WEBVTT - S14, Ep 3 | The Psychology of Misinformation: Why Does It Work So Well? 0:00:02.000 --> 0:00:04.880 Welcome back to DRILL. I'm Amy Westervelt, and over the 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:07.400 next couple months, I'm prepping to go to my very 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:11.960 first COP. That stands for Conference of the Parties. It's 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:15.080 an annual UN climate summit that brings together all the 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.760 countries that are parties to the UN Framework Convention on 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:23.160 Climate Change or unf Triple C. It's true I've been 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:25.799 a climate reporter for more than twenty years and have 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.280 somehow managed to avoid going to COP all this time. 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:32.720 I'm going this year because it relates to a couple 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:35.640 of projects we're working on for next year, and because 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:39.559 the organizing committee from Brazil has vowed to make climate 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:45.280 information integrity a focus of this year's gathering. That's important because, 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:49.040 as we'll learn today, climate miss and disinformation is a 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:51.400 huge part of the reason the world has not acted 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.840 on this issue. I'm also curious to get a front 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:58.920 row seat because there's a real crisis of legitimacy happening 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:03.400 with the COPS. This year is COP thirty. That means 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.959 they've been happening for thirty years, and we don't seem 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:12.720 any closer to a global solution to climate change than 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.160 we were thirty years ago. I'm also interested to see 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:20.600 what happens when one of the world's biggest obstructors, the 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:24.960 United States, decides not to go. Who will pick up 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:32.080 the slack? Will it be Saudi, Yes, but also Japan, 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:37.320 even Europe. A lot of negotiators are heading into cop 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:45.199 wanting to protect their countries, resources, their countries' approach to markets, 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.120 all of those things. So it will be interesting to 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:52.280 see what happens up close. And to get ready, I'm 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.120 reading this new book from the Climate Social Science Network 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:00.440 that pulls together everything we currently know about climate instruction 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.919 all over the world. It's great prep for this conference. 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:08.079 I'm joined today by two researchers who look at how 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:13.359 misinformation functions, why it's so effective, and what can be 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:17.760 done to combat it. John Cook is a Senior Research 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.880 Fellow with the Melbourne Center for Behavior Change at the 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:25.280 University of Melbourne, researching how to use critical thinking to 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:29.520 counter misinformation. You might have seen his research referenced in 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:33.799 the past around the idea of paltering, a misinformation technique 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:37.480 that the oil companies love, where you use accurate bits 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:41.120 of information assembled in such a way that they mislead people. 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:45.640 Also joining us is Dominic Stecula. He's an assistant professor 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:50.120 of political science at Colorado State University whose research focuses 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:54.680 on the information environment and its effects on society. We 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:58.480 talked about all sorts of things, from the rule ideology, polarization, 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:04.200 and social media play in misinformation to concepts like solutions, aversion, 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:08.760 and elite cues. That's coming up after this quick break. 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:13.240 This is Drilled Season fourteen obstruction. 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:33.160 I'm sure you guys get asked this one hundred times 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.120 a week, but I'm asky to do it again. Can 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:41.080 I have you define the difference between misinformation and disinformation? 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:43.680 And I think you make this really interesting point about 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.960 the fact that intentionality maybe doesn't matter so much here, 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:49.680 so I'd love to hear you say more about that 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:50.080 as well. 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.120 In this literature on misinformation and disinformation, a lot of 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:59.040 attention has been paid to intentionality, right, And the basic 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:04.480 definition of misinformation is a false or misleading content that's 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:09.320 shared without any intent to deceive, whereas disinformation is shared 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:12.880 with intent to deceive. But what we say in the 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:18.360 chapter is that on climate and really often in most 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:24.000 other things, intent is unknowable, right. Sometimes you get to 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.479 know the intent through the release of private correspondence of 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.719 a certain cable network, for example, right, But in general, 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:38.240 intent is unknowable, and the same claim like volcanoes emit 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:42.960 more co two than humans, misleads audiences regardless of whether 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.880 the person sharing it wants to deceive or doesn't. So 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:51.440 we think that it's better to focus on what these 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:55.159 claims do, and what they do is they erode understanding 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.479 and ultimately stall any meaningful climate action. 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:03.599 And I would just add to that that when people 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:10.160 believe misinformation, they will often make arguments that look exactly 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:14.400 the same from the outside, using the same misleading techniques 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.520 as people who are intentionally trying to deceive. And the 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.080 reason for that is because when we are motivated to 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:28.919 believe something, we gravitate towards these different biases. And for example, 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:32.560 we might be biased towards believing certain types of information, 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.599 and that leads us to cherry pick data, So just 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:38.400 pick the bits of information that suit our beliefs and 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:42.640 ignore all the information that contradicts our beliefs. So someone 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.480 might be cherry picking because they're biased, or they might 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.479 be cherry picking because they're intentionally trying to deceive people 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.520 you don't know from the outside self deception looks exactly 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.480 the same as intentional deception from the outside. 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:01.480 Right. Interesting, Okay, Can I have you find the elaboration 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.599 likelihood model of attitude change and talk about how it 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.360 shows up when we're talking about climate misinformation. 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:14.560 So it's a big theory in psychology and communications, and 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.480 the gist of it is that we tend to process 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:23.919 messages in different ways. Sometimes it's via central route and 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.480 that's the careful evaluation, and we do that when we're 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:32.960 motivated and able to really evaluate a claim or the messages. 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.920 This processed through the peripheral route, so things like shortcuts 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.760 like you know, using a specific source, a vibe, quote unquote, 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:45.239 an identity, and we do that when we have limited 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:49.560 time or ability to really process and evaluate the claim. 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:55.760 Since climate is a very complex issue, most people tend 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.320 to lean on the ladder, on the peripheral route, on 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.680 the shortcuts they don't really have have frequently the ability 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:05.920 and sometimes time to really process carefully the claims. But 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.719 that's how ELM really pops up in the context of 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:12.440 climate misinformation because we tend to rely on this peripheral route, 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:16.280 on these shortcuts that we take mental shortcuts like who's 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:20.480 saying things, what's the vibe, the identity behind the speaker, 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:24.040 the identity that's triggered by the thing that's claimed. So 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:28.120 that's really the kind of the underlying basis for how 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.680 this pops up in the broader context of climate misinformation. 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.840 Yeah, I had never seen this before and it was 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.760 really really interesting for me, so appreciate it. 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:44.240 It's similar to some of the kind of Danny Kanama 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:46.840 and the kind of thinking fast and slow, kind of 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.880 cognitive you know, system one, system two thinking. It's it's 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:55.920 a similar similar idea, But yeah, that's that's kind of 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.360 I think how I would it's there's obviously more to 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:00.920 it than this, but that's how I would. I would 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:04.040 kind of characterize where it fits in the context of 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.400 what we're talking about, right, And a broad idea is that, 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:11.240 let's say, a twenty second clip from a politician you 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:17.520 trust can outweigh an eight hundred word explainer because the 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:21.040 clip hits this peripheral route, right, the identity, the emotion, 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.920 whereas the explainer demands a lot more cognitive effort that 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:26.760 you might not have. 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:32.679 And a lot of misinformation arguments are superficially persuasive, They 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.600 just flow. They might have a logical fallacy, but they 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.800 just have a kind of a fly to it that 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:45.640 that sounds kind of truthy to people. Yeah. 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.240 Yeah, public opinion comes up a lot in this and 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:52.040 obviously one of the key, maybe the key uses of 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.720 misinformation is to shape public opinion. But i'd love to 0:08:55.840 --> 0:09:00.480 have you actually define what that means for people and 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:05.800 then talk a little bit about how climate misinformation works 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:09.600 to sort of shape public opinion in one direction or another. 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:14.079 You mentioned this bottom up and top down approaches in 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.840 the paper too, and it'd be great to have you 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:17.840 explain what that is. 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:23.000 So, yeah, with public opinion, it can cover a couple 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:26.560 of different things. Like one of the obvious things is 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.520 people's perceptions about climate change. Do they think that climate 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.160 change is happening and human cause and that the impacts 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.320 will be bad? And we talked more specifically about those 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:40.240 beliefs later in the chapter. But it also extends to 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:44.880 people's attitudes about climate action. Do they support policies to 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:49.320 mitigate climate change? Do they support renewable energy? And so 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:55.679 there's that whole mix of perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes, and 0:09:55.720 --> 0:10:02.320 misinformation has several aims. It's about using people's perceptions about 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:06.720 climate change, but ultimately it's about reducing public support for 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:07.360 climate action. 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.920 I'll just add maybe more and more just broader kind 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.840 of meta as a as a political scientist, you know, 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:20.480 public opinion is this really important feature of you know, 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:24.559 democratics theory, right, and what we think of as what 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:29.360 makes democratic society actually democratic. Right, And the idea is 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:33.120 that this kind of aggregation of what people think and 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:39.080 want should be reflected in what the politicians do and 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:43.359 the policies that the government ends up pursuing. 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:43.800 Right. 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:49.040 So though in many ways public opinion in theory at 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:54.280 least should be the driver the push or stall of policy, 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:59.199 and in the context of climate change, it definitely can 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:04.560 stall it as well. So misinformation in that context kind 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:08.160 of tilts that playing field because it makes action harder 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:13.360 even when majorities support and believe in climate change and 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:15.960 support certain kinds of climate action. As we've seen in 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.319 a lot of polling in the United States but also 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.360 in other countries in terms of the bottom up versus 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:29.600 top down movements and pushing on public opinion. The idea 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.439 is that you know, in terms of bottom up, everyday 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:38.800 average people can share things they believe or you know, 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:43.840 they wrongly believed in terms of misinformed claims, and because 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.280 of how we structure our time and the kind of 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:49.559 virtual spaces in which we tend to spend a lot 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.960 of our time at using you know, social media, et cetera, 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:58.840 that bottom up pressure. You know, viral claims that are 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:05.280 misinformed impact public opinion, right when when unchecked, misinformation spreading 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.120 on social media can really do a lot of damage. 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.680 So that's the bottom bottom up component. The top down 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.920 component is the elites, you know, and by elites I 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:22.720 mean I mean here politicians, interest groups of all kinds, 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:29.360 including the fossil fuel industry. They can see certain narratives 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:33.880 and influence the public. Public then public then repeats those claims. 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:39.319 So the top down bottom up dynamic is mutually reinforcing. 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.959 In many ways, they reinforce each other, right, Like a 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.160 lot of the claims that one unquote organically show up 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:50.760 on social media have been supplied by elites, by interest groups. 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:51.040 Right. 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:55.080 So, for example, in the context of climate misinformation, you 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:59.920 can have a meme about evs being dirtier than gascar, 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:04.439 and that might spread on social media and it may 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:07.600 appear to be something that's organic that that people are 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:08.960 just sharing among themselves. 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.160 But where did that come from? Where did it originate? 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:16.800 Well, frequently those types of tidbits, those types of misinformed, 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:22.079 misinformed content, they originate with the lobbying group, with a 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.280 specific interest group that has a vested interest in spreading 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:29.240 a certain narrative. So in that sense that the kind 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.160 of bottom up and top down influences of public opinion 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:37.520 are mutually reinforcing because one feeds into another, and then 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:42.760 that pushes public opinion into into places that is maybe 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:46.880 less than ideal because it is based on information that 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:50.920 is not truthful, not correct, and ultimately deceiving. 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:56.440 Okay, so you talk about the the fact that Americans 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:01.560 aligned with the Republican Party are more skeptical now of 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:05.480 climate science than they were in the nineteen nineties, and 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:07.520 kind of use that as a jumping off point to 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:11.199 talk about the role that ideology plays and shaping climate opinions, 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:14.880 and then you know how climate misinformation kind of plays 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:16.920 into that. So I'd love to have you talk a 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:19.240 little bit about ideology and just the role that it 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:23.760 plays in climate misinformation, which I realized you could probably 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:28.920 spend two hours plus plus, but I don't know. I guess, yeah, 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.800 how does it work and why is it such an 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:35.960 indicator of how effective climate misinformation will be. 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:40.680 In the psychology field, we talk about the concept of 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:45.520 solutions a version, which is the idea that when people 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:50.200 don't lack a proposed solution to a problem, then they're 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:52.400 more likely to deny that as a problem in the 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:56.080 first place, and we see this with climate change. Political 0:14:56.160 --> 0:15:00.200 conservatives often done let I lack some of the They 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:05.040 often proposed solutions to climate change, such as regulating fossil 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:08.640 fuels and trying to reduce emissions in that way, and 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:11.880 so rather than coming up with their own free market 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:17.280 solutions to climate change, instead, unfortunately they deny the problem 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:21.160 needs solving. And so this is really the main driver 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:27.480 of why political ideology shapes people's climate opinions. And really, 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:30.200 back in the early nineteen nineties, we were at this 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:36.280 crossroad where the problem of climate change was becoming more real, 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:39.560 like the scientists were becoming clear on the need to 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:44.040 act on climate change, and conservative groups really had this 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:48.040 option where they could have either proposed conservative solutions to 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.560 climate change or denied the problem. And it's a real 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:56.640 historic tragedy that instead the conservative think tanks opted to 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:59.920 deny the problem and produce misinformation, and ever since then 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:05.720 misinformation has been polluting the information landscape and polarizing the public. 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:10.120 Yeah, totally agree with everything John said. 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:12.120 I mean, a few things I would add is that 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:17.960 when we think of ideology, most people, at least in 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:24.480 the United States, they are not consistently liberal or conservative 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.640 right people kind of views that are all over the place. 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:34.560 But increasingly, in a polarized political landscape like ours, the 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.600 society is sorting along those partisan minds more and more 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:44.520 so than ever before. Historically, when you knew the fact 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:48.560 that somebody is a liberal or conservative, you know, forty 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:52.240 fifty years ago, that didn't really predict your ability to 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:56.360 guess whether they're a Democrat or Republican, right, because there 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.920 were liberals and conservatives in both parties. There were south 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:04.159 and racist Democrats, and there were northern kind of liberal 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:06.440 Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller. 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.560 To a certain extent that no longer exists. 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:13.960 Right, the ideology and partisanship are sorted in a sense 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.320 that if I now know that somebody identifies as a conservative, 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:22.240 I have a pretty good guess that they also are 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:23.080 a Republican. 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:27.359 And say, with liberals and Democrats. 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:33.719 And Essentially, ideology matters for climate views because artisanship and 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:37.160 partisan polarization that kind of drives a lot of our 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.919 politics these days. Climate is one of the issues on 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:46.200 which parties have polarized. And that simply means that if 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.520 you want to be a member of good standing of 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:53.439 the Republican Party, you know that you need to be 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:58.679 against climate action, right, you need to be opposed to know, 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:03.040 socialist leftists who want to implement certain policies. I'm obviously 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:07.040 using air quotes here, which is not very useful tools 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:12.640 for radio. That you know, that's that's that's an access 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:17.480 of major division in society now in the United States, 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:23.520 and and that essentially translates to this tribal way of 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:27.399 thinking about climate because you know what's expected of people 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.879 in your political tribe to believe, so any kind of 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:34.119 thoughtful engagement with any kind of facts, et cetera, that 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:35.560 comes second to that. 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:35.800 Right. 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:39.720 When something becomes more of an identity than just a 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.080 belief about a specific thing, it's much harder to change 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.119 that right because it is part of a package of 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:51.080 things that you choose to identify as So ideology in 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.440 that context is also. 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:56.040 Proubling for climate views. 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.960 In the context of polarized American politics because ideology and 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.840 partisanship are very tight together now and it's one of 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:09.080 those divisive things where there's a lot less room for 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:13.359 actual thoughtful debate now because it's one of those issues 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:15.480 in which the public is polarized, and you just know 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:18.560 that if you're left or right, that's the view you're 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:19.239 supposed to have. 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:20.400 End of discussion. 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:27.080 Yeah, okay, can you define for me elite cues and 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:31.200 tell me about how they shape public opinion on climate change? 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:32.560 What are these things? 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:37.320 I can say a few things since published under but 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:44.000 essentially cues coming from trusted leaders, And in the context 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:50.120 of climate change, we mostly mean leaders like politicians. And 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:55.560 you know, in given that American politics is so polarized 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:58.680 and politics is an important part of how people kind 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:05.680 of see themselves, messages coming from major political figures carry right. 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:10.040 They're important because politics is important. But it doesn't just 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:17.480 mean politicians. It also means other trusted societal for the 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:22.880 lack of a better word, influencers, right like religious leaders, celebrities, etc. 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:26.720 The elite queues would essentially be messages that come from 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:31.840 trusted opinion sources that have the power to sway public opinion. 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:34.960 They matter in the context of what we're talking about 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:40.920 here because they not only can influence how your own 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:44.879 team thinks about something, but they can also influence how 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:50.360 the other team thinks. So one example being The Inconvenient 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:54.879 Truth the movie and al Gore being a main messenger 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:59.119 when climate change really became a very salient issue in 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:04.160 the early two thousands. Al Gore was a trusted opinion 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:08.360 leader for a lot of Democrats as a presidential candidate 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:12.199 and a former two term vice president. But what we 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:16.200 might now forget is that he was also a very 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:23.480 disliked figure on the right. His assessment on among Republicans 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.800 in the United States was as negative as Hillary Clintons 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:30.280 in twenty sixteen, for example, right, he was a very 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.880 polarizing figure. And the reason why I bring him up 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:39.320 is that because he was the messenger, he obviously moved 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:43.080 Democrats in a pro climate direction because he was a 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:45.680 trusted leader on their side, but because he was so 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:51.480 hated by the other side, he also moved Republicans in 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:55.639 the other direction, just because the kind of the logic 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:58.680 is if the person that you really hate says something, 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:02.640 then you're just gonna almost by default to the opposite right. 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:06.639 And that's the power of elite cues in the sense 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:10.199 that they can move, they can move your team, but 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:14.040 they can also do some damage by if you're choosing 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.959 the wrong messenger, it can really backfire in a sense 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:21.520 of making people really skeptical of what the content of 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.520 the message is because the messenger is so distrusted and 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:25.119 so dislike. 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:27.960 And I'll just add to that, A couple of studies 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:31.800 have looked at what drives public opinion about climate change, 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:35.560 looking at all the different factors such as economic factors 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:39.320 and an elite cues, and they found that elite cues 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.520 are one of the biggest drivers of public opinion about 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:46.879 climate change, which really understoodes that people are travel as 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:50.919 Dominique was saying earlier, and so when out tribal leaders 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:54.680 giving us these cues in a certain direction, people tend 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:55.159 to follow that. 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:58.960 I actually was just listening earlier today to like old 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:03.320 c Span tape of the head of the r n 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:07.000 C at the time during the Gore Bush election, like 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:12.520 laying into decre who she was actually you know, Bruce 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:17.840 Harrison's wife too, which is like a whole weird connection 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:23.679 in and of itself. And not a coincidence. I'm sure, Okay, 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:27.200 So I want to talk about the news media again. 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:29.480 I feel like this each of these topics could like 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:32.600 be you know, the whole long discussion in and of themselves, 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:37.439 but in broad strokes, what role does the news media 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:43.520 play in shaping public opinion, especially on climate and what 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:49.040 has it done to kind of either amplify or try 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:50.840 to correct misinformation. 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:57.000 So the media have in some cases helped amplifile spread 0:23:57.040 --> 0:24:03.919 climate misinformation, and sometimes it's intentional, sometimes it's unintentional. Conservative 0:24:04.000 --> 0:24:08.040 media outlets have been a particularly as time has gone on, 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:13.240 they've gotten worse at it, have been quite a productive 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:17.880 source of climate misinformation, and so that's more of an 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:23.120 intentional misleading the public kind of source. But you also 0:24:23.200 --> 0:24:28.600 have unintentional misinforming, such as when just mainstream media present 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:33.520 climate change as a false balance where they give both 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:38.040 sides of an issue equal weight, which is entirely appropriate 0:24:38.200 --> 0:24:43.400 when it's issues of political opinion or policy, but when 0:24:43.400 --> 0:24:47.080 it comes to issues where there's a scientific consensus, then 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:50.080 presenting like a fifty to fifty debate between a scientist 0:24:50.160 --> 0:24:54.600 and a climate denier just has a misinforming effect. So 0:24:55.280 --> 0:24:57.520 I mean, we were talking at the beginning about misinformation 0:24:57.600 --> 0:25:00.520 and disinformation and how difficult it is to the difference 0:25:00.560 --> 0:25:03.000 between the two. We see that with how media have 0:25:03.400 --> 0:25:07.200 covered climate change too, whether it's intentional or not. There 0:25:07.240 --> 0:25:09.679 are these different ways of misinforming the public. 0:25:11.200 --> 0:25:15.720 Yet the false balance that Jones referring to the norm 0:25:15.840 --> 0:25:17.760 in a lot of newsrooms. 0:25:17.160 --> 0:25:22.520 And the profound fear of being seen as biased, leads 0:25:22.560 --> 0:25:26.800 to certain types of coverage that that, like John highlighted. 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:30.320 Is not ideal in the context of a scientific issue. 0:25:31.440 --> 0:25:33.399 I think that the problem with a lot of the 0:25:34.480 --> 0:25:38.320 of the media, including non partisan media. So I'm not 0:25:38.359 --> 0:25:43.639 even talking now about certain cable news networks or explicity 0:25:43.720 --> 0:25:47.639 partisan sources of information, but just your run of the 0:25:47.680 --> 0:25:52.600 mill mainstream news sources outside of even just the false balance, 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:55.840 which which is wrong and should be avoided. What has 0:25:55.880 --> 0:26:01.159 happened is that increasingly, as the public has alarized on 0:26:01.200 --> 0:26:06.400 this issue, the issue is presented more as a political 0:26:06.440 --> 0:26:10.800 one than a scientific one. I've done a big study 0:26:10.880 --> 0:26:15.159 with content analysis of climate change coverage, looking at decades 0:26:15.440 --> 0:26:20.040 of climate change and global warming news in American media 0:26:20.840 --> 0:26:25.400 starting in the nineties and going going into twenty sixteen. 0:26:25.920 --> 0:26:30.720 And what has happened is experts are futured prominently, which 0:26:30.760 --> 0:26:35.000 is good, but increasingly they share the space with politicians, 0:26:35.640 --> 0:26:40.400 and a lot of coverage includes references and quotes from politicians, 0:26:40.480 --> 0:26:44.600 and the moment politicians kind of crowd out the experts. 0:26:45.520 --> 0:26:49.000 To people on the receiving end, to the news consumers, 0:26:49.080 --> 0:26:53.359 it just becomes a partisan issue and not a scientific issue. 0:26:53.880 --> 0:26:57.480 So in that sense, it isn't just a false balance 0:26:57.720 --> 0:27:02.320 of all. We need to present this issue in a 0:27:02.440 --> 0:27:04.640 quote unquote balanced and fair way. 0:27:05.119 --> 0:27:08.000 We don't want to be called, you know, partisan hacks. 0:27:08.080 --> 0:27:10.119 So we're going to have a pro climate change and 0:27:10.160 --> 0:27:14.119 an anti climate change person on. Even beyond that, the 0:27:14.160 --> 0:27:20.040 sheer fact that the volume of politicians in the climate 0:27:20.119 --> 0:27:24.320 change coverage has helped to polarize the public and make 0:27:24.400 --> 0:27:29.000 it an issue where to be a good member, to 0:27:29.040 --> 0:27:32.560 be a member in good standing of the of a 0:27:32.600 --> 0:27:36.680 certain political party, you need to have a specific political 0:27:36.720 --> 0:27:37.760 position on that issue. 0:27:37.840 --> 0:27:41.639 Yeah. I've been a reporter for a long time and 0:27:41.680 --> 0:27:44.920