INTERVIEW

British public still undecided on fracking

Dr Nick Nash, School of Psychology,
Cardiff University
In this weeks interview we talk to Dr Nick Nash, from the School
of Psychology at Cardiff University, about the public perception
of shale gas within the UK and how the industry might best
approach the task of convincing the public that shale gas is safe
and beneficial.
Monica Thomas (Shale Gas International): I would like to talk about the research paper on
UK Public Perceptions of Shale Gas. Can you tell us how this came about?
Dr Nick Nash (Cardiff University): We were led to do this research partly through the impact of
The Royal Societys finding concerning the need to understand UK public perceptions of shale gas
extraction and other technologies which are still quite poorly understood, as it turns out, by a lot of
UK public.
We also need to look at these issues because its a backdrop to whats been referred to as
the energy trilemma: the need to guarantee a secure supply of energy, the need to ensure the
affordability of energy, and the need to meet increasing environmental targets all of which are
putting pressure on the energy industry and creating a need for change both within the industries
and also by the people who use these energies in their own homes.
We essentially wanted to find out what people perceived to be the risks of shale gas and other
energy sources and how they were held differently by different sections of the public. Then we also
wanted to look at how messages about shale gas might influence peoples perceptions.

MT: So, when it comes to shale, how high is the level of awareness? How much do people
know and understand about the process of extraction, and what shale exploration
involves?

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NN: It depends on the wording, I guess. The term fracking is a term people are far more familiar with
and it is pretty much the nom de plume for the technology. You find very few people using terms such
as shale gas, hydraulic fracturing. Fracking trips of the tongue a bit more, but whenever its been
portrayed in the media its been worded in that way, so people pick it up and use what they hear.
But in terms of how many people have heard of shale in a non-semantic sense, looking broadly
at shale attitudes from what weve got from public perception literature, you find that because
it is often in the media, and its an unconventional energy source, that more people have heard
of it compared with other unconventional sources such as carbon capture and storage, and coal
gasification, etc.
Although people have heard of it, its been mostly in relation to opposition from environmental groups
and media coverage. So while most people are aware I think that in the DECC (Department of Energy
and Climate Change) study they found that around 74 percent of the British public have heard of it there was considerable ambivalence. About half of the respondents neither opposed nor supported
shale gas, a quarter were more supportive and the remaining quarter were opposed.
So high awareness and high ambivalence.

MT: That is something that I found very interesting in your research, but this is not what
the environmentalists would like us to believe. They would have us believe that the British
public is unequivocally against shale.
Would you say that these finding indicate that the battle over public perceptions on shale
hasnt been lost yet, contrary to what the environmentalists say, since half of the British
public is still undecided?
NN: I think as far as the industry goes, and as far our recent research has found, there is
considerable ambivalence in peoples perceptions of shale gas. And it does present an opportunity for
the industry to try and engage with public groups. And I say public groups rather than the public
because something else that the research has highlighted is that depending on the background
of the audience, it can dictate to a fairly significant degree how receptive they are to particular
arguments.
As you have said, this is a rhetorical battle ground. The shale industry is a relatively new one. People
are more comfortable with more conventional fossil fuels they are the ones people know, the ones
they grew up with, and there is a kind of biographical understanding along the lines of we had
coal in our house or we have central heating. Those kind of biographical details feed into peoples
perceptions.
So what you find is that there was quite a lot of media coverage of shale gas which has at times

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portrayed it in a fairly negative way and as you would expect you had environmental groups, who
also put a particular perspective on the issue surrounding shale gas in a way that gets people to
oppose it.
Going back to our research, the fact that we have found some evidence of ambivalence amongst the
British public, gives the industry ample opportunity to engage. Because what you find in psychology
is that once peoples attitudes and perceptions have formed, they are very difficult to change. It is
always better to engage early and try to put arguments for shale gas now, rather than leaving it until
a later date.
Because the environmental lobby is
quite strong, once one side gets into
peoples heads it is quite difficult to
counteract that.

Half of the respondents neither

opposed nor supported shale gas,
a quarter were more supportive
and the remaining quarter were
opposed.

MT: What are the main concerns that people have when it comes to shale extraction? Would
that be water contamination or earth tremors or something like the impact on the house
prices?
NN: In the UK, at least, what you find is that the concerns are predominately to do with water
contamination, whereas the issue of induced seismicity thats been found to be declining in the
public perceptions of risks associated with shale gas.
Going back to what I said about the ambivalence, you have those factors on the once side, but you
also have more people seeing shale gas as a cheap form of energy. And some recent research has
suggested that thats maybe where the ambivalence comes from, the associated risks on the one
hand and the economic benefit on the other.

MT: Some of the areas where shale gas is likely to be explored would benefit from
regeneration and job-creation. So on the one hand you have people concerned about the
value of their properties going down, but on the other there are economic benefits. So my
question is: are attitudes to shale influenced by geography? Is there a North-South divide
when it comes to attitudes toward shale?
NN: When it comes to shale, it seems that the overriding factors that influence peoples perceptions
are to do with demographic differences, their political affiliations and also their environmental values.
So basically that means that the contextual details are very important. More important, weve found,
than where people live.
The people who are the most likely to support shale tend to be those who are more positive towards

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those kind of unconventional energy sources. They tend to be male, they also tend to be politically
right of centre, and they also tend to be more educated this is particularly noticeable with scientific
education.
As I had mentioned earlier, we did look at differences between members of the public living in three
different regions; so looking at areas where fracking had taken place, areas where fracking could
potentially take place, and areas where fracking wasnt possible for geological reasons.
In the study weve found that there were more favourable attitudes expressed in those areas where
fracking had already taken place. However, when you control for those demographics, you will find
there wasnt actually any difference that we could discern due to where people lived. It was more
down to other contextual factors.

MT: Some of those factors I find quite interesting. Because while I can understand
that somebody who has a higher level of technical understanding would, perhaps, put
more faith in the industry carrying out fracturing in a responsible manner, things like
newspaper readership is quite a surprising differentiating factor. Why are people watching
television more likely to oppose fracking than the people reading newspapers? That is
quite a surprising finding, dont you think?
NN: One of the things about our research was that it was fairly exploratory and it almost raises
as many questions as we were able to answer. The newspaper readership was an interesting
finding. There may be some demographic difference between these two groups that absorb news
and information through certain media forms, for example comparing watching TV and buying
newspapers. We havent had the opportunity to look into it in any greater detail.
It wouldnt be right for me to suggest any particular reasons for it as we dont really have any
evidence or any full understanding of why this difference came up.

MT: When I researched this topic, and obviously read your paper, it made me think of a book
I read a while ago. Its a rather well-known book called How to Win Campaigns by Chris
Rose, who was the Head of Campaigning at Greenpeace.
One thing he said, that I found quite controversial, is that education is the opposite of
influencing. When you educate people, you show the complexity of a problem and that
leads to a paralysis, where people are aware of the complexity of the issue and therefore
are not certain how to act. However, by simplifying issues you motivate people on an
emotional level and get them to act. Consequently he advised that if you want to change
peoples perception, you need to simplify the message which, when it comes to shale,
would be fracking kills.

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And thats quite interesting because there is quite a lot of stress put on educating the
public when it comes to fracking, and at the same time youve got environmental groups,
who are not particularly interested in education, but are very consistent in their message
of fracking is evil. So I would like to know your opinion on that.
NN: Well, I am kind of aware of that argument and I think that looking at a more emotional appeal or
a more rational appeal, both tend to maybe simplify the understanding of how to persuade to a fairly
significant degree. So whilst they both have their virtues, they are both missing things.
What researchers suggested, was that there were, maybe, three different types of factors involved in
how people understand risk and their perception of it.

So for example youve got technology

In the UK what you find is that
characteristics how people imagine the
the concerns are predominately
scale of the technology, waste outputs, etc.
to do with water contamination.
So you have those very real-world issues.
Second, youve got all the psychological
processes that are also going on. For example; how attached people are to a place, maybe they are
feeling threatened by new technology, which is often an argument voiced against. And also their
familiarity with the technology.

Thirdly, youve got wider social and institutional factors. For example: trust in the sources of
the information, issues to do with ownership and governance those kind of things. So its a
combination of factors. They are broadly reflective of social, psychological, emotive communication
and persuasion, and they also highlight similar factors to do with the audience, and the individuals
level of engagement, their prior knowledge, their other values that they adhere to. All this will affect
the way they receive the message. That could be an emotional appeal, but it also can be some factual
information.
Lastly you have the message factors the things to do with the message itself. How is the message
phrased? Where is it coming from? Going back to what had been mentioned at the very start; shale
gas and hydraulic fracturing versus fracking. They are the two terms for the same process,
effectively, but they tend to create rather different ideas about the technology.
And also, again, you have the source and contextual factors, to do with trust in who is providing the
message. It could also be to do with other factors such as timing, all of these things combine. So we
should be looking at public groups, rather than the public as a whole, whether we are trying to appeal
to them on an emotional level or on a rational level.

MT: So what youre saying is that rather than preparing one message and making sure that

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it is delivered, the industry should address different groups in a different manner and in
different contexts?
NN: Yes. I think that there is a need for being more pluralistic and rather than just provide a message,
to think about how the message is going to be perceived, and how it might be received by the
audience, and what are the discussions that are going on around it. Its a whole raft of different
issues. Its not just to deliver the message itself, its far, far broader than that.
Ive been involved in quite a lot of different kinds of research to do with communicating issues to the
public, or understanding public perceptions not just shale gas, or energy technology and you find
that you need a more nuanced and sophisticated approach to understanding and addressing public
perceptions.

Published: 3rd August, 2015

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