Matthew A. Shapiro

Doing What Others Do Norms, Science, and Collective Action on Global Warming

Does rhetoric highlighting social norms or mentioning science in a communication affect individuals’ beliefs about global warming and/or willingness to take action? We draw from framing theory and collective-interest models of action to motivate hypotheses that are tested in two large web-based survey-experiments using convenience samples. Our results show that attitudes about global warming, support for policies that would reduce carbon emissions, and behavioral intentions to take voluntary action are strongly affected by norm- and science-based interventions. This has implications for information campaigns targeting voluntary efforts to promote lifestyle changes that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Quantifying the national innovation system: inter-regional collaboration networks in South Korea

This article identifies the underlying patterns of collaboration and scientific co-authorship among geographically dispersed Korean researchers, using the most reliable longitudinal citation data available. The network indicators of centrality, network density and network fragmentation are used to present the evolving network of co-authorship relations among 16 Korean provinces and metropolitan areas. Our results confirm that the density of scientific communication flows has deepened in terms of the inter-connectedness of networks, while the centrality of Seoul as the primary research hub has declined. Fragmentation analysis does reveal, however, that Seoul is still the research broker for the country. To create still more change in Koreas research topography, there must be a renewed focus on regional innovation centres and linkages between heterogeneous research entities.

More than entertainment: YouTube and public responses to the science of global warming and climate change

The public receives and presents science-related information on global warming and climate change in many forms, but little is known about how this information is conveyed through the Internet. More specifically, very few studies have considered YouTube videos focusing on climate change. This study provides a better understanding of how this type of information may be disseminated through several levels of analysis. For this purpose, the exact narrative for the 10 most popular videos about climate change was first established by concentrating particularly on the presentation of the science of climate change. Then the public’s responses to and engagement in each video were examined through a semantic analysis of comments on the video. The results indicate that, regardless of the narrative, science-based comments dominated, but often discussed climate change in general instead of specific videos to which they were attached. In the absence of gatekeepers, YouTube users rode the coattails of popular videos about climate change and addended the videos’ messages by highlighting evidence of weak, strong, or politicized science.

Regional development in South Korea: accounting for research area in centrality and networks

This paper provides a first-ever look at differences of centrality scores (i.e., networks) over time and across research specializations in Korea. This is a much needed development, given the variance which is effectively ignored when Science Citation Index (SCI) publications are aggregated. Three quantitative tests are provided—OLS, two sample t-tests, and unit-root tests—to establish the patterns of centrality scores across Korea over time. The unit-root test is particularly important, as it helps identify patterns of convergence in each region’s centrality scores. For all other geographic regions besides Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Daejeon, there appears to be little promise—at least in the immediate future—of being network hubs. For these top three regions, though, there is a pattern of convergence in three-quarters of all research specializations, which we attribute in part to policies in the mid- and late-1990s.

Receiving information at Korean and Taiwanese universities, industry, and GRIs

This article examines the incentive structure underlying information transfers received by the three key players of the Triple Helix paradigm: universities, industry, and government research institutes (GRIs). For Korea and Taiwan, which are the cases under analysis here, such an empirical examination has not yet been conducted on a quantitative level. Using a unique dataset of survey responses from a maximum of 325 researchers based in Korean and Taiwanese universities, industry, and GRIs, this article shows that there are some significant differences between and within countries. Most importantly, policy interventions to promote university-industry-GRI interactions impact the degree to which specific information transfers are considered useful. In Korea, formal transfers are emphasized, while both formal and, in particular, informal transfers are emphasized in Taiwan.

Climate change and YouTube: Deliberation Potential in Post-video Discussions

ABSTRACT YouTube videos are a ubiquitous source of information but also a venue for users to comment on discussion boards that addend videos. There are no moderators of these discussions, and thus there is a possibility for self-appointed leaders to emerge, responding incessantly and across a genre of videos. These “elites,” as they are labelled here, use the discussion as a personal campaign tool, diminishing the deliberative potential of provocative topics. To determine whether this is happening and to complement existing research analyzing the content of comments, this paper focuses on the structure of the discussions that follow the most popular climate change-related videos. Network analysis confirms that discussions can be elite-driven, appearing in two different network structure types. Among the core group of elite commenters, most are either climate change activists or sceptics, and the most prolific commenters among this core group are activists.

The US News Media, Polarization on Climate Change, and Pathways to Effective Communication

ABSTRACT The news media are a central source of information about climate change for most people. Through frames, media transmit information that shape how people understand climate change as well as the actions they are ultimately willing to support to address the problem. This article reviews the rise of climate change in the US news media and the emergence of related frames in public discourse. In doing so, it traces the roots of partisan divisions over climate change and highlights the role that events, journalistic practices, technological changes, and individual-level factors such as ideological and partisan identity have played in fostering polarization. The article concludes by identifying the core challenges facing communicators who seek to build consensus for action on climate change and highlights the most viable solutions for achieving success.

Regionalism's challenge to the pollution haven hypothesis: a study of Northeast Asia and China

Abstract This paper explores the phenomena of environmental coordination within Northeast Asia. I initially frame the discussion around claims that China is a pollution haven for its neighboring countries, and I look for evidence in the domestic and regional environmental institutions which challenge Chinas pollution haven status. I find that that there is a science and technology-based epistemic community in Northeast Asia which provides an important theoretical response to counter the pollution haven hypothesis. As well, given its strong science and technological output, Japan is poised to assume leadership of the Northeast Asian environmental regime for at least the short- to medium-term.

Institutions and the sources of innovation: the determinants and effects of international R&D collaboration

This paper examines the phenomenon of international R%D collaboration in the form of cross-national patenting. Using a unique dataset on patents from the USPTO for a maximum of 125 countries over the period 1975-2005, we show that, despite the potential for technological advancement arising from R%D collaboration with tier 1 countries, there is no evidence that relatively poor and open countries raise their technical efficiency by doing so. In fact, the overall picture is one in which a poor, open, developing country is hurt by tier 1 collaboration. We have also identified non-linearities in the effects of overall patenting on technical efficiency, indicating that a certain threshold in numbers of patents per capita must be reached before technical efficiency increases. These results can be attributed to the keen international competition for researchers and research investment and the inability of firms in the home country to take advantage of such patenting and attract investments.

China-Based Air Pollution and Epistemic Community Building in the Northeast Asian Region

New technologies are driven principally by need, and paramount among such needs are those which are framed by environmental disasters. In Northeast Asia, trade winds blow west to east, so anything airborne in China remains airborne in some fashion in Korea, Japan, parts of Russia, and beyond. Thus, the increase of Chinese air pollution as well as the yellow sand/dust which exacerbates the transfer of pollutants is both a domestic and international concern. This paper assesses the effects of the East Asian Acid Deposition Monitoring Network (EANET) to mitigate pollution blowing out of mainland China, focusing especially on the creation and fostering of an epistemic community of scientists and engineers. All of the affected countries are high-technology producers, and the cross-national connections which are fostered through R&D efforts are a crucial complement to multilateral agreements such as EANET. The primary research questions to be considered, thus, are as follows: How are scientists and researchers across the region constrained in their efforts to address the increasingly devastating effects of China-based air pollution? To what extent are domestic political factors thwarting efforts to establish an epistemic community? At the same time, and to provide a truly complete picture of international R&D beyond scientist and researcher connections, what policies – in China, in neighboring countries, and across countries in the region – will incentivize R&D to address China-based air pollution? This study employs a mixed methods approach to answer these questions, integrating patent data, publication data, and interview-based data which draws upon the experiences of scientists and researchers, a group that has typically been considered tangential to institutions of international relations related to the environment.