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Does exposure to opposing views contribute to breaking down science skepticism? In this study, we contribute to the debate by examining reactions to opposing views within a major climate change skeptic online community on “Reddit.” A large sample of posts (N = 3000) was manually coded according to whether they were opposed to climate skepticism or not, which allowed the automated classification of the full dataset of more than 50,000 posts, with codes inferred from linked websites. We find that confrontation with opposing views triggered activity in the forum, particularly among users who are highly engaged with the community. Those engaging with such views were also more likely to comment again. In other words, light engagement with opposition reinforced the community we study, rather than undermining it. Considering our findings, defensive or preventive policies appear more promising than strategies to actively counter systematic and persistent skepticism of scientific issues.
Aviation contributes substantially to anthropogenic climate change. This paper situates individual behaviour changes alongside technological efficiency gains and policy processes in the search for significant emission reduction in the aviation sector.
Using online survey methodology (N = 393) and expanding upon existing psychological perspectives on individual attitudes and behaviours, this study focuses on the social influence on air travel.
Considering social identity and global social networks, two new instruments, the Cosmopolitan Identity Scale (CIS) and the Global Social Interconnectedness Score (GSIS), were introduced to capture the social drivers of air travel within standardized questionnaires. Different subgroups of travellers were clustered and compared along external and psychological variables, to allow the construction of more effective policies in the aviation sector.
Overall, the awareness of environmental problems caused by flying led to a perceived dilemma between environmental attitudes and travel, which resulted in the engagement with carbon offsets. The global social interconnectedness, built through international experience, led to increased travel to visit friends and family, and an overall increase in flight kilometres. The social identification as a cosmopolitan was related to social media use and predicted flight kilometres directly, implying a particular sensitivity to social norm messages in online campaigns.
In the past two decades, research on so-called climate engineering approaches has increased. These technologies are considered to be potential substitutes for mitigation strategies in combating climate change. The ongoing process of layperson acceptance and resultant opinion formation can be expected to play a crucial role in future public debate about field experiments or the actual deployment of climate engineering.
In July 2017, we assessed public reactions from the German population in a representative online survey. Participants were given a brief text informing them about climate change and one of four different scenarios in a between-subject design (N = 678). Two of the scenarios described the use of climate engineering technologies - stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) and bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) - one of them covered conventional mitigation strategies and the fourth group was given an outline of the business-as-usual (BAU) approach.
The mitigation scenario (willingness for individual behaviour changes) showed the highest acceptance rate (M = 74.23), which was significantly higher than acceptance of the other scenarios (p < .001). Acceptance of BECCS (M = 53.15) was higher than acceptance of SAI (M = 46.25, p = .043) and BAU (M = 42.94; p = .006). We undertook a relative-importance analysis to investigate the influence of multiple predictor variables on acceptance formation for each scenario; the variance thus explained ranged from 80.3% to 86.8%. The results point up the influence of perceived risks, subjective norms and affective responses on the acceptance of climate engineering technologies. By contrast, person-specific and relatively stable variables, such as environmental attitudes and wishful thinking, are particularly relevant in the evaluation of the mitigation scenario.
A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy
(2023)
One of today’s most controversial and consequential issues is whether the global uptake of digital media is causally related to a decline in democracy. We conducted a systematic review of causal and correlational evidence (N = 496 articles) on the link between digital media use and different political variables. Some associations, such as increasing political participation and information consumption, are likely to be beneficial for democracy and were often observed in autocracies and emerging democracies. Other associations, such as declining political trust, increasing populism and growing polarization, are likely to be detrimental to democracy and were more pronounced in established democracies. While the impact of digital media on political systems depends on the specific variable and system in question, several variables show clear directions of associations. The evidence calls for research efforts and vigilance by governments and civil societies to better understand, design and regulate the interplay of digital media and democracy.
The public discourse is an essential element of democracy. Today, political information consumption is largely mediated through digital technologies and important political discussions have moved to online platforms. This dissertation examines different elements and dynamics of the online public discourse within five research articles. First, a systematic review synthesizes evidence on the broader relationship between digital media and democracy, which highly depends on political context. While most beneficial effects of information access and political participation can be found in autocratic regimes and emerging democracies, there is more reason for concern in established democracies where negative effects on political trust, populism and polarization accumulate.
Next, using digital trace data combined with survey data to zoom into the political information ecosystem in Germany, I find that it consists of far more than news media, but that in-depth political discussions also take place in seemingly unpolitical niches of the internet. While the user base of online public broadcasting consists of a comparably narrow audience, most citizens consume political content via mainstream information hubs that can provide a common basis for public discourse. The most predictive variable for selection into political information consumption is political knowledge, not partisanship. However, people who actively write comments online show more extreme political opinions, highlighting differences between active and passive political engagement online. This differential selection pattern is further mirrored in the final project, where high levels of social media activity also relate to stronger comment toxicity.
An agenda to reduce online toxicity requires an efficient method to measure the quality of online discussions. Using discussion data from Reddit, I compare simple computational measures to manual content coding and find that an automated toxicity classifier combined with the length of comments corresponds to established indicators of deliberative quality. I then develop a preemptive strategy with the aim to reduce toxicity in political discussions among highly active social media users. Testing various behavioral interventions, I find that simple ‘nudges’ in the user interface do not reduce the toxicity of comments. However, mixed findings on a more complex ‘boosting’ intervention, explaining the role of empathy and perspective taking for political discussions, evince opportunities to open up online public discourse for those who may otherwise be silenced by high levels of toxicity.
Especially when combined with established approaches of survey methodology and content analysis, computational social science commands many tools to map elements and dynamics of the online public discourse from a holistic perspective. This does not only bear potential to reconnect theoretical ideals of the public sphere with real life online, but it also enables the generation of evidence for policymakers and civil society to keep up with the pace of the fast moving target of digital media.