Influencing beliefs around climate change is difficult, particularly in countries where climate change is strongly politicized. In the United States, the division between liberal and conservative views regarding climate change and mitigation action has been deepening. Traditionally, scientists and science communicators have tried to bridge this gap by stressing the presentation of data and graphs that show the changing climate. These efforts have had limited success and thus have led to calls to create potentially more accessible artistic representations of data, and subsequent collaborations between scientists and artists. However, it is unclear yet whether such visualizations are more effective in conveying climate change information.
Nan Li from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues investigated whether artistic data visualizations influence emotions and perceived relevance of climate change in viewers. They used an online experiment with adults living in the United States to quantitatively determine the impact of incorporating the Keeling curve into an artwork representing summer heat and melting glaciers, compared with the graph on its own. They find that the artistic data visualizations did not differ in perceived credibility when compared with data graphs, but did result in a stronger emotional response from viewers. Importantly, the perception of climate change relevance was less politically polarized in viewers of the artistic visualization compared with those who only viewed the informational graph, indicating that art may help to bridge politically divisive opinions on climate change.
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