Imag(in)ing climate change: exploring people’s visual imagery, issue salience and personal efficacy

Climate change is a serious global environmental problem to which the lifestyles and everyday behaviour of individuals contributes. However, the issue is commonly perceived as temporally and spatially remote and not of personal concern. This research systematically investigates the influence of visual imagery on the way people relate to climate change. It explores people’s outlooks on the issue and assesses the potential for visual images – so central to today’s information culture – to stimulate a sense of its importance (salience) and of feeling able to do something to reduce its future causes (efficacy).

The interrelationship between visual imagery, perceived issue salience and sense of personal efficacy was explored using a multi-method, qualitative research design that involved semi-structured interviews, visual Q-sorts and focus group discussions. Reflective interviews were subsequently conducted. The methodology offers a novel and robust approach to exploring people’s outlooks on climate change and their responsiveness to dealing with it. It has the potential to be applied to, for example, future research in the field of climate change communication and public engagement.

While participants were found to have rich mental imagery of climate change, they had little sense of personal salience or efficacy. Emotionally powerful images that most strongly communicated the importance of climate change were felt to be disempowering. Conversely, those images that most readily conveyed a sense of being able to take action did not incite a sense of issue salience. Only when presented in combination were the images found to induce feelings of both salience and efficacy, of engagement. Nonetheless, images were unlikely to move participants to feel more than trivially engaged with the issue because they still perceived significant barriers to making a personal commitment. Until enveloped in a political, economic and cultural environment, that signals serious societal commitment to climate change mitigation, people are unlikely to voluntarily adopt low-carbon lifestyles.

Dr. Sophie A. Nicholson-Cole
s.nicholson-cole@uea.ac.uk