Author/s Leane E. (1), Marx K. (2), Tin T. (3), Goh H.C. (4), Marques-Quinteiro P. (5) (5b), and Dotta S. (6). (1) University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia (2) University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia (3) Freelance Consultant, France (4) University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (5) Universidade Lusófona, Lisbon, Portugal (5b) CETRAD, Centre for Transdisciplinary Development Studies, UTAD, Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal (6) Federal University of ABC, Santo André, Brazil Brief Overview What people know and think about Antarctica is complicated and difficult to measure, varying with factors such as gender, education, age and location. Survey and interview work conducted so far has significant limitations, including a tendency to focus on Western countries and those that are signatories to the Antarctic Treaty. There are nonetheless some trends that can be tentatively identified across and within countries surveyed (see Table 1), including that: people who know more about the continent are more likely to care about it; people who are politically conservative are less likely to show concern for the Antarctic environment than other people; media coverage is an important factor in awareness of Antarctica and support for Antarctic research. The findings of the studies summarised here show that efforts to engage and inform people about the Antarctic region are valuable. While not necessarily impactful on all demographics, such efforts will generate a more informed and aware public on the whole. They also suggest that those charged with engaging non-specialist audiences with the Antarctic region need to develop techniques focussed on particular demographics, including younger people, women and politically conservative people. Coordinating these engagement efforts across groups in different nations and developing standardised tools to measure the effectiveness would allow better comparison and exchange of successful approaches. Detailed Overview The climate crisis has generated a series of high-level calls for intensified efforts to communicate Antarctic research to non-specialists [1-3]. Papers related to outreach and education submitted to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCM) have increased markedly in the last decade, with an ATCM Intersessional Contact Group focussed on this topic established in 2015 [4]. This growing interest raises the question of what members of the public currently know and think about the Antarctic region – that is, the baseline against which the effectiveness of such communication efforts can be evaluated. A “lack of broad polar literacy” among publics has received academic attention lately, accompanied by an initiative to standardise approaches to the topic [5]. However, such efforts to increase literacy across the polar regions tend to be northern-centric, with a greater focus on the Arctic than the Antarctic. For example, a paper outlining the success of the PENGUIN (Polar ENgagement through GUided Inquiry) model of polar literacy, despite its name, makes no mention of the south polar regions at all [6]. While efforts to increase public awareness of both polar regions are welcome, studies that focus specifically on the Antarctic – its unique natural environment and governance system – are also warranted. This information summary brings together research about non-specialists’ understanding and views of the Antarctic region. While there is a small body of work focusing on the attitudes of Antarctic tourists [e.g. 7], here we focus on much more general cohorts of non-specialists. We synthesise all studies that we could locate examining public knowledge, perceptions, attitudes, and values in relation to Antarctica and Antarctic research, and the extent to which these vary with factors such as nationality, geographical location, age, and gender. Qualities such as perceptions are less easily measured than physical phenomena. For the vast majority of humanity, awareness of Antarctica comes through stories, images and sounds produced by others. This makes cultural and media analyses rich sources of qualitative information, although difficult to condense [10-15]. Quantitative data, derived primarily through direct questioning via surveys, provide a less nuanced but more readily synthesised source of insight. We have endeavoured to strike a balance between large-scale surveys that are necessarily limited in the number and specificity of questions, and smaller-scale surveys that provide more nuanced data but might not be representative of the broader population. Findings of surveys investigating public views on Antarctica Over the last two decades, surveys focussed on public views on Antarctica, in isolation or as part of larger studies, have been conducted in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Spain, Türkiye, and the United States [16-31] (see Table 2 for descriptions of all studies known to the authors). Additionally, there have been a small number of studies focussing on cross-national cohorts, which indicate relatively few differences based on nationality [32-34]. However, as the cohorts in each case are fairly small and studied using convenience or purposive samples (i.e. drawn from an easily accessed group or a specific targeted cohort, not usually representative of broader demographics), and almost all of the surveys originated from Western and Antarctic Treaty signatories, the broader interpretation of these findings is limited. Public Knowledge of Antarctica Levels of public knowledge of the Antarctic region have been measured in several studies, but direct comparisons between studies are impossible owing to the lack of a standard reference scale. In the absence of such a means of comparison, the key data available are from studies within specific national or other contexts. The authors of a survey of 1000 young people in Argentinian cities conclude that “many” respondents “lack[ed] any knowledge about the environmental problems Antarctica is facing” [16]; another study of US university students observed that “most” of their participants “had little to no knowledge about Antarctica.” A comparative survey of over 1600 citizens in the five “Antarctic gateways” (the cities of Punta Arenas, Chile; Ushuaia, Argentina; Cape Town, South Africa; Hobart, Australia; and Christchurch, New Zealand) indicated that, while most people felt ill-informed about Antarctica (66%), this feeling was particularly acute in young people (83%) [17]. However, important distinction lies between people feeling ill-informed (self-assessed knowledge) and being ill-informed, as noted in a 2018 Australian study of nearly 3000 people [35], which showed similar levels of polar knowledge in older and younger people, although the latter’s self-assessed knowledge was lower. One U.S. study compared responses to the same polar knowledge questions in 2006 and 2010 in two 1000-plus cohorts of randomly selected adults, finding a significant improvement in polar knowledge (but not general science literacy) over this period [29]. The authors also found that knowledge of the polar region is positively correlated with concern and support for reserving the region for scientific research. The 2018 Australian study mentioned above repeated the same polar knowledge questions used in a 2016 U.S. study, finding that Australians’ knowledge of Antarctica by this scale was roughly the same as U.S. citizens, but that the former rated their own knowledge lower [36, 30]. Studies in Malaysia and New Zealand found public level of knowledge around national activities in Antarctica to be low [24] or varying [26-27], although the same studies found evidence for a high level of support for government activities, suggesting that people may be supportive of activities without needing to have a high degree of knowledge. The most recent study of which we are aware surveyed over a thousand adult Australians in 2022-23 [41] and found a low (<60% accurate responses) level of knowledge of basic polar geography, aligning with the earlier Australian and US national studies mentioned above. This study also identified a gender gap, with men more knowledgeable than women about polar geography, while women are slightly more concerned than men about geopolitical and environmental threats to Antarctica. The authors suggest this difference could be due to news consumption habits, with the study showing that news media is the most common source of knowledge about Antarctica. What do people value about Antarctica Many studies are less interested in knowledge of Antarctica than in what qualities or activities people value in the region. A recent study created an Antarctic Assessment Scale measuring the degree of adherence to six values – environmental, social, political, aesthetic, economic and scientific (most prior studies focus on close variations of these) [37]. It found that participants in the southernmost part of Chile ranked aesthetic value higher than others did. The same survey showed that mature adults (over 50) had a higher level of appreciation for the continent and responsibility for its future than young adults (20-24 years old). Several other surveys indicate that non-specialists prioritise Antarctica’s scientific and environmental values [21, 32-34, 36-37]. One exception is a study of a thousand young people in two Argentinian cities (Buenos Aires and Bariloche), which found that the largest percentage of participants were either indifferent to Antarctica or considered it important only primarily as a place of territorial significance [16]. This and another Chilean study also suggest that people living further from Antarctica are more likely to care about the continent if they consider it of instrumental value (i.e. as a source of resources), while those living closer are more likely to care if they identify personally with the region [16, 36]. Nationally representative surveys (that is, those examining a national population based upon probability samples drawn using random or systematic sampling strategies) investigating knowledge, attitudes and/or concern relating to Antarctica are relatively rare. They include questions asked as part of larger US surveys in 2006, 2010 and 2016 [29, 30] and as part of larger Australian surveys in 2017, 2018, 2021-22 and 2022-23 [35, 36, 19, 41]. An analysis of the 2006 and 2010 U.S surveys [29] suggests that: citizens identifying as political conservatives are less likely to show concern for the polar regions and less likely to support reserving the Antarctic for science; women are more likely to show concern and support; and higher general science literacy is associated with greater concern for the majority of people, but not for the most politically conservative. Overall, less than half of those questioned were somewhat or strongly supportive of reserving the Antarctic for science. Nationally representative surveys in Australia in 2017 and 2018 found that knowledge of the polar regions is associated with acceptance of anthropogenic climate change [35, 36]. However, an analysis of the 2017 survey noted that, as in the U.S. studies, this association is not observed in those on conservative side of the political spectrum [36]. This could suggest that polar ‘facts’ are interpreted politically by those on the right of politics [36]. Support for Antarctic research While scientific activity in Antarctica is highly valued in many surveys, not all science-related activities are valued equally. A 2021-22 nationally representative survey of Australians’ support for Antarctic research showed that people valued Antarctic krill research more than ice-core research, including those people who self-identified with a major environmental political party. The authors speculate that this could be because research into a keystone species that is also fished is more readily understood as supporting environmental protection than ice-core research, the immediate environmental relevance of which may not be apparent to non-specialists [19]. Different groups of people put different values on Antarctic research. The 2021-22 Australian survey indicated stronger support for Antarctic research from men and older people, echoing a similar result in terms of Antarctic awareness found in earlier New Zealand interview-based research. Both studies found media coverage to be an important factor in support and awareness [26-27]. Table 1. Summary of relevant surveys’ focus, location(s) and sample size(s) (indicated by n=) sorted by publication year. Where samples were collected at different times or with different cohorts, we have indicated this. Unless otherwise stated, surveys are based only within the country mentioned. More detail is available in the publications themselves. Source in which survey is reported Focus Location Cohort Ibáñez & Costa (2010) [16] Representations, perceptions, attitudes, & behaviours in relation to Antarctica, its environmental problems, & possible solutions Argentina: cities of Buenos Aires and Bariloche Young adults aged 15-25 (n=1000) Colmar Brunton (2011, 2015) [26-27] How the public perceive government involvement in Antarctica New Zealand adults aged 18+ (n=1002 in 2011; n=1001 in 2015) Hamilton et al. (2012) [29] Level of concern around polar region melting, support for developing Antarctica or reserving for science United States Adults aged 18+ (n=1862 in 2006; n=1006 in 2010. Overlap of 309) Salazar (2013) [21] Public perception of Antarctic values & role of Ant. in shaping a national and regional identity Chile: cities of Santiago and Punta Arenas Adults aged 18+ (n=600) Hamilton (2018) [40] Climate-relevant polar knowledge United States: state of New Hampshire Adults aged 18+ (n=500) Shabudin et al. (2015) [25] Public perception of Antarctic values & Malaysia’s involvement in the region Malaysia Secondary school students aged 16-17 (n=1098); Undergrad. students (n=636) Tin et al. (2011) [28] Bastmeijer & Tin (2015) [32] Perceived public values of Antarctica Conducted in Netherlands, participants from a range of countries (mainly European) Target age range: young adults over 17-39, (n=269 in 2008; n=227 in 2013) Peden et al. (2016) [33] Values, believes, & attitudes regarding environmental management practices in Antarctica United States and Spain Undergraduate students (n=400) Hamilton et al. (2018) [30] Climate-relevant polar knowledge United States Adults aged 18+ (n=1411) Tin et al. (2018) [31] Perceived knowledge & values of Antarctica. United States Uni. students enrolled in environmental science or tourism studies (n=159 in survey 1; n=231 in survey 2) Goh et al. (2019) [24] Perception of Antarctic values across urban locations Malaysia Adults aged 18+ (n~1500) Tin et al. (2019) [34] Opinions on Antarctic values & human activities in Antarctica, in relation to nationality and study major. Canada, Netherlands, and United States University students (n=618) Tranter (2020) [36] Climate-relevant polar knowledge Australia Adults aged 18+ (n=1317) Tranter, Skrbiš, & Smith (2020) [35] Climate-relevant polar knowledge Australia: general population & the state of Queensland Australian adults aged 26 (n=1287), Queensland adults aged 18+ (n=1593) Ursavaş & Kandemir (2020) [22] Knowledge and awareness about Antarctica Türkiye Secondary students (n=349) Leane et al. (2021) [18] How Hobart residents understand their city’s relationship with Antarctica Australia: city of Hobart Adults aged 18+ (n=300) Salazar et al. (2021) [17] “Gateway” citizens connections to Antarctica Hobart (survey 1), Christchurch (survey 2), Punta Arenas (survey 3), all five “gateway” cities (survey 4) (further detail in text) Adults aged 18+ (n=300 in surveys 1 & 2, n= 340 in survey 3, n=300 in Christchurch in survey 3 & n=1659 in survey 4) Chung et al. (2022) [23] Polar literacy in high-school students A large and a medium-size city in Republic of Korea High-school sophomore students (n=329) Pallahula et al. (2022) [39] Variables (ecological & social) involved in increasing an individuals’ commitment to caring for the Antarctic environment. Chile: focus on Magallanes & Chilean Antarctic region & rest of Chile Adults in Magallanes & Chilean Antarctica (n=253); adults in the rest of Chile (n=180) Dotta, Pimentel, & Braga (2023) [20] Whether teachers undertaking a training course gained knowledge about Antarctica and about how to mediate student learning about Antarctica Brazil – 25 states Teachers enrolled in a training course for introducing Antarctic content to the school curriculum, n=138 Estrada-Goic et al. (2023) [37] 1. Links between identity, perceived value of Ant., & perceived responsibility for caring for Antarctica. 2. How shared social identity between different groups (in different southern cities) contributes to different levels of social identification with & perceived responsibility for Antarctica 3. Perception of responsibility as it differs between generations Chile, specifically Magallanes and Chilean Antarctic region 1. Adults who self-categorise as Magallanics (n=281) 2. Adults living within Punta Arenas, Puerto Natales, & Puerto Williams (n=401) 3. Self-categorised Magallanic adults aged between 20-24 & over 50 (n=260) Tranter & Leane (2023) [19] Support for government-funded Antarctic research and research-infrastructure Australia Adults 18+ (n=1060) Hunt et al. (2025) [41] Knowledge about Antarctica and attitudes towards Australia’s activities there Australia Adults 18+ (n=1169) Table 2. Synthesis of some key findings of relevant surveys as a group. Key findings Public knowledge General knowledge about Antarctica ranges from low [16, 31) or insufficient [23], to low-to-average [24], and intermediate [25]. Awareness of government activities was low [24] or varying [26-27]. People with a higher level of knowledge about Antarctica may be more likely to be concerned about Antarctic ice melt [29] or have views on climate change that align with climate scientists [36]. Antarctic values Values associated with Antarctica include wilderness [33-34], environmental [21, 33-34, 36], scientific [21, 33-34, 36], aesthetic [24], wildlife [24], history and culture [24], and social [36]. Other values are more contested, including Antarctica’s value as a minerals reserve [28, 32-33] or site for tourism [21, 24, 28, 32]. Support for activities High level of support for government involvement [19, 24-27]. Nationality is not a significant predictor for the support for constructing new stations [34]. Influence of socioeconomic level Those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds had a more pragmatic and conflict-orientated vision of the far south [16]. Influence of gender Women express higher levels of concern about Antarctica but lower levels of knowledge about Antarctica and support for Antarctic science compared to men [29, 41] Influence of age Older participants showed a higher level of perceived responsibility for caring for Antarctica in the future and also showed greater level of appreciation for and identification with Antarctica [37]. Younger and older participants showed similar levels of factual polar knowledge, although older people had a higher level of self-assessed knowledge [35]. Influence of location People living in the far south of Chile have a higher level of identification with Antarctica than those in the north [39, 37]. They also have a higher level of knowledge and concern about Antarctic issues [21]. Hobart residents strongly believe that their city should play a custodian role in Antarctica’s future [18]. Influence of political ideology Participants who identified as political conservatives were less likely to be concerned around Antarctic ice melt [29]. Participants who identified as politically progressive had a higher level of polar knowledge, in particular self-assessed polar knowledge [36]. Conclusion While this growing body of survey and interview-based work is very valuable, the studies examined typically target particular subsamples of the population (such as students, young people or residents of specific cities) and measure different attributes (including knowledge, attitudes, values, concern, support, beliefs and perceptions) that are not easily compared. We are aware of only a few studies in non-Western countries (Malaysia, South Korea and Türkiye), and none in lower-income countries, African countries or countries that are not signatories to the Antarctic Treaty. Public opinion is an important driver of policy, but the lack of standardisation across studies makes it difficult to develop a coherent global understanding of how people think, feel, and act towards Antarctica across different demographics and geographical regions. For this reason, researchers focusing on Antarctic public engagement should aim to collaborate with a view to standardising the measures and methods that they employ. Furthermore, future research should focus on the role that factors such as different media, geographic location, and demographic profile play in forming public opinion. This would, in turn, support policy development for the Antarctic and provide a means to measure the effectiveness of outreach and communication strategies.
