Energy Communication

Since April 2021 is our research group part of the joint project "Science Communication Energy Transition" which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

The core of the project is the exhibition „Power2Change: Mission Energiewende“, which presents solutions for a climate-neutral, safe and affordable energy supply with a focus on the industrial, commercial and transport sectors. The scientific content for these solutions originates from the Kopernikus projects, the joint project Carbon2Chem® , the Fraunhofer-Cluster CINES and other partners.

The project is coordinated by DECHEMA e. V. and Fraunhofer UMSICHT. The exhibition was designed by the LWL-Industriemuseum, Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Industriekultur and the Klimahaus® Bremerhaven. Wissenschaft im Dialog is responsible for the accompanying program, the tour of the travelling exhibition and the project communication.

The exhibition project is accompanied by communication science research. Our team is working on a total of four sub-projects.

1. Analysis of media coverage of the energy transition to find out more about the scope and topics (e.g. hydrogen or energy grids) of the public debate and how it changes over time.
2. The population's view of the energy transition is examined by regional and national surveys. This involves analyzing what people in different regions and at different times know about the energy transition and related changes, how they think about the energy transition, the associated measures and, in particular, the topics of the exhibition (e.g., hydrogen). We also examine how people perceive and evaluate media coverage on the energy transition.
3. The sub-project local energy transition looks at regional differences in the commitment to implementing the energy transition. It examines which initiatives, companies, scientists, agencies, administrations, etc. are active locally and how this network of actors affects the success of the energy transition.
4. Evaluation of the exhibitions through on-site and before-and-after surveys with visitors. This provides important insights into how the exhibition is received and where there is potential for improvement. This feedback is used to further develop the exhibition.

Ausstellung „Power2Change: Mission Energiewende“

In recent years, the expansion of the German high voltage grid has led to protests in many of the affected regions. In most cases, citizens' initiatives are the main supporters of these protests. How these initiatives organize the protest, what self-image they have and what factors influence their protest activities was investigated in the DFG-funded project "Communication Strategies of Local Environmental Initiatives" by Marco Bräuer[MB1] .

Since the communication activities of citizens' initiatives have so far hardly been the subject of empirical research, a total of eight case studies with citizens' initiatives were carried out. The results show that citizens' initiatives carefully observe the political and media discourse as well as the reactions they receive from the population. Building on this, they actively develop problem interpretations and proposed solutions, which they communicate to the public in different arenas.

By analyzing the protesters' motivation, their views on the conflict and on the other conflict actors, as well as through a detailed analysis of the communication activities of the citizens' initiatives, the results of the study will contribute to the improvement of communication and participation in the context of network expansion.

The dissertation (Bräuer 2017) was published in the Open Access book series NEU-Kommunikation.

A total of three investigations have been carried out in this field, dealing with different social effects of the 2011 power plant disaster in Fukushima. It was examined how the events in Japan were reported in different countries. In addition, it was analyzed how the disaster affected the reporting on renewable energies and what influence the reporting had on the attitudes of citizens towards nuclear power. The results of these projects have been published in the second volume of the book series NEU-Kommunikation together with 10 further articles on the issue authored by researchers from other universities and research groups. In-depth analyses of two projects have also been published as journal articles.

In an international comparative study, the emotionality of the reporting in the first 14 days after the disaster was analyzed with the help of computer-aided, text-linguistic methods. Print media from Great Britain, the USA and Germany were compared. It was found that in the two English-speaking countries the emotions of fear, anxiety and sadness played a greater role, while in Germany anger and rage were much more pronounced (Zeller, Arlt & Wolling 2014).

In a second international comparative study, reporting on renewable energies in eleven countries from different parts of the world was examined. The study focused on the question of whether the events in Fukushima changed the framing of these forms of energy production and whether the reporting and its change can be explained by contextual factors in the examined countries. Overall, the results suggest that the reporting of the national media is influenced by the conditions of the established energy supply system. Even the reactor disaster at Fukushima did not challenge these established patterns of thinking (Bräuer & Wolling 2014; Rochyadi-Reetz, Arlt, Wolling & Bräuer 2019)

In a third study, a panel survey was used to identify attitudinal effects of Fukushima reporting at the personal level. Weak but significant changes in attitudes from 2010 to 2011 were identified. The risk of nuclear power was estimated to be higher in 2011 and renewable energies were assessed more positively. The strength of the attitude changes was largely independent of personal characteristics or the intensity of media use (Arl & Wolling 2014, 2016)

In her dissertation project Dorothee Arlt investigated the influence of individual media use on attitudes towards nuclear power using the example of the planned extension of the operating time of German nuclear power plants in 2010. The study was conducted in a two-method design. In a representative telephone survey, the attitudes and media usage behavior of Thuringians were surveyed. In a quantitative content analysis of media reports the arguments for or against an extension of the operating time were coded. The data from the survey and content analysis were directly linked at individual data level in order to investigate the influence of reporting on attitudes towards nuclear power. The dissertation was the first publication of the book series NEU-Kommunikation.