Study: Featuring Skeptics in News Media Stories Reduces Public Beliefs in the Seriousness of Global Warming

Woods Institute for the Environment informs about the Stanford University study, a working paper which documents how climate change skeptics can affect Americans’ thinking about climate change. A synopsis of the study can be found here, including videos used in the study that feature interviews of mainstream and skeptical scientists discussing global warming issues.

News media coverage of global warming has often offered "balanced" accounts, quoting mainstream scientists and skeptics in the same story. Balanced accounts might be considered admirable efforts to abide by the journalistic norms of objectivity and fairness. However, critics have noted that balanced reporting of this particular issue actually conveys a misleading portrait of the science of climate change, since scientists endorsing the mainstream view appear to outnumber skeptics. Our study explored the impact of including skeptical voices in news media coverage. In particular, we explored whether adding a skeptic to a story about a mainstream scientist’s views or findings would reduce the number of people who perceive agreement among scientific experts on this issue and think global warming is a serious problem.

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