Climate, collapse, catastrophes – balancing between emotion and realism in climate-fiction movies by the means of science communication

Climate-fiction disaster films are impressive dystopias of our future which have the strength to grab people’s attention and captivate viewers with their exciting narratives. The communication format ‘Science & Cinema: Climate, Collapse, Catastrophes’ aims at directing this strength to interest people in climate-change science. This article introduces the concept of this science communication format and presents the results of a mixed-methods approach applying a quantitative study and qualitative focus group discussion. In the quantitative part, we evaluated how the event was received by the audience, with regard to their climate-change risk perception, and their motivation for climate-friendly behavior. However, effects were mostly small as the audience was already motivated. However, the qualitative data showed that the Science & Cinema format can be used to combine entertainment and scientific information and to draw attention toward the multifaceted environmental and societal impacts of climate change.