SCIENTIFIC ELITES AND CONCERN FOR GLOBAL WARMING: THE IMPACT OF DISAGREEMENT, EVIDENCE STRENGTH, PARTISAN CUES, AND EXPOSURE TO NEWS CONTENT ON CONCERN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

Scientific elites are a key source of environmental news. Yet, how these elites influence public concern for environmental topics via the news media is relatively unknown. This study experimentally examined the influence of such elites using the test issue of global climate change. We hypothesized that elite scientific agreement would increase central message processing, and that partisan cues would activate partisan beliefs. The results showed that none of the main experimental manipulations had any independent influence on concern for this issue: whether scientists were presented as agreeing or disagreeing, whether scientific evidence was strong or weak, and whether political cues were present or absent did not influence concern for global warming. Concern was primarily explained by environmental concern, and, to a lesser extent, by political ideology. Thus, in this study, attitudes about global warming do not appear to be influenced by strong scientific evidence even when scientists are presented as agreeing. However, such evidence has a reasonable claim to make as important information upon which the public "should" base attitudes about issues such as global warming