Unequal Risks,Unequal Responses: Differential Effects of Emphasizing Race Versus Class Disparities in News Stories About Climate Impacts

Abstract

We investigated how news articles discussing unequal impacts of climate change due to race versus class influence beliefs and support for action. We conducted two online survey experiments focusing on flooding (Study 1) and heat waves (Study 2). In Study 1, White participants and those with high levels of symbolic racism had lower levels of belief and support when exposed to the race-focused condition, although these interactions were not as consistent in Study 2. Results suggest that focusing on class-based climate disparities may be less susceptible to backfire effects than focusing on race-based disparities.

Keywords

climate change symbolic racism climate justice quantitative methodology

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