New publication: Take action now: Motivational framing and action requests in climate advocacy

Environmental Communication cover

Environmental Communication, edited by Matthew C. Nisbet

Today the journal Environmental Communication published an article I wrote called Take Action Now: Motivational Framing and Action Requests in Climate Advocacy. Here’s an abstract from the article:

This article explores similarities and differences between Internet- mediated climate change advocacy organizations and their legacy counterparts. It relies on a content analysis of advocacy emails produced by Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA, League of Conservation Voters, Climate Reality Project, 1Sky, and 350.org. The study finds differences and similarities in strategic Internet use, including greater emphasis by climate groups on high threshold, offline actions; greater emphasis by legacy groups on low threshold, online actions; and high reliance by both framings that demand accountability from political elites. Implications for Internet-mediated and climate advocacy are discussed.

The article draws on a data set of emails compiled by David Karpf, to whom I’m thankful for granting me access to them. As usual I welcome comments and questions about this research.

Luis Hestres

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