Justifying climate (in)action: The relationship between news use patterns and climate action argument repertoires in the United States, Spain, and Germany

Slides presented at the 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), in Cape Town (South Africa), 6 June 2026.

In this study, we examined how citizens' news use patterns relate to the size and thematic composition of their climate action argument repertoires (i.e., their ability to spontaneously provide reasons for and against climate action). Data collection took place through an online survey in the United States, Germany, and Spain in June 2024, quota-sampled by age, gender, region, and education level to resemble the adult populations of each country. We then conducted a manual content analysis of open-ended statements (n = 15,612) with two trained coders to identify 12,250 justifications for and against climate action, which were then coded for thematic references (e.g., social/moral reasons, negative economic consequences, feasibility issues, conspiracies, denialism). We used latent profile analysis (LPA) to exploratorily identify distinct news user profiles based on the self-reported frequency of use of 11 news sources (public service media, tabloids, podcasts on news and politics, email newsletters, news magazines, national and regional news media, political actors' websites & socials, news aggregators, corporate TV and radio, search engines, and alternative media). Using zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) and logistic regression models, we tested how these profiles relate to argument repertoire size and thematic composition, respectively. The results showed that citizens combining a variety of news sources, and especially those relying on high-quality journalistic sources, reported larger argument repertoires than other user profiles. However, quality outweighed quantity: quality-oriented users showed richer repertoires than heavy users who consumed many sources indiscriminately. This suggests that "the more, the better" does not hold when it comes to news use: it is not the sheer amount or absolute frequency of news use, but rather the quality of news sources consumed, that matters most for citizens' argumentative knowledge.

Transcript

1. Justifying climate (in)action The relationship between news use patterns and climate action argument repertoires in the United States, Spain, and Germany Quirin Ryffel (University of Zurich, Switzerland) Mira Warné (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany) Henri Mütschele (Center for Advanced Internet Studies, Germany) Thomas Zerback (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Germany) 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association Cape Town, South Africa 6 June 2026
2. News use (patterns) and political knowledge Positive association between news use (frequency) and political (surveillance) knowledge. However, modalities matter… ― Medium of communication: Clearest pattern of positive effects for printed newspapers (& radio), evidence less clear for TV, online news, SNS and instant messengers (for news) (Altay, 2025; Kruikemeier et al., 2018; for an overview: Eveland & Garrett, 2017) ― Media genres/types: high-quality media (e.g., broadsheets, PSM) show most consistent positive effects (Andersen et al., 2016; Strömbäck, 2017) Combinatory use matters… News repertoires and political knowledge ― Intramedia mediation (Holbert, 2005) and media/news repertoires (Hasebrink & Popp, 2006) ― Few studies from a news repertoire perspective: the more ≠ the better – “traditionalists” show highest levels of political (surveillance) knowledge (Castro et al., 2022; Wolfsfeld et al., 2016) ― Quality > Quantity (→ possible reasons: news snacking, cognitive overload, overreporting) What type of political knowledge? University of Zurich 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa 1
3. Argument repertoires ― Substantive form of political knowledge (Kuhn, 1991; van der Wurff et al., 2018) ― Conceptualized as indicator of “opinion quality” (Cappella et al., 2002) ― Ability to justify a political position (“justificatory repertoires?”) → Familiarity with the reasons/arguments behind political views ― Prior studies (e.g., Price et al., 2002; Wojcieszak, 2012) measure it by counting how many reasons people can spontaneously give… … for their own position (attitude-consistent repertoire) & … for other people’s position(s) (attitude-inconsistent repertoire) University of Zurich 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa 2
4. News use (patterns) and argument repertoires Experimental research (forced exposure): ― Exposure to political disagreement (counter-attitudinal arguments) in news stories positively affects argument repertoire size (Chen, 2018; Schneider & Weinmann, 2023) ― Exposure to high-quality news stories (constructive, including justifications) positively affects argument repertoire size (van der Wurff et al., 2018) Survey research: ― Self-reported exposure to disagreement in interpersonal conversations positively associated with argument repertoire size (Price et al., 2002) ― Education, issue-specific involvement, issue-specific knowledge positively related to argument repertoire size (van der Wurff et al., 2018) University of Zurich 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa 3
5. News use (patterns) and argument repertoires: Research gaps Argument repertoire size ― N of justifications citizens can provide (pro- & con-climate-action repertoires separately) ― Very rough measure for “opinion quality” New aspect: Thematic references within argument repertoires ― Thematic focus citizens draw on within their justifications such as social/moral reasons; negative (economic) consequences, feasibility-issues, conspiracies, denialism; (Guenther et al., 2022) ― Idea: Better capturing argumentative capacities University of Zurich 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa 4
6. Research questions and hypotheses RQ1: What news user profiles can exploratorily be identified in the United States, Spain, and Germany? RQ2: How do news user profiles differ regarding their knowledge of pro and con climate action arguments (argument repertoire size)? ― H1: News users who regularly combine a variety of news sources show a larger climate action argument repertoire compared to other news user profiles ― H2: News users who regularly combine high-quality news sources (e.g., news magazines, regional and national newspapers, PSM) show a larger climate action argument repertoire compared to other news user profiles RQ3: How do news user profiles differ regarding the thematic references in their argument repertoires? University of Zurich 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa 5
7. Method of data collection Cross-national surveys ― 4706 respondents; conducted in June 2024; quota-sampled by YouGov (between 18 and 93 years old; Median = 53) ― Represent different Western democratic media systems (Humprecht et al., 2022) & differ regarding attitudes towards climate change & climate action (Verner et al., 2023) Age Sample Country Min Max Median M SD USA 18 93 54 51.01 16.94 GER 18 85 55 52.83 15.99 ESP 18 92 50 49.42 14.72 Total 18 93 53 51.05 15.96 University of Zurich Education Gender Low Medium High 3.9% 67.1% 29.0% (63) (1,075) (465) 4.5% 66.3% 26.5% (67) (990) (395) 13.2% 49.0% 37.4% (213) (789) (601) 7.1% 57.4% 34.5% (335) (2,702) (1,621) Female 54.2% (869) 51.0% (763) 52.7% (848) 52.7% (2,480) 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa Income Low 37.8% (606) 28.8% (431) 25.9% (417) 30.9% (1,454) Medium 34.7% (557) 47.5% (709) 55.9% (900) 46.0% (2,166) Participants High 14.0% (225) 10.5% (157) 4.8% (77) 9.8% (459) 34.1% (1603) 31.7% (1494) 34.2% (1609) 100.0% (4706) 6
8. Measurement approach: Argument repertoires University of Zurich 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa 7
9. Methods of data analysis Step 1: Manual content analysis of open-ended statements (n = 15’612) → 12’250 justifications ― Identification of arguments (justifications) as opposed to, e.g., mere opinions Very high reliability for pro justifications: κ = 0.96, α = 0.93 and con justifications: κ = 0.98, α = 0.99 ―Thematic references Satisfactory/good agreement between two trained student coders Con: κ = 0,87 / α = 0,84 to κ = 0,93 / α = 0,91 Pro : κ = 0,75 / α = 0,73 to κ = 0,93 / α = 0,91 Step 2: Latent profile analysis (tidyLPA package in RStudio) Step 3: Zero-inflated negative binomial regressions (ZINB) predicting argument repertoire size & logistic regressions predicting the occurrence of each thematic reference Note. Brennan and Prediger’s Kappa (κ) and Krippendorff’s alpha (α) were calculated in a pretest based on a random subsample of n = 74 statements (n = 20 participants). University of Zurich 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa 8
10. Results of LPA (RQ1): Which user profiles can be identified? (RQ1) University of Zurich 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa 9
11. Results of ZINB (RQ2): Pro climate action argument repertoire size (count component) Note. Own Figure. Plots show predicted mean number of con climate action arguments mentioned for each news user profile based on zero-inflated negative binomial regressions, including controls for age, education, gender (female), political orientation, attitude towards climate action, issue-specific involvement and knowledge, and interpersonal communication. University of Zurich 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa 10
12. Results of ZINB (RQ2): Con climate action argument repertoire size (count component) Note. Own Figure. Plots show predicted mean number of con climate action arguments mentioned for each news user profile based on zero-inflated negative binomial regressions, including controls for age, education, gender (female), political orientation, attitude towards climate action, issue-specific involvement and knowledge, and interpersonal communication. University of Zurich 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa 10
13. Results: Thematic composition of pro argument repertoires (RQ 3) Note. Own Figure. Plots show predicted probabilities of mentioning thematic con climate action for each news user profile, based on logistic regressions, including controls for age, education, gender (female), political orientation, attitude towards climate action, issue-specific involvement and knowledge, and interpersonal communication. University of Zurich 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa 11
14. Results: Thematic composition of con argument repertoires (RQ 3) Note. Own Figure. Plots show predicted probabilities of mentioning each thematic con climate action category for each news user profile, based on logistic regressions, including controls for age, education, gender (female), political orientation, attitude towards climate action, issue-specific involvement and knowledge, and interpersonal communication. University of Zurich 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa 11
15. Conclusion News repertoires matter for individuals’ argumentative knowledge ― News repertoires are related to argument repertoire size & thematic references within them – even when controlling for alternative explanations (however, other predictors more influential) ― Sensible to separate pro from con argument repertoires instead of total repertoire (averaging effects) ― Quantity matters: Across countries, users relying on a variety of journalistic sources (H2) & citizens who focus on high-quality journalistic sources (H3) show richest argument repertoires ― However: Quality > Quantity (→ Quality-oriented > Heavy users) Limitations ― Thematic references are no hard measure of rationality of justifications (Friess et al., 2021) ― Focus on justifications; no distinction between argument components (Toulmin, 1958; Verheij, 2005) ― Self-reported media use (recollection issues & bias) & no causality (Prior, 2009; Slater, 2015) ― Potentially relevant sources not included, e.g., AI chatbots & limited to three WEIRD countries University of Zurich 76th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 4–8 June 2026. Cape Town, South Africa 12