Measuring Social Benefits of Media Coverage: How Coverage of Climate Change Affects Behaviour.

This article examines the impact of newspaper coverage of climate change on individual driving behavior, focusing on how the tone of coverage—environmental versus sceptical—influences travel decisions. Using a novel measure of media tone derived from phrase frequency comparisons between environmental and sceptical texts, the study matches this coverage data to detailed travel patterns from the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) at the zip-code level. The findings indicate that environmental coverage leads households to choose more fuel-efficient vehicles, increase carpooling, and reduce driving trips, particularly when low-emission substitutes are readily available, while sceptical coverage has no significant effect. The effect of environmental coverage on behavior is short-lived, lasting about one to two weeks, suggesting that media influence operates primarily by temporarily raising the salience of climate change rather than permanently altering beliefs. These results highlight the potential social benefits of environmental media coverage and the importance of accessible alternatives for enabling environmentally friendly behavior.