Impacts of adaptation and responsibility framings on attitudes towards climate change mitigation

It is likely that climate change communications and media coverage will increasingly stress the importance of adaptation, yet little is known about whether or how this may affect attitudes towards mitigation. Despite concerns that communicating adaptation could undermine public support for mitigation, previous research has found it can have the opposite effect by increasing risk salience. It is also unclear whether people respond differently to information about mitigation and adaptation depending on whether action is framed as an individual or government responsibility. Using an experimental design, this study sought to examine how public attitudes towards mitigation are influenced by varying climate change messages, and how this might interact with prior attitudes to climate change. UK-based participants (N = 800) read one of four texts in a 2 × 2 design comparing adaptation versus mitigation information and personal versus governmental action. No main effect was found for adaptation versus mitigation framing, nor for individual action versus government policy, but we did observe a series of interaction effects with prior attitudes to climate change. Mitigation and adaptation information affected participants’ responses differently depending on their pre-existing levels of concern about climate change, suggesting that mitigation framings may be more engaging for those with high levels of concern, whereas adaptation framings may be more engaging for low-concern individuals. Government mitigation action appears to engender particularly polarised attitudes according to prior concern. Implications for climate change communications are considered

Rhetoric for the disciplines: A theory of writing and language instruction for students of interdisciplinary and applied sciences

As academic disciplines have advanced the integration of disciplines interdisciplinary collaborative structures have become increasingly important and desired. In particular, wholly interdisciplinary disciplines such as environmental science have developed representing a growing class of emergent sciences. Yet interdisciplinary work presents some very real challenges to cherished academic traditions, including the way writing and communication in and across the disciplines are taught. A primary challenge is that interdisciplinary work is entangled in social, political, and public concerns, and greatly distanced from the ideals of an imagined fundamental and apolitical science. This dissertation presents research on some of the common communicative barriers that emerge when professionals from divergent disciplines collaborate to address applied public concerns, such as sustainability. Some of the primary barriers that emerge in interdisciplinary work include discrepancies rooted in divergent disciplinary frameworks, divergent methodological frameworks, divergent beliefs about the social context of research, disagreements regarding disciplinary terminology, and inequities rooted in the design and management of collaborations. A central cause of these communicative barriers that emerge in interdisciplinary work is the absence of a rhetorical dialogue. Without a rhetorical dialogue, this dissertation shows, collaborators act more or less within their own disciplinary framework, which impedes the ability to collaborate effectively. This dissertation contributes to ongoing work in disciplinary writing research by revealing how cherished practices in Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) may serve to reinforce disciplinary assumptions that impede interdisciplinary work. This dissertation concludes with suggestions for utilizing existing rhetorical theories such as activity systems theory, conceptual metaphor theory, genre awareness pedagogy, and the analysis of hybrid forums to provide an improved rhetoric curriculum for professionals that will participate in interdisciplinary work. The dissertation also suggests ways that WPAs can use interest in innovation, leadership, and critical thinking to promote this type of rhetoric curriculum