This research adds the growing body of literature on the role of celebrities as emergent spokespersons in climate advocacy and the process and consequences of its effects on public attitudes and behaviors to resolve the climate crisis. By applying social cognitive theory in conjunction with emotional appeals and language styles as message frames, the study examines the effects of role-modeling in adoption of eco-attitudes and behaviors. In a 2 x 2 design, the independent variables were emotion frame (fear, hope) and celebrity involvement frame (first person pronouns; FPP, non-first person pronouns; NFPP). For the manipulation check, the tweets were pilot tested. The main study was an experiment that asked participants to read tweets attributed to Leonardo DiCaprio or Pharrell Williams. Four main dependent variables were attitudes toward climate change mitigation and three behaviors, including support for government action, intention to engage in sustainable behavior, and intention to participate in activism for climate change mitigation. The role of two mediating variables (risk awareness, response efficacy) and one moderating variable, parasocial interaction (PSI) with the celebrity, were also examined. First, one-way ANCOVAs compared the effects of emotion frames to the control group. No evidence of the effects of emotion frame over unrelated messages on any dependent variables was found. Second, 2 (fear vs hope) x 2 (FPP vs NFPP) ANCOVAs found that fear-framed messages were more effective than hope-framed messages in driving intention for participation in activism, but emotion frame did not affect any other variables. The results also found that FPP frames led to more positive attitude (compared to NFPP frames), but had no effect on behaviors. Third, regression analyses found no evidence that risk awareness or response efficacy mediated the effect of emotion frames on attitudes or behaviors. In addition, the study discovered that PSI was a strong positive predictor of attitudes and all behaviors, but PSI did not moderate the impact of the celebrity involvement frame. The findings provide empirical evidence of the potential for celebrities to serve as role models in climate advocacy by psychologically involving people, which can be translated to the adoption of attitudes and behaviors.

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Research on environmental advocacy has tended to focus on outcomes and achievements rather than the processes through which these are achieved. In addition, minimal research has attended in detail to the complexity of environmental advocacy, or explored measures to through which to enhance advocates’ prospects of success. The environment movement itself has given scarce attention to promoting the skills, abilities and predispositions that contribute to effective advocacy. Indeed, most environmental non-government organisations (ENGOs) in Australia appear to believe that scientific or expert knowledge will be sufficient to influence environmental decision-makers and consequently provide minimal training or education to enhance advocacy. This thesis is a response to these problems. It seeks to develop an understanding of, and model for, activist education and training in the Australian environment movement. The two main bodies of literature that inform the study are social movement and adult education literature. The former provides the context for the study. Social movement theorists present various explanations of how and why environmental activists work for change. These theorists also discuss the organisational structures and modes of operation typically adopted by activists. The second body of literature is utilised in this thesis to provide a synthesis of relevant educational orientations, traditions and practices. Popular, experiential and adult environmental education offer promising strategies for advocacy organisations that seek to enhance activists’ skills and abilities. The research questions posed in this study lie at the convergence of these two bodies of literature. Two empirical studies were undertaken during this inquiry. The first was conducted with the Queensland Conservation Council, an environmental advocacy organisation where the researcher was employed for five years. The study drew on methods and techniques associated with ethnography and action research to identify, implement and evaluate a range of interventions which aimed to educate and train advocates. Three cycles of inquiry generated useful insights into environmental advocacy and identified useful strategies through which advocacy may be enhanced. The second study, a case study based on interviews and observation, explored the Heart Politics movement. The ethnographic research methods utilised in this case study resulted in a rich description and critical appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of Heart Politics gatherings as activist education. These two studies contributed to the development of a grounded and endogenous theory of education and training for environmental advocacy. This theory is based on a set of observations concerning the provision of activist education: (1) that most activist learning occurs informally and unintentionally through participation in social action such as environmental campaigns; (2) that this learning can be assessed according to a five-category framework and tends to favour specific categories including the development of social action and organisational development skills rather than alternative categories such as political analysis and personal development; (3) that this informal learning can be harnessed and enhanced through strategies which situate learning in the context of action and promote heightened awareness of the learning dimension of social action; and (4) that a key obstacle to education and training in the environment movement is a conspicuous lack of professional development or support for the people involved in facilitating and coordinating activist education activities and programs. These people are often volunteers and infrequently possess qualifications as educators or facilitators but are more likely to be seasoned activists. They tend to work in isolation as activist education activities are sporadic, geographically diffuse and ad hoc. These observations along with other insights acquired through participatory action research and ethnographic inquiry led to a set of conclusions, some of which have already been implemented or initiated during the course of this study. The first conclusion is that strategies to promote the professional development of activist educators may benefit from the development of texts tailored to the tactical orientations and political and other circumstances of Australian environmental advocacy groups. Texts, alone, are considered an inadequate response. The study also concludes that informal networks, formal and informal courses and other strategies to assist collaboration and peer learning among activist educators offer considerable benefits. Other conclusions pertain to the benefits of collaborating with adult educators and tertiary institutions, and professionals, to the relative merits of activist workshops and other forms of delivery, to the opportunities for activist training presented by regular environment movement gatherings and conferences and to the significant merits of promoting and supporting mentorship relationships between novice and experienced activists.

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Klimatförändringar är ett allvarligt problem som hotar vår planet och alla dess invånare.Världsnaturfonden (World Wildlife Fund) arbetar för att minimera och förhindra de skrämmandekonsekvenser som vi oundvikligen kommer att möta om vi fortsätter att leva och konsumera som vi gör.Earth Hour-kampanjen är deras viktigaste kampanj som stöder den gröna rörelsen mot klimatförändringar.Earth Hour blev en succé från dag ett i 2007 i Sydney och spred sig snabbt över hela världen och blev englobalt känd händelse. Earth Hour lyckades skapa medvetenhet och föra allmänhetens uppmärksamhet tillämnet. Klimatförändringen fick stort nyhetsvärde i massmedia och genom sociala medier blev den större.Att använda kändisar var ett bra sätt att öka medvetenheten och sprida WWFs budskap som tex. i Turkiet.Sverige gick en annan väg för att ta itu med det globala uppvärmning problemet de kontaktade politikernadirekt. Earth Hour 2014 kommunikationskampanj analyserades och jämfördes genom intervjuer medrepresentanter för WWF i Sverige och Turkiet. Jag strävar efter att göra en djupare analys på likheter ochskillnader mellan dem. Det är intressant att se hur en global organisation genomför sinkommunikationskampanj "Earth Hour" annorlunda i två kulturellt separata länder för att ta itu medsamma problem. / Climate change is a serious problem that threatens our planet and all its inhabitants. The World WildlifeFund puts a great deal of effort to minimize the devastating effects and prevent the frighteningconsequences that the humanity will inevitably face if we do not alter our approach. Addressing this issue,the Earth Hour campaign is the organization’s most important campaign supporting the green movementagainst climate change. The campaign was a success from day one in 2007 in Sydney and quickly spreadaround the world achieving global recognition. The campaign managed to create awareness and bring thepublic's attention to the subject. For example, climate change gained great news value in the mass mediaand through social media, it became greater. Various methods were employed for the promotion of thecampaign. In Turkey, celebrity endorsement proved successful in raising awareness and conveying theWWF's message. Sweden took a different path to address the global warming problem and contactedpoliticians directly. In the current study, the Earth Hour 2014 communication campaigns in Sweden andTurkey were analysed and compared. Data for the study were collected through interviews withrepresentatives of WWF in Sweden and Turkey. With its findings, the study provides valuable insightsinto the similarities and differences between two campaigns. It is noteworthy to see how a globalorganization conducts its "Earth Hour" communication campaign differently in two culturally separatecountries to address the same problem.