Media coverage of climate crisis would promote 'denial and avoidance', says Swiss study

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: PHILIPPE ROY / AURIMAGES VIA AFP 17:30 pm, April 23, 2023

Media coverage of climate change research is more likely to provoke "denial and avoidance" among readers than the "pro-environmental behaviors" needed to solve the problem, according to a Swiss study. It focuses mainly on long-term projections and a limited range of threats such as melting glaciers or the disappearance of polar bears, according to a group of researchers at the University of Lausanne (UNIL) specializing in geosciences and psychology.

However, "this type of narrative would not activate the mechanisms known in psychology to engage pro-environmental behaviors in readers. This selection could even provoke denial and avoidance," they said, according to a statement.

Individuals do not feel concerned

To conduct this study, published in the scientific journal Global Environmental Change, researchers analyzed some 50,000 scientific publications on climate change for the year 2020 and examined those that were picked up in the mainstream media. The analysis revealed that the media tends to relay mostly research from the natural sciences, and focus on large-scale climate projections that will occur in the distant future.

>> READ ALSO - Earth Day: seabed, thermal cars... The five good news for the planet

"Individuals exposed to these facts, not feeling directly concerned, will tend towards a peripheral, superficial and distracted processing of information. But only a central, deep and attentive consideration allows the public to transform what it knows into mechanisms of action and commitment," warned Fabrizio Butera, professor of psychology at UNIL and co-author of this study. "If the goal of a given research is to have a societal impact, then it seems that we are pressing all the buttons that do not work," said Marie-Elodie Perga, co-author of the article and professor at the Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics of UNIL, in the same press release.

Ignore the problem

Large-scale threats are known to stir up fear, and when faced with descriptive articles, the public will tend to ignore the problem, according to the researchers. "Research on human behavior demonstrates that fear can lead to behavior change in individuals and groups, but only if the problem presented is accompanied by solutions," Butera said.

>> READ ALSO - Fear, anger, sadness... Is eco-anxiety really a problem?

"Faced with purely descriptive articles, the public will thus tend to hide the problem, look for less anxiety-provoking information and surround themselves with networks that present them with a more serene reality," the statement said. "The treatment of environmental topics in a transversal and solution-oriented way would be useful" to elicit reactions from the general public, according to Marie-Elodie Perga. "It would be to show that climate change has direct consequences on our lifestyles, our immediate environment or our finances, for example."