Posting environmental risk: Communicating with numerical and nonnumerical messaging across information modalities

Area of Science:

• Environmental Health Communication
• Risk Perception Studies
• Social Media Research

Background:

• Effective risk communication via social media is crucial for public health and environmental issues.
• Understanding how message design influences public perception and engagement is essential for risk communicators.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how message modality (text-only, text with photos, text with data visualizations) and risk representation (numerical vs. non-numerical) affect risk perceptions, message informativeness, and sharing intentions on social media.
• To examine these effects across diverse environmental risk domains: asthma, heat waves, and vector-borne diseases.

Main Methods:

• An experiment involving 737 U.S. adults exposed to various social media risk message formats.
• Analysis of how message features (modality, numerical vs. non-numerical risk details) influenced risk perceptions, perceived informativeness, and sharing intentions.
• Assessment of moderating effects of participant numeracy and risk topic.

Main Results:

• Messages with data visualizations (graphs, tables) significantly enhanced risk perceptions, informativeness, and sharing intentions compared to text-only messages.
• Numerical risk information led to greater perceived risk, informativeness, and sharing intentions than non-numerical summaries.
• The impact of numerical information on sharing intentions and perceived informativeness was more pronounced in individuals with high numeracy skills.

Conclusions:

• Social media risk messages incorporating numerical details and data visualizations are more effective in engaging the public.
• Communicators should consider using data presentations and numerical data to improve risk communication on social media platforms.
• The effectiveness of numerical risk information may be moderated by audience numeracy levels.