the mass media have the capacity to contribute to informal learning about science issues, though this contribution may be positive or negative for knowledge attainment depending on the nature of the content and how this interacts with audience background. Our findings highlight the complex diversity and nuance of the influence of media use on audiences’ beliefs and knowledge about publicly salient scientific issues. Science communicators, therefore, need to simultaneously take into account important differences in media genres and audience characteristics in order to ensure that the equity and quality of scientific information and knowledge in a social system are maintained and strengthened over time rather than diminished.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

Author biographies

Erik C. Nisbet is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication, School of Environment and Natural Resources, and the Department of Political Science at the Ohio State University School of Communication. His research interests are at the intersection of political and science communication. He holds a PhD in communication from Cornell Uniiversity.

Kathryn E. Cooper is a doctoral student in the Ohio State University School of Communication. Her research interests include science and environmental media effects, with a focus on affect, motivated reasoning, and edutainment. She holds a BS in Biology from Trinity University and an MA in Communication from the Ohio State University.

Morgan Ellithorpe is a doctoral candidate in the Ohio State University School of Communication. Her research interests include media psychology and media effects, with a focus on attitudes and decision-making. She holds a BS in Communication from Cornell University and an MA from the Ohio State University.

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