The effects of narrative and statistical messaging about air quality

ABSTRACT

Air pollution is among the world’s greatest environmental health threats. Still, little strategic communication research has addressed it. We report two pre-registered experiments examining narrative and statistical message effects. Study 1 (N = 1,282, U.S.) showed little effect for either. Study 2 (N = 754, California), which accounted for potentially problematic design features of Study 1, found effects for both types across a range of attitudinal outcomes (emotional response, efficacy, risk). Narrative messaging also had a small effect on mitigation intention. Carefully designed messages may produce positive changes on this issue, but success depends on alignment between message construction, recommended behaviors, and audience relevance.

KEYWORDS:

• Health communication
• environmental communication
• air quality
• narrative
• valence framing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The Open Scholarship notice immediately below includes a link to the data. This can be included above as well: The data and materials areopenly accessible at http://osf.io/2su7x/.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data, Open Materials and Preregistered. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/2su7x/, and https://osf.io/2su7x/registrations.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2023.2282037

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dima Farooq

Dima Farooq is an undergraduate at the University of Utah and members of the course COMM 5820: Designing Experiments in Science Communication.

Kushal Gautam

Kushal Gautam is an undergraduate at the University of Utah and members of the course COMM 5820: Designing Experiments in Science Communication.

Zainab Hadi

Zainab Hadi is an undergraduate at the University of Utah and members of the course COMM 5820: Designing Experiments in Science Communication.

Bailey Hardiman

Bailey Hardiman is an undergraduate at the University of Utah and members of the course COMM 5820: Designing Experiments in Science Communication.

Luisa Delgado Heinz

Luisa Delgado Heinz is an undergraduate at the University of Utah and members of the course COMM 5820: Designing Experiments in Science Communication.

Seth Sanders

Seth Sanders is an undergraduate at the University of Utah and members of the course COMM 5820: Designing Experiments in Science Communication.

Sammie Serrano

Sammie Serrano is an undergraduate at the University of Utah and members of the course COMM 5820: Designing Experiments in Science Communication.

Marisol Solis

Marisol Solis is an undergraduate at the University of Utah and members of the course COMM 5820: Designing Experiments in Science Communication.

Taylor Trent

Taylor Trent is an undergraduate at the University of Utah and members of the course COMM 5820: Designing Experiments in Science Communication.

Bobbie Wilde

Bobbie Wilde is an undergraduate at the University of Utah and members of the course COMM 5820: Designing Experiments in Science Communication.

Jared Williams

Jared Williams is an undergraduate at the University of Utah and members of the course COMM 5820: Designing Experiments in Science Communication.

Benjamin Lyons

Ben Lyons is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Utah studying the intersection of media, politics, and public understanding of science.