Conspiratory fascination versus public interest: The case of 'climategate'

Stephan Lewandowsky

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/9/11/111004

Conspiratory fascination versus public interest: The case of 'climategate'

Stephan Lewandowsky^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Anderegg and Goldsmith (2014 Environ. Res. Lett. 9 054005) use Google Trends to examine the impact of specific media events - the so-called 'climategate' imbroglio and the glacial-melt error in the IPCCs 2007 report - on public opinion regarding climate change. There has been an overall decline of public interest in climate change after 2007, accompanied by spikes of interest with a half-life of six days for these two media events. The brevity of public interest in 'climategate' stands in contrast to the continued and growing fascination of the 'skeptic' blogosphere with that event. These results document the assertion that conspiratory obsession by a small number of people should not be mistaken for general public interest.

Original language	English
Article number	111004
Journal	Environmental Research Letters
Volume	9
Issue number	11
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/11/111004
Publication status	Published - 1 Nov 2014

Research Groups and Themes

Memory
TeDCog

Keywords

climate change
public opinion
rejection of science

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1088/1748-9326/9/11/111004

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AB - Anderegg and Goldsmith (2014 Environ. Res. Lett. 9 054005) use Google Trends to examine the impact of specific media events - the so-called 'climategate' imbroglio and the glacial-melt error in the IPCCs 2007 report - on public opinion regarding climate change. There has been an overall decline of public interest in climate change after 2007, accompanied by spikes of interest with a half-life of six days for these two media events. The brevity of public interest in 'climategate' stands in contrast to the continued and growing fascination of the 'skeptic' blogosphere with that event. These results document the assertion that conspiratory obsession by a small number of people should not be mistaken for general public interest.

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Conspiratory fascination versus public interest: The case of 'climategate'

Abstract

Research Groups and Themes

Keywords

UN SDGs

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