Professor Mike Hulme is with the Tyndall Centre in the United Kingdom. Here he has been conducting research on people's attitudes to media portrayals of a catastrophic future. Those who are involved in educating people about global climate change may be interested in his findings.Hulme compared the responses of people from two groups. One group was shown sensational media coverage on global climate change, while the other group was provided with information from scientific reports. The initial findings suggest that those exposed to the sensational media perceived the problem to be further in the future than the other group. Perhaps more importantly, they also beleived there was little they could do to address the problem.
Social marketing experts do sometimes use "fear appeals" to try and change people's behavior. They are quick to point out, however, that this tactic works best when it is accompanied by solutions that are effective and easy to perform. A good example of such a fear appeal is an anti-smoking campaign for young teens. It could work to use lung cancer and tracheotomy patients to scare the audience. They can simply avoid this fearful scenario by not taking up smoking as a habit.
The solution to issues concerning global climate change are not so simple. Until they are, Hulme's research suggests that the "fear appeal" might not be the way to go.
Check out the BBC News Article about Mike Hulme's research.
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