Christian A. Klöckner

Target Group Segmentation — Why Knowing Your Audience Is Important

This chapter argues for the benefits of segmenting the target group in an environmental communication campaign. Based on findings and practices in marketing, different segmentation approaches are introduced and discussed, such as demographic segmentation, geographic segmentation, behavioural segmentation, and psychometric segmentation. Since the focus of this book is primarily psychological, the last approach is discussed in more depth. Different ways to segment based on psychological criteria are presented, such as value-based segmentation, personality-based segmentation, and lifestyle-based segmentation. Finally, a stage model of behaviour change is introduced as a novel tool for target group segmentation. In the last section of the chapter, the possibilities of new information technology for targeted communication with consumer segments are critically discussed.

Playing Good? — Environmental Communication through Games and Simulations

Game scenarios are increasingly being developed with an aim to influence people’s pro-environmental behaviour, by either changing their attitudes or their understanding of complex environmental phenomena. This chapter presents selected examples and analyses how they might affect people’s behaviour, mediated by psychological mechanisms presented in earlier chapters. The selected games are computer games, board games, and role plays. In this context, the importance of personal experience of environmental phenomena, behaviour related to them, and their consequences is summarised. Empirical evaluations of the games’ impact are presented. The second part of this chapter deals with conclusions about human behaviour based on the analysis of people’s behaviour in the so-called social dilemmas. The contribution of game theory to the analysis of human environmental behaviour is outlined and the potential of simulations based on game theory for learning pro-environmentalism is discussed as well as the limits of that approach.

Rock Festivals, Sport Events, Theatre — Some Out-of-the-Ordinary Means of Environmental Communication

This last chapter of the book describes alternative approaches to effectively communicate pro-environmentalism. It addresses how conservation appeals can be placed in settings where people primarily focus on enjoyment. How can big events like rock festivals, culture festivals, sport events, or fun fairs be utilised to promote “saving the planet”? How do implementation strategies look? What is known about the psychological background of humour in such communication? Can lessons learned in advertisements be transferred to the context of environmental protection? What are potential obstacles (e.g. commercial interests, potential intoxication of the target group, or lack of attention)? The aim of alternative measures can be to improve the ecological footprint of the festival or event itself, but they can also aim at changing people’s attitudes and behaviour beyond that. Such spillover effects will be contrasted against a possible trade-off of behaviour in one domain against behaviour in another.

An Overview of Communication-Based Intervention Techniques

This chapter presents an overview of environmental psychology intervention techniques with a special focus on techniques that are based on communication. In this context, the chapter introduces well-established intervention techniques, like environmental education, information packages, commitment, goal setting, prompts, social models, block-leaders, foot-in-the-door, feedback, competitions, and rewards and punishment, which all can be understood as communication-based. They are contrasted with other intervention types, such as structural changes that do not build on information, and are evaluated concerning their effectiveness based on research results from environmental psychology. A typology of interventions based on their timing and the effort necessary to implement them is developed.

Decision Models — What Psychological Theories Teach Us about People’s Behaviour

This chapter introduces the most common environmental psychological decision models and analyses their relevance for the design of environmental communication strategies. The theories introduced in the first half of the chapter are the theory of planned behaviour, the norm-activation theory, the value-belief-norm theory, and goal-framing theory. In the remainder of the chapter, the role of the decisional context is analysed by discussing the ipsative theory of behaviour. The role of routines and habits is introduced, and the comprehensive action determination model as an integration of the aforementioned theories is presented. Decision models are contrasted with behaviour change models, such as the trans-theoretical model and the stage model of self-regulated behaviour change. The concluding section of the chapter drafts a framework that integrates the chapter’s conclusions into a complex model that can guide design of communication strategies.

Communication in Large Social Systems — How Information Spreads through Societies

This chapter introduces the diffusion of innovation theory which describes how new technologies and practices are adopted in a population. The chapter analyses the characteristics of innovations, innovation adopters, and diffusion networks that make the diffusion process more effective. It also outlines the innovation adoption decision process. These aspects are discussed from an environmental communication perspective. Lastly, agent-based modelling (ABM) as a tool for analysis of complex diffusion processes is introduced and analysed with respect to its implications for environmental communication research.

Promoting Pro-Environmental Behaviour in Groups and Organisations

This chapter focuses on special characteristics of groups as targets for interventions. Groups can be found in families, at the work place, in education settings, and in leisure activities, among other arenas. It discusses the differences between individual, household, and group behaviour, drawing on social psychological findings about group processes such as establishing social norms, group polarisation, diffusion of responsibility, majority and minority influences, risky shift, in-group/out-group phenomena, and group competition. The chapter presents group-centred intervention strategies that target the behaviour of people in organisations and presents evidence for their effectiveness. Strategies steered by external actors as well as participatory intervention strategies that include the target group in the design of the intervention program are discussed with their advantages and disadvantages. The chapter also looks at how an organisation both provides a structure to the individuals within it and itself is a construction of the individuals forming it.

Understanding Communication — Insights from Theories of Communication

This chapter first presents an overview of the most important theory families within communication research, namely the rhetorical, the semiotic, the phenomenological, the critical, the cybernetic, the sociopsychological, and the sociocultural traditions. For each tradition, central assumptions and their importance for environmental communication are presented. Central concepts in two theory families which are important for the scope of this book are introduced and discussed in more detail: the sociopsychological and the sociocultural traditions. Sociopsychological concepts of attention, human memory, attribution, persuasion, and automaticity in communication are explained and their relevance for environmental communication is explored. Sociocultural concepts of social constructivism, social construction of meaning, and the concepts of the self and identity are introduced and their importance for environmental communication is explored.

Traditional and New Media — About Amplification and Negation

This chapter analyses the role of media and other actors in defining the perception of environmental risks by the public. First, an introduction to the specificities of different media types, including old and new media, books, and art is given. The basic theories in risk perception are presented, including the psychometric paradigm, the cultural theory of risk perception, the protection motivation theory, and the social amplification of risk framework (SARF). Their importance for risk communication in the environmental domain is discussed. The chapter ends with insights from the newsroom on how media actors select and present news and what their work patterns imply for designing environmental communication. The conclusion presents concrete advice for environmental media campaigns based on the research presented in this chapter.

What Is Environmental Communication and Why Is It Important

This chapter addresses the question of why environmental communication is an indispensable part of environmental strategies. Disciplinary views like environmental economics, environmental sociology, or environmental governance are briefly presented and contrasted to the psychological perspective to gain a comprehensive understanding of the complexity of the topic and the psychological perspective this book is taking. Different forms of communication are outlined (e.g. direct person-to-person; mediated communication via telephone, videophone, print media, TV, radio, or Internet) and their characteristics described. Communication behaviour is contrasted with other forms of human behaviour. The question of how far communication has to include intentionality, or if communication also includes unintended behaviour, is addressed. Furthermore, the difference between verbal and non-verbal communication is outlined. The chapter concludes with a discussion of which understanding of communication is most helpful for the topic at hand, that of describing, understanding, and designing pro-environmental communication strategies. Based on this discussion, a working definition of pro-environmental communication is presented.