Progress 10/01/09 to 09/30/11
Outputs
OUTPUTS: We conducted a series of field visits to farms in the Ithaca region where we interviewed farm personnel regarding their work processes, energy usage and sustainability concerns. Our focus was on the strategies used to collaborate within a farm to conduct farming work, and on the equipment (mechanical and computational) used to support collaboration. We used a semi-structured interview protocol that asked about farm size, number and roles of employees, types of training, meeting places, communication strategies, computing technology, internet usage, and social networks within the farm and with employees at neighboring farms. We also asked about energy-related concerns and about whether and how social networking sites such as StepGreen might be useful for farmers. We conducted an online survey of rural, suburban and urban residents of the greater Rochester-Syracuse-Binghamton area that examined respondents' energy consumption behaviors and attitudes toward sustainability and evaluated the effectiveness of different types of messages promoting greater conservation for people living in different areas. Specifically, the study examined the effectiveness of framing an environmental argument in local (location-specific) or global (universally created or felt) terms and in emotional vs. scientific terms. The local/global and emotional/scientific dimensions were crossed, creating four types of messages for each of a series of environmental events (e.g., water pollution, a recycling effort): local-emotional, global-emotional, local-scientific and global-scientific. Surveys were counterbalanced such that each participant saw only one argument per environmental event, but across participants equal numbers of people saw each of the four arguments for that event. Arguments were embedded in a scenario describing the event (e.g., how the water came to be polluted). After reading the scenario, participants were asked how likely it was that they would take certain steps such as calling a government official, discussing the issue with their family, donating money to an action group, or putting up a sign on their lawn. The survey also measured people's current attitudes toward the environment, the actions they currently took, or planned to take, to reduce energy usage, their feelings of community with the town they were living in, and basic demographic variables. At the request of Lauren Chambliss, we also collaborated with the CALSGreen project to make our StepGreen software (developed originally at Carnegie Mellon University) available to people working in selected Cornell campus buildings. StepGreen is a social networking site that presents users with recommendations for actions they can take to reduce their energy usage. It was originally intended for home use, so we worked with the CALSGreen team to modify the set of recommended actions to include items common to CALS campus buildings (e.g., turning off printers at night, turning off lights in common areas). An additional staff member was added to implement the software for CALS. PARTICIPANTS: Leslie Setlock worked as a graduate research assistant on all aspects of the project. Michaela Culver conducted the online survey as her honors undergraduate research thesis in the Department of Communication. Kathryn Duerr and Lydia Wright helped with the interviews of farm personnel as undergraduate research assistants. TARGET AUDIENCES: The target audiences for the farm interview study is the NY State farmers themselves who will benefit from the availability of new tools and better ways to share knowledge about pro-environmental actions they can take on their farms. The target audiences for the online survey study of rural, urban and suburban NY State residents include all state residents, but particular attention is paid to rural residents who have been sometimes overlooked in prior efforts to recommend actions to reduce energy use. Our goal is to come up with a set of recommended actions and persuasive arguments for these actions that are custom tailored to the type of community in which people live. The target audiences for the CALSGreen component of the work is all members of the Cornell CALS community, and the university as a whole. In addition, a broader target audience consists of members of similar academic communities at other institutions, for which CALSGreen can serve as a role model. Efforts include tailoring recommended actions to the specific needs of the Cornell workplace and university environment. By reading these recommended actions, the knowledge of the local community is enhanced. To the extent that people decide to take the recommended actions, the local environment can be improved through lower energy usage. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: At the request of the CALS Green project (http://green.cals.cornell.edu/) we assisted in the adaptation of the StepGreen software for the Cornell CALS community and in the first field trial of this software.
Impacts
Interviews with NY state farmers led to new insights into the constraints that operate for and against open sharing of pro-environmental behaviors in an online social networking environment such as StepGreen. Positive motivators for sharing include a desire to practice pro-environmental behaviors and limited time to do research on these topics. Constraints against sharing include restrictions on sharing of tips and insights between farms, limited social networks between employees and owners of different farms, and outdated computer equipment that would not be fast enough for modern social networking sites. The online survey of rural, suburban and urban NY State residents showed that across all places of residence, people were more persuaded by arguments that were locally framed, that is, which referred to events and outcomes in their own community. In addition, people were more likely to donate money than to actively donate their time to a cause. There was also a trend for people to report being more likely to consider an issue when voting when the argument was locally framed. With respect to the emotional vs. scientific dimension, self-reported intentions to take action were non-significantly higher with the emotional arguments. The results strongly suggest that the public will be more engaged with environmentally arguments when they are framed in local terms. We are plan to follow up on this study with a new set of interviews with a more extensive online survey examining how best to tailor pro-environmental messages and suggested behaviors to meet the needs of people living in different areas. The first field trial of CALSGreen was recently completed and analysis of the data, including extensive logs of system use over the course of the trial, is in progress. We are examining whether use of the social networking site, and its suggested actions, led to changes in people's attitudes toward the environment and their willingness to take actions to reduce their energy use in the workplace.
Publications
- One undergraduate student performed the online survey as part of her honors thesis work. Culver, Michaela. "The Effects of Framing Environmental Arguments and Motivating Citizen Action: How Should Environmental Arguments be Framed to Effectively Reach Different Target Audiences" (2010).
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