Communicating Climate Change and Energy Security: New Methods in Understanding Audiences

This book, drawing on new research conducted for the UK Energy Resource Centre (UKERC), examines the contemporary public debate on climate change and the linked issue of energy security. It analyses the key processes which affect the formation of public attitudes and understanding in these areas, while also developing a completely new method for analysing these processes. The authors address fundamental questions about how to adequately inform the public and develop policy in areas of great social importance when public distrust of politicians is so widespread. The new methods of attitudinal research pioneered here combined with the attention to climate change have application and resonance beyond the UK and indeed carry global import.

Greg Philo is Professor of Communications and Social Change in the department of Sociology at Glasgow University, and Research Director of the Glasgow University Media Group. He is author with Mike Berry of More Bad News from Israel (2011).

Catherine Happer was awarded a First in Sociology from the University of Glasgow then completed a PhD in communications from Lancaster University. From 2003-2009, she worked at the BBC as an audience researcher and later in television production. In 2011, she returned to Glasgow University as Research Associate.