Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change. Farrell, J. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 11, 2015. ![Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change [link]](https://bibbase.org/img/filetypes/link.svg "link")
Website abstract bibtex SignificanceIdeological polarization around environmental issues--especially climate change--have increased in the last 20 years. This polarization has led to public uncertainty, and in some cases, policy stalemate. Much attention has been given to understanding individual attitudes, but much less to the larger organizational and financial roots of polarization. This gap is due to prior difficulties in gathering and analyzing quantitative data about these complex and furtive processes. This paper uses comprehensive text and network data to show how corporate funding influences the production and actual thematic content of polarization efforts. It highlights the important influence of private funding in public knowledge and politics, and provides researchers a methodological model for future studies that blend large-scale textual discourse with social networks. Drawing on large-scale computational data and methods, this research demonstrates how polarization efforts are influenced by a patterned network of political and financial actors. These dynamics, which have been notoriously difficult to quantify, are illustrated here with a computational analysis of climate change politics in the United States. The comprehensive data include all individual and organizational actors in the climate change countermovement (164 organizations), as well as all written and verbal texts produced by this network between 1993-2013 (40,785 texts, more than 39 million words). Two main findings emerge. First, that organizations with corporate funding were more likely to have written and disseminated texts meant to polarize the climate change issue. Second, and more importantly, that corporate funding influences the actual thematic content of these polarization efforts, and the discursive prevalence of that thematic content over time. These findings provide new, and comprehensive, confirmation of dynamics long thought to be at the root of climate change politics and discourse. Beyond the specifics of climate change, this paper has important implications for understanding ideological polarization more generally, and the increasing role of private funding in determining why certain polarizing themes are created and amplified. Lastly, the paper suggests that future studies build on the novel approach taken here that integrates large-scale textual analysis with social networks.
@article{
title = {Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change},
type = {article},
year = {2015},
identifiers = {[object Object]},
pages = {201509433},
websites = {http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/18/1509433112.abstract},
month = {11},
day = {23},
id = {ebd83e89-0a1f-3798-9e78-33bbf1bf6560},
created = {2016-01-04T17:34:07.000Z},
accessed = {2015-11-25},
file_attached = {false},
profile_id = {f8c267c4-4c39-31dc-80fa-3a9691373386},
group_id = {63e349d6-2c70-3938-9e67-2f6483f6cbab},
last_modified = {2016-01-04T17:34:07.000Z},
read = {false},
starred = {false},
authored = {false},
confirmed = {true},
hidden = {false},
abstract = {SignificanceIdeological polarization around environmental issues--especially climate change--have increased in the last 20 years. This polarization has led to public uncertainty, and in some cases, policy stalemate. Much attention has been given to understanding individual attitudes, but much less to the larger organizational and financial roots of polarization. This gap is due to prior difficulties in gathering and analyzing quantitative data about these complex and furtive processes. This paper uses comprehensive text and network data to show how corporate funding influences the production and actual thematic content of polarization efforts. It highlights the important influence of private funding in public knowledge and politics, and provides researchers a methodological model for future studies that blend large-scale textual discourse with social networks. Drawing on large-scale computational data and methods, this research demonstrates how polarization efforts are influenced by a patterned network of political and financial actors. These dynamics, which have been notoriously difficult to quantify, are illustrated here with a computational analysis of climate change politics in the United States. The comprehensive data include all individual and organizational actors in the climate change countermovement (164 organizations), as well as all written and verbal texts produced by this network between 1993-2013 (40,785 texts, more than 39 million words). Two main findings emerge. First, that organizations with corporate funding were more likely to have written and disseminated texts meant to polarize the climate change issue. Second, and more importantly, that corporate funding influences the actual thematic content of these polarization efforts, and the discursive prevalence of that thematic content over time. These findings provide new, and comprehensive, confirmation of dynamics long thought to be at the root of climate change politics and discourse. Beyond the specifics of climate change, this paper has important implications for understanding ideological polarization more generally, and the increasing role of private funding in determining why certain polarizing themes are created and amplified. Lastly, the paper suggests that future studies build on the novel approach taken here that integrates large-scale textual analysis with social networks.},
bibtype = {article},
author = {Farrell, Justin},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences}
}
Downloads: 0
{"_id":"RNo7SxAmb9nPf5osz","bibbaseid":"farrell-corporatefundingandideologicalpolarizationaboutclimatechange-2015","downloads":0,"creationDate":"2017-01-12T21:32:12.778Z","title":"Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change","author_short":["Farrell, J."],"year":2015,"bibtype":"article","biburl":null,"bibdata":{"title":"Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change","type":"article","year":"2015","identifiers":"[object Object]","pages":"201509433","websites":"http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/18/1509433112.abstract","month":"11","day":"23","id":"ebd83e89-0a1f-3798-9e78-33bbf1bf6560","created":"2016-01-04T17:34:07.000Z","accessed":"2015-11-25","file_attached":false,"profile_id":"f8c267c4-4c39-31dc-80fa-3a9691373386","group_id":"63e349d6-2c70-3938-9e67-2f6483f6cbab","last_modified":"2016-01-04T17:34:07.000Z","read":false,"starred":false,"authored":false,"confirmed":"true","hidden":false,"abstract":"SignificanceIdeological polarization around environmental issues--especially climate change--have increased in the last 20 years. This polarization has led to public uncertainty, and in some cases, policy stalemate. Much attention has been given to understanding individual attitudes, but much less to the larger organizational and financial roots of polarization. This gap is due to prior difficulties in gathering and analyzing quantitative data about these complex and furtive processes. This paper uses comprehensive text and network data to show how corporate funding influences the production and actual thematic content of polarization efforts. It highlights the important influence of private funding in public knowledge and politics, and provides researchers a methodological model for future studies that blend large-scale textual discourse with social networks. Drawing on large-scale computational data and methods, this research demonstrates how polarization efforts are influenced by a patterned network of political and financial actors. These dynamics, which have been notoriously difficult to quantify, are illustrated here with a computational analysis of climate change politics in the United States. The comprehensive data include all individual and organizational actors in the climate change countermovement (164 organizations), as well as all written and verbal texts produced by this network between 1993-2013 (40,785 texts, more than 39 million words). Two main findings emerge. First, that organizations with corporate funding were more likely to have written and disseminated texts meant to polarize the climate change issue. Second, and more importantly, that corporate funding influences the actual thematic content of these polarization efforts, and the discursive prevalence of that thematic content over time. These findings provide new, and comprehensive, confirmation of dynamics long thought to be at the root of climate change politics and discourse. Beyond the specifics of climate change, this paper has important implications for understanding ideological polarization more generally, and the increasing role of private funding in determining why certain polarizing themes are created and amplified. Lastly, the paper suggests that future studies build on the novel approach taken here that integrates large-scale textual analysis with social networks.","bibtype":"article","author":"Farrell, Justin","journal":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences","bibtex":"@article{\n title = {Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change},\n type = {article},\n year = {2015},\n identifiers = {[object Object]},\n pages = {201509433},\n websites = {http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/18/1509433112.abstract},\n month = {11},\n day = {23},\n id = {ebd83e89-0a1f-3798-9e78-33bbf1bf6560},\n created = {2016-01-04T17:34:07.000Z},\n accessed = {2015-11-25},\n file_attached = {false},\n profile_id = {f8c267c4-4c39-31dc-80fa-3a9691373386},\n group_id = {63e349d6-2c70-3938-9e67-2f6483f6cbab},\n last_modified = {2016-01-04T17:34:07.000Z},\n read = {false},\n starred = {false},\n authored = {false},\n confirmed = {true},\n hidden = {false},\n abstract = {SignificanceIdeological polarization around environmental issues--especially climate change--have increased in the last 20 years. This polarization has led to public uncertainty, and in some cases, policy stalemate. Much attention has been given to understanding individual attitudes, but much less to the larger organizational and financial roots of polarization. This gap is due to prior difficulties in gathering and analyzing quantitative data about these complex and furtive processes. This paper uses comprehensive text and network data to show how corporate funding influences the production and actual thematic content of polarization efforts. It highlights the important influence of private funding in public knowledge and politics, and provides researchers a methodological model for future studies that blend large-scale textual discourse with social networks. Drawing on large-scale computational data and methods, this research demonstrates how polarization efforts are influenced by a patterned network of political and financial actors. These dynamics, which have been notoriously difficult to quantify, are illustrated here with a computational analysis of climate change politics in the United States. The comprehensive data include all individual and organizational actors in the climate change countermovement (164 organizations), as well as all written and verbal texts produced by this network between 1993-2013 (40,785 texts, more than 39 million words). Two main findings emerge. First, that organizations with corporate funding were more likely to have written and disseminated texts meant to polarize the climate change issue. Second, and more importantly, that corporate funding influences the actual thematic content of these polarization efforts, and the discursive prevalence of that thematic content over time. These findings provide new, and comprehensive, confirmation of dynamics long thought to be at the root of climate change politics and discourse. Beyond the specifics of climate change, this paper has important implications for understanding ideological polarization more generally, and the increasing role of private funding in determining why certain polarizing themes are created and amplified. Lastly, the paper suggests that future studies build on the novel approach taken here that integrates large-scale textual analysis with social networks.},\n bibtype = {article},\n author = {Farrell, Justin},\n journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences}\n}","author_short":["Farrell, J."],"urls":{"Website":"http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/18/1509433112.abstract"},"bibbaseid":"farrell-corporatefundingandideologicalpolarizationaboutclimatechange-2015","role":"author","downloads":0},"search_terms":["corporate","funding","ideological","polarization","climate","change","farrell"],"keywords":[],"authorIDs":[]}