This study identifies the educational, media, institutional, and social information sources through which 189 Dutch youth receive information about climate change, how reliable they perceive these sources, and through which sources they prefer to learn about climate change. It also examines differences in this regard based on demographic characteristics and perceptions of negative consequences of climate change. Results indicate that youth prefer to learn via relatively more 'objective' (i.e., education, scientists, news) rather than relatively more 'subjective' sources (i.e., environmental organizations, social media, conversations with close others), even though they learn a lot via these subjective sources. Certain objective sources, such as secondary and tertiary education, could thus play a bigger part in transferring climate information to youth by implementing scientific knowledge about climate change into their curriculum. Last, while greater exposure to climate information via half of the studied sources is linked to beliefs that the climate crisis has negative consequences globally, it does not relate to adolescents' beliefs of personal negative consequences, indicating that this information makes the climate crisis feel distant.
Communicating sustainability plays an increasingly central role in the fashion industry, yet consumers often continue to overlook sustainable options despite their growing availability. This raises important questions about how sustainability messages in online fashion shops are constructed, and why certain signals and frames succeed while others fail. This article examines how sustainability is strategically communicated through signals and framing, and how these messages operate in interaction with other product-, brand-, and consumer-related attributes. Special attention is given to the latent evaluative and psychological processes that shape how consumers interpret and respond to sustainability information. Through quantitative, experimental studies, this research advances understanding of strategic sustainability communication in digital fashion marketing, offering insight into how, when, and why specific communication strategies influence sustainable consumption intentions.
This article examines how communication shapes polarization and depolarization in discussions on climate change and sustainability, using the Dutch agricultural and nitrogen crisis as a case. Through a conversation analysis of a publicly available conversation between farmers and an environmental activist, the article demonstrates how a highly polarized encounter developed into constructive engagement. The analysis identifies depolarizing practices such as displaying partial agreement, invoking shared identities, using downgraded epistemic claims, and non-accusatory question design, alongside polarizing practices including emphasizing categories, personal blame, and restricting turn access. The analysis shows how these practices shape how participants manage the opening, adjust their interpersonal distance, handle confrontation and dominance, acknowledge opposing views, and move toward a workable closure with future appointments. By tracing polarization and depolarization in real time, the study provides empirical insight into interpersonal communication in polarized contexts, and is practically relevant for understanding interaction in (seemingly) deeply divided contexts.
