The influence of media coverage and environmental conditions on the perception and evaluation of impersonal risks by the example of the chestnut leaf miner.

有关环境变化和相关风险的信息主要通过大众媒体向公众传播。这些信息以及个人对环境变化的感知是对环境风险进行主观评估的基础。非个人风险越来越重要：不被视为对个人的直接个人威胁，而是对环境的威胁，但对个人有直接后果的风险(例如，全球变暖)。媒介效应、环境传播的信息加工与个体根据客观风险感知环境变化之间的关系尚未被探讨。这些关系对于解释个体行为和适应环境变化至关重要。拟议的项目将从跨学科的角度研究这种关系。以板栗潜叶蛾为例进行田间试验。这是一种入侵物种，其幼虫会因取食活动而对栗树造成独特的损害模式。树叶提前变黄，在七月和八月初落下。这种环境变化对人口来说是明显可见的。马栗树在德国是一种常见的树木；然而，这种树的侵扰在德国各地有所不同。因此，马栗叶挖掘者是一种理想的模式生物，通过选择德国境内不同的受影响地区进行调查，可以改变个体的环境意识。一项实地试验将在德国12个不同地区进行。将使用科学评级程序选择区域，以便将不同受影响的区域包括在内。因此，受访者可感知的环境变化在不同地区之间将明显不同。该项目分为三个研究问题。首先，它调查了来自大众媒体的关于客观风险的不同信息是如何处理的，以及与个人对环境的感知显示出哪些相关性。其次，考察了信息加工和环境感知的相关因素对主观风险感知的影响。媒体对风险的报道与主观风险感知之间的交互作用具有一定的趣味性：报道与主观感知之间的一致性是否会强化主观风险感知？这些结果也将有助于加强关于媒体效应的理论。第三，现场实验能够评估受访者实施的行动。研究结果将解释主观风险感知和信息加工对非个人风险的行为适应，并回答媒介效应在多大程度上可以解释这一问题。

Information about environmental change and associated risks are communicated to the public mainly through mass media. This information, along with the individual perception of environmental changes, is the basis for the subjective assessment of environmental risks. Impersonal risks are increasingly relevant: risks which are not perceived as a direct personal threat to the individual but as a threat to the environment and which, however, have direct consequences for the individuals (e.g. global warming). The relationships between media effects, information processing of environmental communication and the individual perception of environmental change according to impersonal risks have not yet been explored. These relationships are essential for explaining individual behavior and adaptation to environmental change. The proposed project will study this relationship from an interdisciplinary perspective. A field experiment by the example of the chestnut leaf miner, Cameraria ohridella, will be conducted. This is an invasive species whose larvae can cause a distinctive pattern of damage to chestnut trees as a result of the feeding activity. The leaves turn brown ahead of time, and fall early in July and August. This environmental change is clearly observable for the population. The horse chestnut is a common tree in Germany; however, the infestation of the trees varies within Germany. The horse chestnut leaf miner is therefore an ideal model organism by which the environmental awareness of individuals can be varied by selecting differently affected areas within Germany for the survey. A field experiment will be conducted in 12 different regions in Germany. The regions will be selected by using scientific rating processes in order to include differently affected regions. Thus, the perceivable environmental change for the respondents will vary clearly between regions.The project is divided into three research questions. First, it investigates how different information from mass media on impersonal risks is processed and which correlations with the individual perception of the environment show up. Second, it examines relevant factors of information processing and environmental perception for the subjective perception of risk. The interaction between media reporting on risks and subjective risk perception is of certain interest: Does the consistency between reporting and subjective perception reinforces the subjective risk perception? These results will also serve to enhance theories on media effects. Third, the field experiment enables to evaluate implemented actions of the respondents. The results will explain behavioral adaptations as a result from the subjective risk perception and information processing on impersonal risks, and answer the question to what extent this can be explained by media effects.