Whitmarsh, L., & Lorenzoni, I. (2010, April). Perceptions, behavior and communication of climate change. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 1(2), 158-161.

Retrieve here.

Nerlich, B., Koteyko, N., & Brown, B. (2010, February). Theory and language of climate change communication. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 1(1), 97-110.

Climate change communication has become a salient topic in science and society. It has grown to be something like a booming industry alongside more established ‘communication enterprises’, such as health communication, risk communication, and science communication. This article situates the theory of climate change communication within theoretical developments in the field of science communication. It discusses the importance and difficulties inherent in talking about climate change to different types of publics using various types of communication tools and strategies. It engages with the difficult issue of the relationship between climate change communication and behavior change, and it focuses, in particular, on the role of language (metaphors, words, strategies, frames, and narratives) in conveying climate change issues to stakeholders. In the process, it attempts to provide an overview of emerging theories of climate change communication, theories that recently have begun to proliferate quite dramatically. In some cases, we can, therefore only provide signposts to the most relevant research that is being carried out with regard to climate change communication without being able to engage with all its aspects. We end with an assessment of how communication could be improved in light of the theories and practices discussed in this article. Retrieve from here.

Wolf, J., Adger, W. N., Lorenzoni, I., & Roy, D. (2010, February). Social capital, individual responses to heat waves and climate change adaptation: An empirical study of two UK cities . Global Environmental Change, 20(1), 44-52.

It has been claimed that high social capital contributes to both positive public health outcomes and to climate change adaptation. Strong social networks have been said to support individuals and collective initiatives of adaptation and enhance resilience. As a result, there is an expectation that social capital could reduce vulnerability to risks from the impacts of climate change in the health sector. This paper examines evidence on the role social networks play in individuals’ responses to heat wave risk in a case study in the UK. Based on interviews with independently living elderly people and their primary social contacts in London and Norwich, we suggest that strong bonding networks could potentially exacerbate rather than reduce the vulnerability of elderly people to the effects of heat waves. Most respondents interviewed did not feel that heat waves posed a significant risk to them personally, and most said that they would be able to cope with hot weather. Bonding networks could perpetuate rather than challenge these narratives and therefore contribute to vulnerability rather than ameliorating it. These results suggest a complex rather than uniformly positive relationship between social capital, health and adaptation to climate change. Retrieve from here.

Keywords: Social capital; Climate change; Heat wave; Vulnerability; Adaptation

Cox, J. R. (2010). Beyond Frames: Recovering the Strategic in Climate Communication. Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture, 4(1), 122-133.

Recent calls for communication scholars and practitioners to identify effective communication means for mobilizing constituencies to address climate change often fall to distinguish between communicative acts that “mobilize” and mobilization that enables a particular end. The latter presupposes an account of the intentional or strategic alignment of mobilization, that is, the predicted or assumed relationships among a mobilized public, the mode(s) of influence or leverage this creates, and the expected consequences of such influence, i.e., how specific communicative efforts are related to outcomes or “effects” within a system. This essay argues that the neglect of strategic alignments in some recent climate communication campaigns have caused these campaigns to be non-adaptive at the scale and/or urgency required. Drawing on case studies of the 2007 Step It Up initiative and the Sierra Club's “Beyond Coal” campaign, the essay proposes viewing the strategic as an heuristic for identifying openings within networks of contingent relationships and the potential of certain communicative efforts to interrupt or leverage change within systems of power.Retrieve from here.

Keywords: Frame; Mobilization; Strategic; Strategy; Public Will Campaigns; Climate Change

Zia, A, & Todd, A. M. (2010, March). Evaluating the effects of ideology on public understanding of climate change science: How to improve communication across ideological divides? . Public Understanding of Science, Online

While ideology can have a strong effect on citizen understandingof science, it is unclear how ideology interacts with othercomplicating factors, such as college education, which influencecitizens’ comprehension of information. We focus on publicunderstanding of climate change science and test the hypotheses:[H₁] as citizens’ ideology shifts from liberal to conservative,concern for global warming decreases; [H₂] citizens with collegeeducation and higher general science literacy tend to have higherconcern for global warming; and [H₃] college education doesnot increase global warming concern for conservative ideologues.We implemented a survey instrument in California’s SanFrancisco Bay Area, and employed regression models to test theeffects of ideology and other socio-demographic variables oncitizen concern about global warming, terrorism, the economy,health care and poverty. We are able to confirm H₁ and H₃, butreject H₂. Various strategies are discussed to improve the communicationof climate change science across ideological divides. Retrieve from here.

Download complete bibliography