Party Cues in the News: Democratic Elites, Republican Backlash, and the Dynamics of Climate Skepticism
Party Cues in the News: Democratic Elites, Republican Backlash, and the Dynamics of Climate Skepticism
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DOI：
10.1017/s0007123420000113
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发表时间：
2021-10-01
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
Stecula, Dominik A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Merkley, Eric;Stecula, Dominik A.
自20世纪90年代以来，共和党的支持者对气候变化的科学持怀疑态度。这篇文章认为，来自民主党精英的外群体暗示引起了强烈反弹，导致了更大的气候怀疑论。作者从2001年至2014年的季度水平和1986年至2014年的年度水平的近200次民意调查中构建了气候怀疑论的综合指标。他们还使用自动媒体内容分析来建立对气候怀疑论可能贡献者的时间序列测量。这些分析提供的证据表明，来自党内精英--特别是民主党人--的线索与气候变化怀疑论的总体动态有关，包括共和党的支持者。该研究还涉及通过亚马逊土耳其机器人对3,000名美国人进行的派对线索调查实验，以提供更多的因果关系证据。总之，这些结果突出了外群体线索的重要性，并建议气候变化怀疑论应通过精英主导的意见形成的透镜进行审查。
Supporters of the Republican Party have become much more skeptical of the science of climate change since the 1990s. This article argues that out-group cues from Democratic elites caused a backlash that resulted in greater climate skepticism. The authors construct aggregate measures of climate skepticism from nearly 200 public opinion polls at the quarterly level from 2001 to 2014 and at the annual level from 1986 to 2014. They also build time-series measures of possible contributors to climate skepticism using an automated media content analysis. The analyses provide evidence that cues from party elites - especially from Democrats - are associated with aggregate dynamics in climate change skepticism, including among supporters of the Republican Party. The study also involves a party cue survey experiment administered to a sample of 3,000 Americans through Amazon Mechanical Turk to provide more evidence of causality. Together, these results highlight the importance of out-group cue taking and suggest that climate change skepticism should be examined through the lens of elite-led opinion formation.