Anthropogenic global change is at the point that sustainable behavior must be widely adopted to have an impact. Messages regarding sustainability must reach a broad audience, including people uninformed about or disinterested in the topic. This presents a challenge for scientists, many of whom are not trained as communicators.
We conducted an online survey of 4,223 American adults to learn about their awareness of environmental issues and the sources of information they learn from. When combined with demographic data, the results provide insight on where to place future environmental messages.
Participants from a marketing research panel indicated on a 5-point scale how much they know about environmental concerns, including climate change, pollinator decline, and deforestation. They also reported to what extent different sources, such as traditional and digital media and conversations with friends and family, get them to take notice or gain awareness of things. We employed log likelihood models to relate demographic variables to these responses and create a profile of an audience that is not currently effectively targeted with conservation messages.
Results/Conclusions
Awareness of environmental issues is low. Climate change is most well-known, (Mean = 4.06±0.97). Aside from that and deforestation (M = 3.77±1.19), every other issue felt below the midpoint for awareness, including the pollinator crisis (M = 2.93±1.38). Black respondents were significantly less aware of the pollinator crisis (M = 2.63±1.41) than other races (F = 3.2, p = .007). Respondents who live in a city were more aware of the pollinator crisis (M = 3.08±1.37) than those who live in suburbs or rural areas (F = 11.2, p < .001). Implications for environmental equity will be considered.
Social media is the source used most frequently to gain awareness of things (M = 3.21±0.87), followed by personal conversations (M = 3.15±0.81), and movies/documentaries (M = 3.02±0.88). Every other media has a mean below 3.00. For every source, at least 25.9% of respondents reporting they ‘sometimes’ use it to gain awareness, suggesting all have potential reach. While people who reported they ‘almost always’ used a source to take notice of something had awareness of the pollinator crisis greater than 3; however, the one exception was those who ‘almost always’ use social media to take notice of things, with awareness of 2.97±1.50.
