Environmental issues have become important topics in the 21st century. Communication practitioners and scholars struggle with effectively communicating the threat of climate change and other changes to the natural world, partially due to the lack of concern by the general public. We present Protection Motivation Theory as a framework for explaining proenvironmental behavioral intentions among a college sample. Participants (N = 607) responded to an online survey, and the results indicate support for the proposed model, with severity (H1), vulnerability (H2), response efficacy (H3), and self-efficacy (H4) positively predicting proenvironmental behavioral intentions and response costs (H5) negatively predicting intentions. Implications for practitioners and scholars are discussed, and areas of future exploration in this domain are identified.

Purpose: Social media, such as Twitter, has become the first and the most frequent place to visit in order to gain information and establish situational awareness in emergencies and disasters. The purpose of this paper is to examine public opinion on Twitter in different disaster stages using the case of Hurricane Irma. Design/methodology/approach: More than 3.5m tweets capturing the entire disaster lifecycle were collected and analyzed. Topic modeling was used to generate topics at each disaster stage based on Fink’s (1986) four-stage model of crisis and disaster: prodromal, acute, chronic and termination stages. Findings: The results revealed that media reliance varied across different stages. All topics in the prodromal stage were associated with the early warning and real-time news. The topic of lessons learned from Hurricane Harvey was the most popular at this stage. The acute stage recorded the highest number of daily tweets. The most popular topic was the safety of people and animals. In the chronic stage too, the safety of people and animals remained a major concern. Heroic and anti-social behaviors also received substantial attention. In the termination stage, climate change was the most frequently discussed topic. Politics-related discussions were heated. Originality/value: The results extended and enhanced the four-stage model of crisis and disaster. These findings can help government agencies and crisis managers address audience needs effectively at various crisis stages in a timely manner.

Effectively communicating the issue of climate change and related threats can be challenging for climate scientists, practitioners, and scholars. Environmental messages are so prevalent in the everyday media landscape that audience members often-times do not give them adequate attention. One potential avenue to educate the public and explain the risks of climate change may be through Public Service Announcements (PSAs). A randomized experiment was conducted to test a model informed by Protection Motivation Theory. The model suggests that exposure to a climate change PSA (versus a no-message control) is positively associated with self-efficacy and response efficacy, which are in turn associated with pro-environmental behavioral intentions. Results indicate support for the proposed model among participants with low preexisting environmental beliefs, and a ceiling effect for those with high beliefs. Counter to expectations, a reinforcement effect was observed; the PSA had a negative effect on those with unfavorable preexisting beliefs. Implications for environmental communication theory and message design are discussed.

When attempting to communicate flood risk, trust in and perceptions toward risk information dissemination as well as individual efficacy factors can play a significant role in affecting risk-mitigation motivation and intention. This study seeks to examine how risk communication, risk perception, and efficacy factors affect evacuation motivation and behavioral intentions in response to a presumed flood risk, as based on a conceptual framework guided by protection motivation theory. An online survey was administered to college students (N = 239) from a region that is subject to sea level rise and storm surges. Path analysis results indicate that, while less information-source trust predicts greater risk perception, greater information-source trust predicts greater mitigation-information-seeking intention, lower self-efficacy, and stronger response efficacy. As lower mitigation-information-seeking intention similarly predicts greater risk perception, greater mitigation-information-seeking intention also predicts stronger response efficacy. Significant predictors of evacuation motivation include lower risk perception as well as greater information-source trust, severity perception, and response efficacy. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of information dissemination channels, messaging strategies, and recent severe flooding events.

Weather-related communication lends itself well to various styles of delivery and medium. Yet, new communication technologies have changed information consumption in this domain and created changes for broadcast media. Some new media platforms allow the participation of nonprofessional (amateur) agents, whereas others, such as social robotics or chatbots, allow for the removal of a human-element entirely. As these platforms further proliferate in society, it is vital to understand individuals’ perceptions about both the content and the medium, especially in messages which can ultimately remove an individual from danger such as those about weather risks. This experimental study examines differences when individuals view a video/broadcast weather forecast delivered by a professional, an amateur, or a social robot. Results suggest that individuals find professional meteorologists significantly more credible than amateur or robotic counterparts.