Decision makers use public opinion as an indicator of social acceptance for land use changes. However, public opinion is informed by, inter alia, the media, which tends to “frame” issues of public interest in terms of social conflict rather than the substantive details of the issue. Previous research about the influence of conflict on public opinion about politics has yielded contradictory results about the effect of this “conflict framing.” Some studies have shown that conflict framing polarises public opinion, whereas others have found that it moderates public opinion. Similarly, there is no clear understanding of how conflict framing may affect public opinion about the social acceptance of land use changes. This study presents an experimental survey with a quota sample of the Australian population (n = 1,147) where fictional land use change headlines were manipulated to represent three levels of conflict framing (no conflict; conflict; and conflict between identified parties). The results showed that heightened conflict framing led to the strength of support or opposition for land use changes to become weaker. Importantly, these findings show that perceived social conflict can shape public opinion on land use change. As a consequence, public opinion may not represent genuine social acceptance of land use change in cases where conflict is pronounced in the media. This raises the need for attentiveness to disentangling the influence of conflict framing from the substantive issues of land use change.

中文翻译：

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冲突框架和社会认同在土地使用变化的公众舆论中的作用：澳大利亚背景下的实验性检验

决策者将公众舆论作为社会接受土地使用变化的指标。但是，公众舆论尤其是通过媒体来获得信息，媒体倾向于根据社会冲突而不是实质性细节来“构架”公共利益问题。先前有关冲突对公众舆论政治影响的研究对这种“冲突框架”的影响产生了矛盾的结果。一些研究表明，冲突框架使公众舆论两极化，而另一些研究则发现，它加剧了舆论。同样，对于冲突框架如何影响公众对土地用途变化的社会接受度也没有明确的了解。这项研究提出了一项针对澳大利亚人口配额样本的实验性调查（n = 1,147），其中虚构的土地利用变化的标题被用来代表三个层次的冲突框架（无冲突；冲突；以及当事方之间的冲突）。结果表明，冲突框架的加剧导致对土地利用变化的支持或反对的力量减弱。重要的是，这些发现表明，感知到的社会冲突会影响公众对土地利用变化的看法。因此，在媒体宣布冲突的情况下，公众舆论可能并不代表社会真正接受土地用途的变化。这就需要注意将冲突框架的影响与土地利用变化的实质性问题区分开。