Skepticism About Media Effects Concerning the Environment: Examining Lomborg's Hypotheses

Statistician Bjorn Lomborg's tacit hypotheses regarding the effect of mass media exposure (what he calls “the Litany”) on environmental beliefs are tested using General Social Survey data from 1993, 1994, and 2000. Two core hypotheses and a research question are drawn from Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist for discussion. Lomborg's apparent belief in a strong relationship between stilted media coverage and heightened environmental concern is generally not consistently borne out by the data. Lomborg's failure to distinguish between types of media, particularly television and newspapers, is shown to be problematic.