And the Oscar goes to ... climate change
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-08/sdsu-ato080316.php[font face=Serif]Public Release: 3-Aug-2016
[font size=5]And the Oscar goes to ... climate change[/font]
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A new study led by SDSU researchers finds that Leonardo DiCaprio's Academy Awards acceptance speech corresponded with record levels of public engagement with climate change[/font]
San Diego State University
[font size=3]SAN DIEGO, Calif. (Aug 3, 2016) -- Featured alongside the glamour and star power of the 88th Academy Awards was a potentially planet-saving performance: Leonardo DiCaprio used his Best Actor acceptance speech to advocate for action on climate change before 34.5 million live viewers.
Twitter posts that included "global warming" or "climate change" broke all-time records. There were more than 250,000 unique tweets mentioning these terms on the day DiCaprio spoke, representing a 636 percent increase over expected levels based on historical trends.
At the same time, Google searches for "climate change" or "global warming" increased by 261 percent and 210 percent, respectively. Searches remained higher than expected for the following four days, representing about 105,000 and 216,000 total searches. Searches also reflected specific verbiage from DiCaprio's speech. For instance, the actor mentioned that 2015 was the hottest year in recorded history" and the researchers found an uptick in searches for the phrase "hottest year."
In terms of social media engagement and Google search behavior, DiCaprio's speech eclipsed Earth Day by a factor greater than five and the recent Conference of the Parties climate change summit by a factor greater than three.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0159885