The Patio Meeting #8: Climate Change, Virtual Reality and Social Networks

For the 8th Patio meeting, we have invited Dr. Marijn Meijers and Dr. Zeph van Berlo to present their project on climate change, virtual reality, and social networks.

Presentation abstract: Individuals play an important role in mitigating climate change by adopting climate-friendly behavior and by engaging in interpersonal communication (i.e., conversations) regarding climate change. However, little is known about how to stimulate climate change conversations. The current project therefore investigates whether a virtual reality environment can kickstart climate change conversations. Furthermore, it is investigated to what extent such conversations and climate-friendly behavior impact each other over time. Whereas most studies into climate change behavior change take an individualistic approach, we will take a social network approach to see whether a virtual reality environment can kickstart climate change conversations with people in someone’s network, as well as how ties might affect one’s climate-friendly behavior.

About Marijn: Marijn Meijers is an Assistant Professor in Environmental Communication at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam, and co-director of the ECoLab. Her research and teaching focuses on understanding and stimulating pro-environmental behavior.

About Zeph: Zeph van Berlo is an Assistant Professor in Persuasive Communication at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam. He studies the application of immersive technologies (virtual and augmented reality) for promoting behavioral change in a wide variety of contexts (e.g., commercial, sustainability, & health).

For more information visit The Patio website.