The influence of media coverage and environmental conditions on the perception and evaluation of impersonal risks by the example of the chestnut leaf miner.

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Hans-Bernd Brosius; Professor Dr. Wolfgang W. Weisser
• Subject Area: Communication Sciences ; Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems ; Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions
• Term: from 2013 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 242144331

Information about environmental change and associated risks are communicated to the public mainly through mass media. This information, along with the individual perception of environmental changes, is the basis for the subjective assessment of environmental risks. Impersonal risks are increasingly relevant: risks which are not perceived as a direct personal threat to the individual but as a threat to the environment and which, however, have direct consequences for the individuals (e.g. global warming). The relationships between media effects, information processing of environmental communication and the individual perception of environmental change according to impersonal risks have not yet been explored. These relationships are essential for explaining individual behavior and adaptation to environmental change. The proposed project will study this relationship from an interdisciplinary perspective. A field experiment by the example of the chestnut leaf miner, Cameraria ohridella, will be conducted. This is an invasive species whose larvae can cause a distinctive pattern of damage to chestnut trees as a result of the feeding activity. The leaves turn brown ahead of time, and fall early in July and August. This environmental change is clearly observable for the population. The horse chestnut is a common tree in Germany; however, the infestation of the trees varies within Germany. The horse chestnut leaf miner is therefore an ideal model organism by which the environmental awareness of individuals can be varied by selecting differently affected areas within Germany for the survey. A field experiment will be conducted in 12 different regions in Germany. The regions will be selected by using scientific rating processes in order to include differently affected regions. Thus, the perceivable environmental change for the respondents will vary clearly between regions.The project is divided into three research questions. First, it investigates how different information from mass media on impersonal risks is processed and which correlations with the individual perception of the environment show up. Second, it examines relevant factors of information processing and environmental perception for the subjective perception of risk. The interaction between media reporting on risks and subjective risk perception is of certain interest: Does the consistency between reporting and subjective perception reinforces the subjective risk perception? These results will also serve to enhance theories on media effects. Third, the field experiment enables to evaluate implemented actions of the respondents. The results will explain behavioral adaptations as a result from the subjective risk perception and information processing on impersonal risks, and answer the question to what extent this can be explained by media effects.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1409: Science and the General Public: Understanding Fragile and Conflicting Evidence
• Participating Persons: Dr. Bernhard Goodwin; Dr. Werner Heitland; Dr. Cornelia Wallner