Communicating risk in human-wildlife interactions: How stories and images move minds

Abstract

Effectively communicating risk is critical to reducing conflict in human-wildlife interactions. Using a survey experiment fielded in the midst of contentious public debate over flying fox management in urban and suburban areas of Australia, we find that stories with characters (i.e., narratives) are more effective than descriptive information at mobilizing support for different forms of bat management, including legal protection, relocation, and habitat restoration. We use conditional process analysis to show that narratives, particularly with accompanying images, are effective because they cause emotional reactions that influence risk perception, which in turn drives public opinion about strategies for risk mitigation. We find that prior attitudes towards bats matter in how narrative messages are received, in particular in how strongly they generate shifts in affective response, risk perception, and public opinion. Our results suggest that those with warm prior attitudes towards bats report greater support for bat dispersal when they perceive impacts from bats to be more likely, while those with cool priors report greater support for bat protection when they perceive impacts from bats to be more positive, revealing 1) potential opportunities for targeted messaging to boost public buy-in of proposals to manage risks associated with human-wildlife interactions, and 2) potential vulnerabilities to disinformation regarding risk.

Understanding human attitudes towards bats and the role of information and aesthetics to boost a positive response as a conservation tool

“…The hierarchical regression models confirmed that the informative video contributed significantly and independently to the increase in positive attitudes, controlled by socio-demographic variables. When people had information and perceived the benefits provided by bats, they were sufficiently powerful elements to create persuasive messages and to change attitudes (Castilla et al 2020;Guenther & Shanahan 2020;Lim & Wilson 2019). In a recent study, Straka et al (2020) found that photographs of vulnerable and distressed bats might be an important tool to temporarily increase people's emotional reactions to bats, their wildlife value orientation and probably, more importantly, their support for bat conservation.…”

Policy narrative, policy understanding and policy support intention: a survey experiment on energy conservation

“…This is because the audiences have limited cognitive capacity and thus information that carries a low cognitive load is easier to use and internalize (Paas, Penkl, and Sweller 2003). As a following study, Guenther and Shanahan (2020) use images to reduce the cognitive load of a wildlife protection policy narrative and demonstrate that images effectively cause emotional reactions that influence policy perception of target populations, which in turn drive public opinion toward the narrator's goal. This implies that, to improve policy understanding, policy narratives must be constructed to enhance their usability in the sense that the narrative form should reduce the mental effort one exerts to process and understand the information.…”

Examining the Relationship between Visitors Wildlife Value Orientation and Risk Perceptions: A study of the Borneo Pygmy Elephant in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo

“…Such an individual is likely to have a welcoming perception towards world animal (Mellor et al 2020;Epanda, et al 2019). Guenther & Shanahan (2020) points out that when assessing the benefits and risks associated with wildlife, people will use their subjective judgement or intuition to evaluate level of risks.…”