Climate change mitigation action: is story-based communication effective for the government of the city of Flagstaff, Arizona to increase residents' participation?

Kokkinos, Vasileios (2023) Climate change mitigation action: is story-based communication effective for the government of the city of Flagstaff, Arizona to increase residents' participation? Masters thesis, Northern Arizona University.

Text Kokkinos_2023_climate_change_mitigation_action_is_story-based_communic.pdf - Published Version Download (782kB)

Abstract

The City of Flagstaff has developed the Flagstaff Carbon Neutrality Plan which aims to make the city carbon neutral by 2030. In the plan it is mentioned that “action by residents across the community is needed” for this goal to be achieved. However, there is no mention of how this will be achieved. Using the story-based strategy framework to design my research and analyze the results, I developed an experiment to find out if story-based communication is effective to communicate climate change mitigation action and promote public action to the residents of Flagstaff, Arizona. There were two study groups: one where participants were exposed to communication based on facts, and another where participants were exposed to story-based communication. Participants were surveyed on the same questions before, immediately after, and one week after exposure; so that I could compare any differences in their responses. The results of my experiment align with existing literature which indicate that story-based communication seems to be more effective than other forms of communication. However, my experiment found a polarizing pattern on respondents, as fewer to no participants seemed to be neutral one week after exposure to story-based communication. I hope that my research will function as a guide to the city of Flagstaff on where to focus to achieve their goals pertaining to the Flagstaff Carbon Neutrality Plan, and that it will inspire other researchers to research whether the polarization effect that was observed in my experiment would be observed in future studies as well.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Publisher’s Statement:	© Copyright is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
Keywords:	Flagstaff, Arizona; Climate Change; Municipal Government; State Government; Story-based communication; Sustainability
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Student
Department/Unit:	Graduate College > Theses and Dissertations College of Social and Behavioral Science > Sustainable Communities
Date Deposited:	15 May 2025 22:10
Last Modified:	15 May 2025 22:10
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/6145

Actions (login required)

IR Staff Record View

Downloads