Adapt and overcome: The impact of adaptive frames in news stories on climate change skeptics and acceptors

This experiment test the effects of framing of climate change and finds that news stories that do not discuss the man-made cause of climate change, and do not use trigger words such as “global warming” and “climate change” are significantly better at overcoming climate skeptics’ resistance to them, leading them to agree with the story’s perspective and feel optimistic about a community’s efforts to deal with climate impacts. This process is mediated by increased perceived credibility of the story and journalists.