Communicating risk in human-wildlife interactions: how stories and images move minds

Effectively communicating risk is critical to reducing conflict in
human-wildlife interactions. Using a survey experiment fielded in the
midst of contentious public debate over flying fox management in urban and
suburban areas of Australia, we find that stories with characters (i.e.,
narratives) are more effective than descriptive information at mobilizing
support for different forms of bat management, including legal protection,
relocation, and habitat restoration. We use conditional process analysis
to show that narratives, particularly with accompanying images, are
effective because they cause emotional reactions that influence risk
perception, which in turn drives public opinion about strategies for risk
mitigation. We find that prior attitudes towards bats matter in how
narrative messages are received, in particular in how strongly they
generate shifts in affective response, risk perception, and public
opinion. Our results suggest that those with warm prior attitudes towards
bats report greater support for bat dispersal when they perceive impacts
from bats to be more likely, while those with cool priors report greater
support for bat protection when they perceive impacts from bats to be more
positive, revealing 1) potential opportunities for targeted messaging to
boost public buy-in of proposals to manage risks associated with
human-wildlife interactions, and 2) potential vulnerabilities to
disinformation regarding risk.