TESTING PRESENCE, ASSESSING ATTITUDES: STUDY OF A VIRTUAL TOUR IN AN “AESTHETICALLY CHALLENGED” LANDSCAPE by STUART JAMES STEIDLE-NIX A THESIS Presented to the Department of Geography and the Division of Graduate Studies of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science March 2022 ii THESIS APPROVAL PAGE Student: Stuart James Steidle-Nix Title: Testing Presence, Assessing Attitudes: Study of a Virtual Tour in an “Aesthetically Challenged” Landscape This thesis has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the master of science degree in the department of geography by: Dr. Melissa Lucash Chairperson Dr. Carolyn Fish Member And Krista Chronister Vice Provost for Graduate Studies Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Division of Graduate Studies. Degree awarded March 2022 iii © 2022 Stuart James Steidle-Nix This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (United States) License iv THESIS ABSTRACT Stuart James Steidle-Nix Master of Science Department of Geography March 2022 Title: Testing Presence, Assessing Attitudes: Study of a Virtual Tour in an “Aesthetically Challenged” Landscape This thesis investigates using immersive media to explain landscape restoration efforts where the means and ends of such projects may appear risky or unsightly. I built a desktop-based, virtual tour of fire-dependent Pine Barrens restoration practices in Wisconsin’s Northwoods with 360º videos and video game software. I surveyed 73 Wisconsin and Minnesota residents who were presented with either the 3D tour or a 2D website to compare the impact of each media type on people’s attitudes toward prescribed fire, clearcutting, and restoration of open pine barrens. Results showed people exposed to 2D media were as likely to change their attitudes as 3D participants, but that 3D participants experienced more of the “self-location” aspect of “spatial presence.” Although global attitude enhancement suggests 2D media can be as impactful as 3D technologies, the immersive tour may hold promise for persuading people who initially indicate neutral or negative attitudes toward the restoration goals. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Stuart James Steidle-Nix GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene University of Wisconsin–Madison Australian National University, Canberra Reed College, Portland, Oregon DEGREES AWARDED: Master of Science, Geography, 2022, University of Oregon Bachelor of Arts, Cultural Anthropology, 2014, Reed College AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Immersive Storytelling Spatial Humanities Science Communication PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Research Assistant, UO: Dr. Leigh Johnson, Jan 2022 – Mar 2022 Analysis of social inequity in international climate adaptation projects Teaching Assistant, UO: Department of Geography, Sep 2021 – Mar 2022 GEOG 343: Society, Culture, & Place Winter 2022 GEOG 465/565: Environment & Development Fall 2021 Research Assistant, UO: Dr. Carolyn Fish, Sep 2020 – Jun 2021 Written literature review and analysis of narrative map communication Teaching Assistant, UO: Department of Geography, Sep 2019 – Jun 2020 ENVS 203: Intro to Environmental Humanities Spring 2020 GEOG 441/541: Political Geography Winter 2020 GEOG 142: Intro to Human Geography Fall 2019 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Student Travel Award, International Association of Landscape Ecologists, 2022 vi SCR Small Grant Award, UO Center for Science Communication Research, 2021 Emerging Interdisciplinary Scholar, UO Center for Science Communication Research, 2020 Foreign Language and Area Studies Grant, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2020 Tuition Scholarship, UW-Madison Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute, 2014 Presidential Commendation for Academic Excellence, Reed College, 2012, 2013 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In presenting this thesis, I am truly indebted to what feels like countless people who have helped me persevere and hone my work. Every thesis takes time, during which massive support often accumulates, and this support underwrites every claim to authorship. No doubt this project has been “in construction” for an extensive period, but it also occurred on a relatively expedited timeline as some close to the work know. Given the quickened time limits, I feel there is even more significance in every one of my supporter’s efforts as I extended myself to realize a project that spans academic disciplines, departmental subfields, and geography itself. Herein I honor the attention and energies they shared, as these people not only ensured that I complete a thesis, but also enriched my life experience in ways that will endure long into the future. I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor Dr. Melissa Lucash for her veritable sponsorship of my studies since “day 1” of this project. Melissa not only endorsed my ideas and interests, but strengthened my resolve to realize them in this thesis despite unexpected setbacks and prolonged pandemic uncertainties that already undermined my confidence in completing graduate school. She leads an incredibly supportive lab environment where colleagues work and learn together, and promotes collaboration across fields and universities. Two of the most awesome and effective parts of her mentorship include her welcoming me to become a member of the interdisciplinary Visualizing Forest Futures (ViFF) team, and her introducing me to other colleagues and collaborators in Wisconsin who facilitated my fieldwork. She is a communicative, kind, engaged, patient, trusting, and understanding champion of her students. Thank you, Melissa, for directing my efforts, for funding me, for sculpting this thesis, and inspiring viii me to not lose hope. You have had a formative impact on my academic tenure and where it leads me. Secondly, I wish to thank Dr. Carolyn Fish for her assistance on this thesis and for previously hiring me as a research assistant to investigate spatial storytelling from a cartographic perspective. Although this thesis was not even an idea during the time that I assisted Carolyn, the research I conducted on narrative and story were incredibly valuable for my own creative production of the immersive tour, and the lessons will serve me in the future. Thank you for your guidance as I prepared to redistribute my user study and for all the productive comments that shape this thesis and the ensuing paper. Thank you, also, for being a faculty member who is receptive to hearing creative ideas at the intersection between geography and storytelling. Dr. Erica Smithwick, who leads the ViFF team that I was adopted into, is another creative champion of interdisciplinary science who valued and aided my work. Thank you, Erica, for wielding both vision and patience as you guide ViFF’s diverse research team, and for the connections you fostered between other members and myself. I know many lives are enhanced by your commitment to comprehensive research and building partnerships within and beyond academia. As part of the ViFF team, I also want to thank Elham (Ellie) Nasr Azadani, Jiawei Huang, and Dr. Alexander Klippel, for all of the conversations and assistance you lent me during the project design. I am grateful to Ellie for numerous zoom calls where she and I deliberated on questionnaire design and strategies for conducting the participant study. I really appreciated her collegial solidarity, her encouragement, and am honored that she wants to use my immersive tour in her research project. I want to thank Jiawei for sharing ix features of her 3D forests with me – some of which I used to beautify the backdrop of the tour – and for guidance troubleshooting issues as I began to learn Unreal Engine. I want to thank Dr. Alex Klippel for feedback – including sharing examples and in-press publications – on ideas for how to construct an immersive tour quickly and efficiently. The immersive tour would never have happened if I hadn’t been able to understand and visit pine barrens first-hand with John Lampereur and colleagues of the US Forest Service. John showcased an open willingness to explain pine barrens ecology, history, and management activities. His communication and field coordination prevented many of the headaches that can easily plague a researcher pursuing new questions in an unfamiliar place. Moreover, the time in the field was fun and engaging – I savored learning the different facets of pine barrens and Northwoods natural history with him while being introduced to personnel responsible for fire management in this rare habitat. To top it off, John even volunteered time to act in a scene of the immersive tour. Two US Forest Service fire managers – Scott Lynn and Tym Sauter – also were critical facilitators of the fieldwork for this project. Thanks to Scott for willingly discussing prescribed fire treatments, the social dimension of stakeholder input, and for plugging me into opportunities to film a live burn under the supervision of Tym Sauter! My day filming the fire with Tym and his crews was one of the most exciting things I have done in my life. I am super grateful for Tym and his crews for accepting my presence with camera gear on the site of a prescribed burn, and for ensuring that I could capture multiple angles and even aerial footage of the activities. Tym also willingly gave his time to act for a scene in the immersive tour, and we had engaging conversations on Northwoods ecology when the cameras weren’t rolling. x I want to thank Brian Sturtevant for so much collegial guidance, hands-on help, and unforgettable hospitality in the Northwoods. Thank you firstly for the initial conversations that helped shape this thesis. Thank you also for facilitating a special aerial tour of the woods and lakes surrounding Rhinelander – I could never experience such thrills by just my drone alone! Thank you for sharing fire footage and encouraging my participation in the Step into Fire experience at the Great Lakes Visitor Center. Thank you for the bonfire dinner, the lakeside camping, and the hot tip on where to camp for sharp-tailed grouse sightings! Without your help I wouldn’t have this crucial wildlife footage in the tour; and like the prescribed fire, filming the grouse was a personal and professional experience I’ll never forget. I want to thank researchers Paul Gobster and Kristin Floress for our exploratory conversations about the social perceptions of pine barrens in Wisconsin and their encouragement to study immersive tours for science communication. I look forward to sharing these results with you. I want to thank Carly Lapin of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for sharing pine barrens insights, including where to film the enchanting “dawn chorus” of birdsong that is included in the tour. Thank you, also, for putting me in touch with graduate student and researcher Nicole Shutt, who likewise directed me toward prolific wildflower blooms near Waubee Barrens that I would never have experienced otherwise. Big thanks to Nicole, I hope her research blossoms! Let it be known that all of the Wisconsin researchers and ecologists who directed me to different field sites also gifted me with extraordinary outdoor experiences. Wildlife don’t necessarily operate on a 9-5, and I am the adventurous type who really savors the xi tracking-like sensation of tuning myself to the environment to witness its riches. Some highlights include waking before dawn to hear myriad birdsong evolve for hours; nearly freezing under innumerable layers as I sat stock-still to film sharp-tailed grouse during a bone-chilling daybreak; following monarchs in blooming seas of milkweed; hearing the call of the Moquah wolf pack late one night while camping; and the perennial sense of being on a wild goose chase only to slowly encounter wild beauty all around me. This thesis also undoubtedly relied on the awesome multimedia storytelling instruction from several professors at University of Oregon’s School of Journalism. I want to thank Nikki Dunsire and Wes Pope, who spent time during and outside of classroom hours lending their expertise to my project. Thank you, Nikki, for your classes on Unreal Engine and for accommodating my extracurricular projects into your syllabus. Thank you, Wes, for your class that gave me the opportunity to think through 360º storytelling. I appreciate your instructing me on how to rig my drone in order to capture 360º footage from the sky. Thanks also for exploratory conversations and all your enthusiasm for my project. I want to thank Maxwell Foxman for our conversation early in my thesis that helped me conceive of how to motivate and direct participants in an immersive tour. I want to also thank Torsten Kjellstrand who, as a masterful storyteller, always made my ideas feel supported even when he admitted that the media at hand was beyond his expertise. He allowed me to conduct fieldwork for this project during his class, and for that I'm grateful. I extend my deep gratitude also to the UO School of Journalism’s Center for Science Communication Research, who awarded me with grant money to pursue data collection. Thank you for recognizing the merits of my research and identifying me as an xii emerging scholar of interdisciplinary theory and practice in scientific communication. I would have been hard-pressed to complete this thesis without your generous support. I am grateful to several Wisconsinites who lent valuable help even after I returned to Oregon. Thank you, Dr. David Mladenoff for your correspondence as I collected data to make the map of present-vs-historic pine barrens habitats. Thank you, also, to professors Dr. William Gartner, Dr. Qunying Huang, Dr. Jack Williams, and correspondent Joel Gruely, all at University of Wisconsin-Madison, who helped me on my trial run of distributing the user study to students at UW. In a more personal vein, there are several people near and far whom I would like to thank for likewise nurturing me and my progress during the stages when I was both deep in my thesis, and deep under it. This support network again spans place and time, from Midwest to Pacific Northwest. I want to thank Scott "Heggs" Hegrenes for bringing me into his home in Antioch, Illinois, which was a true retreat that allowed me to venture northward on fieldwork, to focus deeply, and to blow off steam to the beat of my own drum. I’m forever grateful for your supreme hospitality, adoption into your band, your friendship, your playful and upbeat demeanor, and for the invitation to the best wedding I've been to yet! I hope the fish are biting, Big Gulp! I want to similarly thank Lexi Lyons and the ever endearing Eloyse Lyons who never batted an eye at making me feel like family during my sojourn to and from the Midwest. You both have such incredible generosity of spirit, humility, and a world- roving eclecticism that always resonated deeply with me. I cherish that summer in La Grange with you. Additionally, I'll never forget your unique presence, your golden xiii company, and your gregarious yet tender nature, Eloyse – you leave a legacy in a society bereft of relationships with elders, and I am honored to have been graced by it. Blessings to your family. I want to thank the inimitable Leilagh Boyle who was my confidante and bridge to so much in the Midwest and beyond. You sent me heel-clicking to Chicagoland and back, and showed up in the best ways that you could throughout our journeys. Though I’m open to wearing the hat of a scientific storyteller, I’m always touched by a mystery – thanks for weaving one with me. I carry many a touchstone of our adventures forward. Thank you for letting me rove in your Subaru through many miles of fieldwork on and off-road. May the road less traveled expand before you. I want to thank current Geographers and friends in Eugene who embodied such positivity and generosity in cheering me on and lending a hand to see this work come to fruition. Thank you, James Lamping, Shelby Weiss, Alison Deak, Thomas Brussel, Teagan Furbish, Neil Williams, and Janice Chen for your camaraderie and support at UO during this time. Tom joined me in my first field excursion and was a willing and helpful assistant as I conducted interviews and tried to keep track of photo points during a full- day tour with John Lampereur and Scott Lynn. Tom and Shelby also provided great brainstorming partners when pouring over the data from the analysis, thank you, both! Alison, you helped me immensely with wrapping my head around R in order to make some (dare I say?) stunning charts – thank you! Thank you, James for kickstarting my first data forays with R; thank you, also, Janice, for sharing your time and expertise with coding when I was a fretful novice at data wrangling. Thank you, Teagan, for helping me as I designed the 2D stimuli and assembled the questionnaire. Thank you, James, again xiv for also helping with the 2D website set-up and initial map creation. Thank you, Neil, for your kind, collegial support, I hope we get to enjoy the outdoors on your return to Oregon! Additionally, I am so grateful to the friends who supported me when (ie. always) schoolwork spilled over far beyond the bounds of campus. I can always find safe harbor amidst choppy seas by the reliable love and support of Nate Douglass, Ian Connelly, and Emma Levy. I’m grateful that each one of you helps me put the beat in my feet, that we share and grow our worlds with sincerity, humility, and joy. I’m glad each of you are in my life to see me through this crucible! Here’s to many more bonfires, sparkles, and adventures! Thank you to these friends and colleagues and others within UO Geography who trialed the initial versions of the immersive tour and provided helpful input from an audience perspective. Thank you to my brother, who always has my back and who sets the bar as a personal champion, who celebrates my experiments, my new attempts, my u-turns, and budding visions, no matter how eclectic. He’s the one who put a camera in my hand so many years ago, and we are the closest of kin. xv This is dedicated to the land, from which we come and to which we all shall return. It is also dedicated to you, “Baba,” since you fostered my bond with the lands and the waters. xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 PINE BARRENS RESTORATION ................................................................................................................ 1 1.2 THE GEOVISUALIZATION ITSELF ............................................................................................................. 5 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION AND HYPOTHESIS ................................................................................................. 6 II. CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND ............................................................................. 7 2.1 PINE BARRENS NATURAL HISTORY AND CURRENT RESTORATION CONDITIONS ................................... 7 2.1.1 Pine barrens ecology ...................................................................................................................... 7 2.1.1.1 Pine Barrens in this Study ..................................................................................................................... 14 2.1.2 Cultivating the Northwoods: Settlement and Afforestation ........................................................ 14 2.2 MULTIPLE-USE PUBLIC LANDS MANAGEMENT AND STAKEHOLDER ATTITUDES ................................ 20 2.2.1 Managing for expectations: stakeholder engagement .................................................................. 20 2.2.2 Attitudes ....................................................................................................................................... 21 2.2.3 Construal Theory ......................................................................................................................... 23 2.3 IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGY’S PERSUASIVE PRESENCE ........................................................................... 25 2.4 LOCALIZED CONTEXT FOR ATTITUDE RESEARCH ................................................................................ 27 2.4.1 Fire Perceptions in Northwoods .................................................................................................. 28 2.4.2 Overcoming Disapproval of Clear-Cuts and Barrens .................................................................. 30 III. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................... 34 3.1 BASIS OF THE USER STUDY .................................................................................................................. 34 3.1.1 Participants .................................................................................................................................. 35 3.2 MATERIALS .......................................................................................................................................... 36 3.2.1 Distributing the study through Prolific ........................................................................................ 36 3.2.2 Qualtrics and Informed Consent .................................................................................................. 36 3.2.3 Socio-demographic data .............................................................................................................. 37 3.2.4 Pre-test and Post-test Questionnaires ........................................................................................... 37 3.2.4.1 Prescribed Fire and Clear-cutting Measurements ................................................................................. 39 3.2.4.2 Pine Barrens Measurement ................................................................................................................... 40 3.2.5 Main Stimuli ................................................................................................................................ 41 3.2.5.1 Narrative ................................................................................................................................................ 44 3.2.6 Post-test Questionnaire ................................................................................................................ 53 3.2.7 The Exit Questionnaire ................................................................................................................ 54 3.3 ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................................. 55 xvii Chapter Page 3.3.1 Comparative statistics .................................................................................................................. 55 3.3.2 Calculating attitude scores ........................................................................................................... 56 IV. RESULTS .................................................................................................................. 59 4.1 USER STUDY PARTICIPANTS ................................................................................................................. 59 4.2.1 Cross-group comparison for prescribed fire ................................................................................ 62 4.2.3 Comparisons for clear-cutting ..................................................................................................... 66 4.2.4 Comparisons for Pine Barrens ..................................................................................................... 69 4.2.5 Comparisons of item #9 on correlation between habitat health and beauty ................................ 73 4.2.6 Spatial Presence Experience Scale Results .................................................................................. 74 4.3 TWO-WAY ANOVA TESTS FOR SPES INTERACTIONS ......................................................................... 76 4.3.1 SPES and stimulus interactions on pine barrens attitudes ........................................................... 76 4.3.2 SPES and stimulus interaction on all individual questions ......................................................... 77 V. DISCUSSION .............................................................................................................. 79 5.1 DIFFERENTIAL ATTITUDE CHANGES TOWARD PINE BARRENS .............................................................. 80 5.2 PRESCRIBED FIRE AND CLEAR-CUTS .................................................................................................... 84 5.2.1 Prescribed Fire ............................................................................................................................. 84 5.2.2 Clear-cuts ..................................................................................................................................... 87 5.3 SPATIAL PRESENCE EFFECTS ................................................................................................................ 89 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................................. 92 APPENDICES A. INFORMED CONSENT ........................................................................................... 94 B. QUESTIONNAIRES .................................................................................................. 96 C. VISUAL STIMULI OF 3D TOUR .......................................................................... 106 D. VISUAL STIMULI OF 2D WEBPAGE ................................................................. 127 E. USFS LETTER TO NEIGHBORS ABOUT LAKEWOOD SOUTHEAST PROJECT ...................................................................................................................... 133 F. SCALAR ADJUSTMENTS OF ATTITUDE SCALES ........................................ 136 G. POST-TEST CORRELATION TABLES .............................................................. 137 REFERENCES CITED ................................................................................................ 138 xviii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1.1 Map indicating estimated current spatial extent of pine barrens and their range in the mid-1800’s before full European settlement. Map by: James Lamping and author ........... 2 2.1 USFS personnel inspecting restoration site. Photo by author. .................................... 11 2.2 A snapshot of Dunbar Barrens. This view typifies the open landscape and grassy understory characteristics of pine barrens. Photo by author. ............................................ 11 2.3 Northwest Sands and Northeast Sands Ecological Landscapes (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources 2015 as cited in Sturtevant, Kern, and Donner 2016). ................... 13 2.4 Archival photograph of tree planters in today’s Lakewood District of the CNNF. Source: Lampereur 2013, 12. ............................................................................................ 16 3.1 Screenshot from within the streaming video game level that is the immersive tour. These pink columns are where players walk in order to trigger the video spheres/scenes to spawn and begin playing the audio-visual scenes of the pine barrens tour. ...................... 45 3.2 A screenshot of text inside the immersive tour’s first 360º sphere, which plays footage (with more accompanying text) from a drone flying over a forested area near Dunbar Barrens. ................................................................................................................ 46 3.3 A screenshot of the first portion of the explanatory website. The text contains the same message as what is played in the immersive tour’s first sphere, but the latter is more condensed (see Appendices C and D). .............................................................................. 47 3.4 Screenshot from the end of the initial drone footage. Players see this small prompt- box after clicking a highlight button that appears near the end of the textual narration xix (part of which is still faintly visible in the sky: “…they have swallowed open habitats that existed in natural balance with fire until a century ago.” .................................................. 48 3.5 Upon clicking the prompt-box “to see an example of this restored habitat,” participants are surrounded by open expanses of Dunbar Barrens and the diverse morning bird chorus (plus elk) that was recorded on site. ............................................................... 49 3.6 The equivalent narrative moment in the explanatory website, which portrays the surprisingly open barrens landscape indicative of a bygone mosaic that once covered vast expanses of northern Wisconsin. ....................................................................................... 49 3.7 A screenshot of the “prescribed burns” portion of the website. All the images inset in this section are freeze-frames from the 360º video of the prescribed burn. ...................... 51 3.8 Map indicating estimated current spatial extent of pine barrens and their range in the mid-1800’s before full European settlement. Map by: James Lamping and author. ........ 53 4.1 Box and scatter plots of prescribed fire-related attitude scores. ................................. 64 4.2 Diverging stacked bar charts of prescribed fire-related responses across treatment groups. ............................................................................................................................... 65 4.3 Box and scatter plots of clear-cutting attitude scores. ................................................. 67 4.4 Diverging stacked bar charts of responses to clear-cut questions across treatment groups. ............................................................................................................................... 68 4.5 Box and scatter plots of pine barrens attitude scores. ................................................. 70 4.6 Diverging stacked bar charts of pine barrens-related responses across treatment groups. ............................................................................................................................... 71 4.7. Box and scatter plots of SPES scores across groups. ................................................. 75 xx LIST OF TABLES Table Page 3.1 Number of questions and range of possible scores for each attitude scale. ................ 56 4.1. Initial summary statistics of time spent on each media stimulus (N = 190). .............. 61 4.2. Summary statistics for reduced sample (N = 73). ...................................................... 61 4.3. Breakdown of participants’ reported gender identification by stimulus group (N = 73). ..................................................................................................................................... 61 4.4. Breakdown of participants’ reported age by stimulus group (N = 73). ...................... 61 4.5. Breakdown of participants’ reported Northwoods familiarity by stimulus group (N = 73). ..................................................................................................................................... 62 4.6. Breakdown of participants’ personal or family ownership of Northwoods property (N = 73). ................................................................................................................................. 62 4.7 P-values of Kruskal-Wallis test run on fire attitudes within and between treatment groups. ............................................................................................................................... 63 4.8 Summary statistical comparison for prescribed fire-related attitude scores between treatment groups. ............................................................................................................... 63 4.9 Results of Kruskal-Wallis run on clear-cutting attitudes within and between treatment groups. ............................................................................................................................... 66 4.10 Summary statistical comparison for clear-cutting-related attitude scores between treatment groups. ............................................................................................................... 66 4.11 Results of Kruskal-Wallis run on pine barrens attitudes within and between treatment groups. ............................................................................................................... 69 4.12 Summary statistics for pine barrens attitude questions between treatment groups. .. 69 xxi 4.13 Kruskal-Wallis between-group post-test results for items #10–14. .......................... 72 4.14 Results of between-group Kruskal-Wallis analysis on post-test attitude scores after selecting subjects who gave neutral and negative responses to specific pine barrens questions. ........................................................................................................................... 73 4.15 Kruskal-Wallis results targeting question #9 specifically. ........................................ 74 4.16 Kruskal-Wallis results analyzing effect of media stimulus on SPES scores. ............ 75 4.17 Summary statistics of SPES scores across treatment groups. ................................... 75 4.18 Shapiro-Wilk normality and Levene’s Homogeneity of Variance results for SPES data (bold indicates normality and homogeneity of variance). ......................................... 76 4.19 Two-way ANOVA for interaction of media stimulus type and SPES scores on pine barrens attitude scores. ...................................................................................................... 77 4.20 P-values of two-way ANOVA tests for SPES scores and stimulus variable applied to each question. .................................................................................................................... 78 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This thesis is a novel methodological intervention into the efforts of state and federal natural resource managers working to communicate and gain public approval for restoration of a unique yet underappreciated habitat in the woods of northern Wisconsin. The challenge of restoration revolves around building approval for intensive procedures like clear-cutting and prescribed burning, even as these practices and the open habitats they produce may disrupt stakeholders’ sense of place given their attachments to a forested landscape. The study combines the new media tools of 360º videos and video game software with place-based scientific narrative to virtually guide people through fire- fueled landscape restoration practices in Wisconsin’s Northwoods. Specifically, this study investigates the ability of immersive geovisualization – in the form of a virtual tour – to enhance approval of landscape management in a national forest where commonly held “aesthetic values” often conflict with restoration goals and “ecological values” (Gobster 1996; Pukis 1997). 1.1 Pine Barrens Restoration In pockets of the densely forested and fabled Northwoods, Wisconsin resource managers recognize the state’s unique opportunities to re-introduce an endangered habitat known as Pine Barrens. Historically predominant across the sandy glacial deposits of northern and central Wisconsin, pine barrens are open habitats dependent on low- intensity fires. Although at times punctuated by fire-pruned pine groves, they generally only harbor a few trees per acre. Pine barrens once covered an estimated 7% (Curtis 2 1959) of the state, yet their footprint has reduced by 99% due to a century of fire suppression and afforestation (Figure 1.1). Figure 1.1 Map indicating estimated current spatial extent of pine barrens and their range in the mid-1800’s before full European settlement. Map by: James Lamping and author. Pine barrens are an imperiled niche habitat rich with biodiversity whose restoration potential relies on collaborations between both public stakeholders and professional conservation ecologists, forest managers, and fire wardens. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources recognizes 52 rare species of wildlife that are heavily or seasonally associated with barrens in combination with 14 rare native plants1 – all of these are considered “species of greatest conservation need” by the Wisconsin DNR 1 An additional 37 rare animals and 4 rare plants are ranked as having a “low association” with pine barrens. 3 (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources 2021). This scope of flora and fauna is one reason that different groups within the Wisconsin DNR, local county agencies, and federal staff of the US Forest Service are all engaged in various pine barrens restoration projects across Wisconsin, mostly in the Northwest and Northeast Sands ecological regions where pine barrens once predominated. Their historic presence and biological assets, though, are undercut by a century of afforestation and fire suppression that has informed public perceptions of the Northwoods as densely forested. Making space for pine barrens restoration relies on clear-cutting portions of forest and subjecting the cleared land to a natural disturbance that relatively few in upper Wisconsin view as a natural or regular component of the landscape: that is, fire. Yet as tree scars reveal, fire return intervals historically averaged between 6-30 years in different barrens locations (Guyette et al. 2016). Hence, prescribed fire must be applied regularly on timetables set by managers in order to ensure pine barrens’ long-term viability. The lack of public familiarity with fire in northern Wisconsin is mirrored by regional gaps in the state’s fire applications where agencies could conduct more prescribed burns according to scientific analyses (Hmielowski et al. 2016). Moreover, Wisconsin’s densely stocked forests – much like fire-suppressed areas of western states and elsewhere in the US – would be less vulnerable to wildfires if treated with low-intensity prescribed fire. Introducing open habitats like pine barrens with less woody fuel into the landscape would doubly serve this purpose while also restoring a diminished and important habitat. As such, this restoration case study’s potential relies on winning public approval for drastic landscape change and re-calibrating local notions of “appropriate” ecological processes (see Gobster 1996). 4 This thesis spawns from understanding that forest managers and scientists alike are negotiating these social determinants of forest character through dialogue and research. Social factors are central variables given contemporary forest management policies premised upon multiple-use objectives meant to satisfy variable, at times divergent, public needs and values. In February 2021 I spoke with Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest (CNNF) silviculturist John Lampereur of the Lakewood District on exactly this issue. He explained that his staff’s 2014 efforts to introduce plans for restoring and modifying ~36,000 acres of mixed-forest habitat in the CNNF – at least 800 acres of which were devoted to pine barrens restoration – met harsh criticism from landowners opposed to prescribed fire on nearby national forest land. Lampereur and others saw that efforts to broadcast their plans with full transparency and disclosure of the ecological rationale and practical benefits did not incur strong public support. Subsequent public research done in collaboration with social scientists Paul Gobster, Kristin Floress, and others found that pine barrens were “aesthetically challenged” in the eyes of local stakeholders compared with more mixed- and full-canopy landscapes (Floress, Haines, et al. 2018b; Gobster, Arnberger, et al. 2021). Moreover, their surveys indicated that a relative minority felt comfortable with communication efforts, planning efficacy, and the restoration vision of USFS agency personnel (Floress, Haines, et al. 2018b, 20–22). Gobster and Floress both agreed – as did USFS research ecologist Brian Sturtevant working in NW Wisconsin’s Moquah Barrens – that interactive, 3D-media would be a boon for conveying the assets of pine barrens while broadening spatial perception beyond 2D images. As such, this thesis investigates attitudinal change through novel geovisualization as a case study on the tension between ecological 5 values and aesthetic preference in nationally-managed forests. It specifically focuses on understanding benefits of immersive media to explain landscape restoration where the mechanisms and outcomes of such projects may appear unfamiliar, risky, or unnatural to people. 1.2 The Geovisualization Itself Geographers and landscape designers have been interested for decades in technological advances that allow people to create photo-realistic 3D renderings for better visualization and comprehension of spaces and places, arguing that more life-like communication tools can change behavior (Niepold, Herring, and McConville 2008; Meitner, Gandy, and Sheppard 2005; Sheppard 2005; Fisher and Unwin 2002). Today virtual reality (VR) is becoming more ubiquitous, yet I refer more to immersive media rather than VR because “immersion refers to the technological qualities of VR media” (Hruby et al. 2020, 156), and this includes even media like 360º videos that are not technically virtual, which is to say designed by computer graphics (see also Klippel et al. 2020). As Jeremy Bailenson explains, “For purists, VR requires motion tracking and digitally created environments that can be moved through” (2018, n.p. Introduction). This thesis includes a desktop-based immersive tour, or geovisualization, of pine barrens habitat restoration. The tour portrays phases of clear-cutting and documentation of a “live” prescribed burn, both of which are key landscape treatments for restoring pine barrens in areas where they once existed but are now heavily forested. These are integrated with scenes showcasing the eventual environmental shifts that occur as pine barrens develop, along with some of the signature wildlife and other scenic assets of pine barrens people may be unfamiliar with. I created the tour by using 360º videos to 6 document these scenes before integrating them with interactive narrative elements in a video game software (Unreal Engine) that allows for a user-guided, photo-realistic immersive desktop experience. Like Klippel et al.’s focus on nurturing a “sense of place” through immersive, place-based learning (2020, 449 emphasis in original), I aimed for my immersive tour to create a sense of “presence” or the subjective “sense of ‘being there’ in a mediated environment” (Li, Daugherty, and Biocca 2002, 44). Presence – particularly, spatial presence, in contrast with a corollary sensation also wrought through immersive, peopled, environments, “social presence” (Pimentel et al. 2021) – is one of the most researched explanatory factors for the persuasive powers of immersive media (Filter et al. 2020; Breves and Heber 2020; Fraustino et al. 2018; Aitamurto et al. 2018; Hruby et al. 2020; Klein 2003; Laarni et al. 2015; Skarbez, Brooks, Jr., and Whitton 2018; Lombard and Ditton 1997). Given that presence can make media presentations so impactful, I included a questionnaire to elicit people’s experience of it in my between- subject user study on the impact of media interventions upon attitudes toward pine barrens restoration practices. 1.3 Research Question and Hypothesis With this empirical and theoretical basis, the following research question guides the study: To what extent does an immersive media tour of pine barrens affect attitudes toward clear-cutting and prescribed burning for pine barren restoration purposes – as well as pine barrens themselves – when compared to conventional, 2D media consisting of text and photographs? My hypothesis was: An immersive tour using interactive 360º videos will enhance attitudes towards clearcutting, prescribed burning and landscape restoration of pine barrens more than conventional media due to higher “spatial presence.” 7 CHAPTER II CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND This chapter introduces readers to the general problem of conveying the ecological rationale for restoring a rare and generally underappreciated habitat through intensive procedures such as clearcutting and prescribed burning. One confounding factor for landscape managers resuscitating imperiled habitats is the potential disruption to stakeholders’ sense of place given their attachment to an existing – in this case, forested – landscape. These conditions help frame the case study at hand, which centers on pine barrens in northern Wisconsin. This chapter aims to inform readers of the ecological characteristics of pine barrens, the relation of stakeholder input to restoration projects, relevant research into public attitudes, and the persuasive capacity of immersive media. An important facet of managerial challenges regarding stakeholder engagement is the contradiction between the ecological value of pine barrens and their comparatively (perceived) un-scenic qualities when compared with people’s attachments to a forested Northwoods aesthetic. Using immersive media to convey the means and ends of pine barrens restoration is an attempt to overcome this perceptive and evaluative gap, and potentially provides a basis for further use of this media technology for similar contexts. 2.1 Pine Barrens Natural History and Current Restoration Conditions 2.1.1 Pine barrens ecology Pine barrens are a globally rare habitat type similar to savannas or prairies that have dwindled in the upper Midwest since 19th century European settlement and ensuing combinations of fire suppression and afforestation (Eckstein 1995; Gobster, Schneider, et al. 2021; Radeloff, Mladenoff, and Boyce 2000; Epstein 2015; Lampereur 2013). The 8 habitat’s former extent across the Great Lakes region included not only Wisconsin but also parts of northern Michigan, Minnesota, New York, and southeast Manitoba and eastern Ontario in Canada (Pregitzer & Saunders 1999 as cited in Gobster, Schneider, et al. 2021, 2). Recent estimates of their range in Wisconsin paint a picture of drastic habitat loss. United States Forest Service (USFS) personnel wrote in 2013 that roughly 10,000 acres exist in scattered areas across the state (Lampereur 2013). Elsewhere, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) naturalist Eric Epstein (2015) estimated that the state retains only a few thousand acres of pine barrens habitat. Although Epstein noted that “several thousand more […] are potentially restorable,” this sum still constitutes a mere 1% of their estimated historic footprint of 2,349,000 acres at the onset of Euro- American settlement in Wisconsin (Epstein 2015, 95; Eckstein 1995, 102). Pine barrens therefore rank high in terms of global and regional vulnerability according to the WDNR’s Natural Heritage Inventory; they carry a global label of “G2” and a state label of “S2,” both indicating imperilment or “high risk of extinction” due to scarcity, “steep declines, severe threats or other factors” (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources n.d.). Against historic losses and recent pressures on the state’s pine barrens (compare, for example, their threat designation in Eckstein 1995), conservation managers are attempting to collaborate across study areas to better understand efficient and viable applications of fire and best practices for increasing public interest in these habitats. Pine barrens’ fire regimes generated a unique diversity of grasses, sedges, and flowering plants and herbs that help distinguish their niche as a habitat for birds, mammals, pollinators, and insects alike. In short, the sun-fed, fire-adapted understory is a signature of barrens. In a 1959 study of plant Wisconsin plant communities, Curtis (1959) 9 noted that barrens have an “extraordinary development of shrubs” that far exceeds any other Wisconsin habitat, with redroot and huckleberry reaching “their maximum Wisconsin levels in this community” (cited in Eckstein 1995, 99). Blueberries, though, were most noteworthy in his account, and still today managers describe their prolific growth following application of fire. A thorough account of the biotic communities is given in Epstein (2015). Ecologists emphasize that restoring these habitats will provide important niche habitats for numerous native animal and plant species of concern (P. H. Gobster, Schneider, et al. 2021; Radeloff, Mladenoff, and Boyce 2000; Epstein 2015; Lampereur 2013). Wisconsin DNR identifies over 52 animal and more than 14 plant species of high conservation concern that rely on pine barrens habitats or are often associated with them (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources 2021). Pine barrens – and their counterparts in southern Wisconsin, oak barrens – are unique not only for their biological diversity, but also for their dynamic composition. Eckstein wrote that they are “difficult to describe and classify” for their shifting mosaic nature, which is reflected in a litany of descriptive labels by early surveyors: “pine-oak woodland,” “pine brush,” “level prairie,” “brush prairie” to name a few (Eckstein 1995, 98). Although biologically diverse, pine barrens may be characterized as “open landscapes on sandy soils that are subject to frequent fires” with a scattering of trees dominated by a preponderance of grasses and shrubs (Lampereur 2013, 17). Still, Epstein (2015) emphasizes ecologically-relevant differences among “patch sizes and age classes,” and that this heterogeneity is lost when managers tend “to manage individual stands as static entities in space and time” (98). For instance, tree groves can punctuate barrens habitats even as barrens are overwhelming considered an open-canopy landscape. Like 10 any landscape, these patterns in the land shift with time, especially given the semi- frequent fire return intervals ranging from six to 30 years prior to European settlement in northern Wisconsin (Guyette et al. 2016; Lampereur 2013). Pine barrens’ general lack of trees is described in archival accounts of early surveyors who recorded as few as four or five trees per acre2 on lands that are now cloaked in forest.3 Jack pines (Pinus banksiana) were the dominant trees in pine barrens, often growing in even-aged, sometimes dense, stands. Other trees commonly associated with the habitat are northern pin oak (Quercus ellipsoidalis) and red pine (Pinus resinosa) (Epstein 2015, 96). Due to a century of fire suppression, “the vast majority of barrens vegetation […] have succeeded to forest, typically with high canopy closure” (Epstein 2015, 98). Managers of this canopied landscape look to the social archive and the natural record to identify former stronghold areas where pine barrens restoration is appropriate (Lampereur 2013) (Figure 2.1). Approved projects rely on logging, prescribed burns, and sometimes herbicides to revert a century of forest growth and re- adapt its cycles to fire. 2 For reference purposes, an acre is roughly the size of an American football field without the end-zones. A full American football field is roughly 1.32 acres. 3 John Lampereur (USFS Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest Lakewood District silviculturist), interview with author, April 23, 2021. 11 Figure 2.1 USFS personnel inspecting restoration site. Fire manager Tym Sauter (Left) and silviculturist John Lampereur (Right) walk through a densely stocked area of forest in the Lakewood District of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest that once hosted highly frequent fire return intervals (as little as six years) and is a viable site for pine barrens restoration. Photo by author. Figure 2.2 A snapshot of Dunbar Barrens. This view typifies the open landscape and grassy understory characteristics of pine barrens. Photo by author. 12 Wisconsin’s historic pine barrens occurred most predominantly in the northwestern, central, west central, and northeastern regions where glaciers deposited massive amounts of sands and sandy loam. These soils typically lack water retention and are low in nutrients (Epstein 2015; Lampereur 2013; Eckstein 1995), yet host diverse drought- and fire-tolerant plant species that nourish a rich biome. Most remnant pine barrens, whether managed by state or federal agencies, are sprinkled across two particular ecological landscapes of northern Wisconsin, the Northwest Sands and the Northeast Sands (Figure 2.3). Today the most ecologically viable patches of Wisconsin’s northwestern pine barrens occur at Moquah and Namekagon Barrens, although Radeloff (2000) also describes Crex Meadows and the Douglas County Wildlife Area as open areas managed with fire that demonstrate mixed characteristics of barrens. All of these are managed by state or county conservation officials except Moquah Barrens which is inside the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest (CNNF) and managed by the USFS. Moquah is the largest extent of barrens in the state. It has enough varied open habitat to suit the 10,000-acre needs of the sharp-tailed grouse, a species of high conservation concern (Radeloff, Mladenoff, and Boyce 2000). 13 Figure 2.3 Northwest Sands and Northeast Sands Ecological Landscapes (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources 2015 as cited in Sturtevant, Kern, and Donner 2016). Notable areas of the Northeast Sands ecological landscape that contain a portion of barrens characteristics, albeit disrupted or incomplete, include state-managed Dunbar State Wildlife Area, Spread Eagle Barrens, and the more southerly Athelstane Barrens. In addition, the USFS recently set about restoring around over 800 acres of barrens habitat near Waubee Lake in the CNNF as part of the “Lakewood Southeast Project” (Lampereur 2013). Like Athelstane Barrens, the Lakewood Southeast Project is an area of utmost restoration value (five stars) within the Wisconsin DNR’s Land Legacy project that catalogs the state’s most significant sites for ecological and recreational potential (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources 2006; Lampereur 2013, 17; Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources 2015, 43). Although pine barrens restoration is a notable part of the project, more acreage in the project is allotted to less intensive 14 treatments (ie. prescribed burns and mechanical thinning without clearcutting) to simply thin pine stands according to historic standards. 2.1.1.1 Pine Barrens in this Study Since the visual elements of the communication stimuli in this thesis are designed to convey both the standard and noteworthy assets of pine barrens, fieldwork took place across most of the sites outlined above. Nevertheless, much of the work is both grounded in and informed by coordination with John Lampereur and USFS fire managers responsible for Waubee Barrens activities in the Lakewood Southeast Project of the CNNF. The following section explains the history of pine barrens elimination before describing current restoration practices. 2.1.2 Cultivating the Northwoods: Settlement and Afforestation Reduction of pine barrens occurred gradually from a complex interplay of land settlement and ecological changes wrought through widespread “cut and run” logging, severe fires, newfound forestry policies to suppress fire, and state-sponsored tree planting (Lampereur 2013; Epstein 2015; Eckstein 1995; Radeloff, Mladenoff, and Boyce 2000; Stearns 1997). Wisconsin led the country in pine timber production in the later 19th century (Lampereur 2013; see also Stearns 1997), and “slash from the harvesting operations fueled extensive fires” (Radeloff et al. 1999, 1651). Northern Wisconsin was increasingly settled as farmers took to these cleared lands advertised by timber companies, even into the early 20th century when logging shifted to hardwoods (Stearns 1997, 11; Radeloff et al. 1999, 1651; Wilson 1982, 19). Fire intensity appears at this time to differ from historical patterns given the extent and intensity of industrial activities – beside the tinderboxes caused from logging slash, railroad operators used fire to clear 15 land for tracks, sparks from trains ignited fires, and railroad employees often burned discarded rail ties. The deadliest wildfire in US history, the Peshtigo Fire of 1871, began from such activities before incinerating 1.2 million acres in northeast Wisconsin and claiming over 1,200 lives (Hultquist n.d.). Afforestation in the Northwoods began in the first decades of the 20th century and took firmer root by the 1930’s. Wisconsin’s first state forester E. M. Griffith (1903-1916) sought to expand Wisconsin’s forests through fire suppression, protection of second- growth stands, and expansion of state forest reserves. Inspired by his time in Europe, Griffith also sought to increase forests for their recreational promise. His praise for northern Wisconsin as “one of the most wonderful lakes regions in the world” (Wilson 1982, 16) was a prescient take on the eventual cultivation of tourism in the Northwoods as an idyllic, forested getaway (see Shapiro 2013). Though slow at first, Griffith’s fire- suppression agenda gained traction after 1910 with increased investments in fire lines, higher pay for fire wardens, lookout towers, and road and telephone infrastructure (Wilson 1982, 36–42). During Griffith’s tenure, 183,000 acres of forest reserves were established, a template for tree nurseries and plantations was created, and the vision of counties establishing forest preserves from derelict timberlands was born (Wilson 1982; Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame Foundation, n.d.; Auer 2011). Landownership in the Northwoods progressively shifted toward small-scale agriculture until widespread bankruptcy of the 1930’s that placed tax-delinquent lands largely in the control of county or federal officials (Radeloff et al. 1999; Lampereur 2013; Stearns 1997; Wilson 1982). In 1933 the Chequamegon and Nicolet National Forests were established, covering over a 1.5 million acres across 12 counties in 16 northwestern and northeastern Wisconsin. Alongside Wisconsin state support of county- level zoning for forest preserves, the federal government oversaw mass tree planting campaigns in the national forests as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps’ (CCC) activities (Stearns 1997; Lampereur 2013, 12).4 The furrowed rows of tree planter efforts are still visible today even in Moquah Barrens and Waubee Barrens, the latter being the major site of field research for this study. In the area around Waubee Barrens in the Lakewood District of the CNNF, Lampereur notes that the CCC planted over 3 million trees across 3,200 acres while also fighting fires. “By all available evidence,” according to Lampereur, “most of the forests in the [restoration] project area are now far more densely stocked than they have been in the past 160 years” (2013, 12). Figure 2.4 Archival photograph of tree planters in today’s Lakewood District of the CNNF. Source: Lampereur 2013, 12. 4 The Chequamegon and Nicolet national forests are spatially separate but have been managed as one since 1993. 17 2.1.3 Tools for Restoration Restoring pine barrens relies upon practices that will, for all intents and purposes, rewind the past century of forest maturation and industrial habitat disturbance (Gobster, Schneider, et al. 2021; Gobster, Arnberger, et al. 2021).5 The main tools used for these purposes include timber harvesting (“mechanical thinning”), re-applying fire (“prescribed burns”), and in some cases using herbicides to kill off particularly durable species like oaks that easily re-sprout. For new pine barren restoration sites, such as the Waubee Barrens in the CNNF’s Lakewood District, mechanical thinning takes the form of clear- cutting in order to create a drastic opening in the landscape. Through these intensive treatments, managers practically cull the forest – and thereby the aesthetic “lure of the Northwoods” (Shapiro 2013) – and sustain the changes through applying something (fire) that was long deemed a threat to public forests. Fire, though, is a strong environmental fuel for diverse plant communities. Ecologists recognize that numerous native forbs and grasses easily repopulate these habitats, yet are still trying to understand how to achieve the right regimen of fire application and frequency in order to keep specific balances of native grasses and shrubs. Some areas like Dunbar and Spread Eagle Barrens are dominated by non-native herbs and host more ferns than would be expected from archival accounts of barrens – technically portions of these habitats could be deemed more of a bracken grassland (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources 2015, 17; Lapin 2019).6 5 John Lampereur, USFS Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest Lakewood District silviculturist, interview with author, February 2021. Brian Sturtevant, USFS research ecologist, interview with author, February 2021. 6 Carly Lapin, [title with WDNR], personal communication Summer 2021. 18 Although fire is the primary treatment used by forest managers to sustain these landscapes, prescribed burns cannot take place until “mechanical thinning” or logging takes place. Managers explain that the combination allows for a balance of safety and productive forestry, whereby overly dense forests are milled and fuels are likewise reduced. USFS fire manager for the Lakewood Southeast Project Scott Lynn explained that fire is too hazardous and liable to escape control if applied to dense stands, but that fire bosses can better choreograph fire’s spread when woody fuels are removed.7 Waubee Barrens managers in the Lakewood district of the CNNF chose to clear the “slash,” or logging debris, after clear-cutting, but not all managers follow this procedure. The different management choices reflect considerations of aesthetics, the age of a restoration site, ongoing research on fire behavior, and seasonal restraints on the capacity of fire crews. Waubee managers attempted to account for any potential public disapproval of “messy” logging debris after consultations with the public and with similar open-habitat initiatives across the state.8 During fieldwork, Lampereur and USFS fire manager Scott Lynn also explained that leaving the slash to burn could increase the fire intensity in ways that weren’t productive or desired. These decisions were made partly to account for nearby stakeholder preferences and attitudes. Their considerations of the public further reflect the demographic differences they encounter relative to the even more sparsely populated areas further north where managers at Moquah Barrens follow different procedures. At Moquah, USFS research ecologist Brian Sturtevant explained that barrens managers do not “masticate” (mechanically dispose of) the slash, but instead 7 Scott Lynn (USFS fire manager), interview with author April 23, 2021. 8 John Lampereur, interview with author, April 2021. 19 burn it in the prescribed fire application. Some of the areas I witnessed in Moquah that were ready to burn didn’t include the same appearance of logging debris as at Waubee barrens. The oaks were small, which makes sense since Moquah Barrens has been actively managed for decades – Waubee Barrens, being a newer restoration site, included larger debris piles due to relatively recent initial “first cuts” into the dense forest. The persistence of these oaks at Moquah partly explain why managers there are studying the effect of burning the slash, too. Sturtevant and others are interested in understanding the intensity of below-ground heat given more above-ground fuel, with the hope that oak roots will be more severely impacted and killed back through higher applied heat (Sturtevant, Kern, and Donner 2016). If roots are not killed then the burn results in a “top-kill” and the tree can grow back later in the year through their roots. Burning slash in the spring is an attempt to account for the fact that fire managers miss what is botanically a very impactful time to burn – that is, summer, when oaks are less resilient to fire – since fire crews are increasingly sent to the fight wildfires in the western US and thereby undermine prescribed burn capacity (and safety) in Wisconsin summers.9 The seasonal limitations show some of the difference between current fire regimes and those year-round applications by Native stewards of the landscape (Guyette et al. 2016). One of the shortcomings to modern fire practices, according to some, could be that limited fire return intervals decrease the likelihood that restoration projects will match historic records.10 9 Brian Sturtevant (USFS research ecologist), interview with author, June 2021. Tym Sauter (USFS fire manager), interview with author, July 2021. 10 Carly Lapin (Wisconsin DNR biologist), interview with author, July 2021. 20 Given the peculiarities and dynamic patterns of the most healthy pine barrens, some researchers emphasize the need for large-scale landscape interventions to help connect barrens patches and allow for their more historically accurate mosaic patterns to emerge and shift over time (Epstein 2015; Radeloff et al. 1999; Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources 2016, 21). Barrens’ complexity is underscored by these naturalists who also explain that the habitat’s biodiversity and ecological viability is reduced when they’re managed as static “islands.” This landscape-scale priority reflects broader trends in ecosystem management nationwide congruent with the integrated processes of natural systems (Floress, Connolly, et al. 2018; Palmer et al. 2004). Similarly, the bid to expand the scope of these projects also invites public approval or criticism, especially in northern Wisconsin where private land adjoining national forests is increasingly parceled, fragmented, and developed (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources 2015; Thompson 2018). 2.2 Multiple-Use Public Lands Management and Stakeholder Attitudes 2.2.1 Managing for expectations: stakeholder engagement In the United States, environmental management is increasingly done at the landscape-scale in ways that require the collaboration and buy-in of multiple agencies and publics (Floress, Connolly, et al. 2018; Floress, Haines, et al. 2018b; Rickenbach et al. 2011). Management objectives in these contexts are shaped by historical and contextual prioritizations of commercial production, environmental preservation, and ecological restoration (Brunson et al. 1996; P. H. Gobster et al. 2007). In this vein, the USFS endorsed the more socially-conscious paradigm of “ecosystem management” in 1992 (Rogers 1996). This entails adherence to multiple-use guidelines meant to account 21 for diverse values and needs held by individuals and groups in society (Brunson 1996; Rogers 1996). Still, achieving legitimate multiple-use conditions is a challenge that compels researchers and managers alike to make sense of the variable, even contradictory, attitudes, values, and beliefs that make up and disrupt “social acceptability” of management plans (Brunson et al. 1996; Floress, Connolly, et al. 2018; Stankey and Shindler 2006). These aspects of landscape management and stakeholder engagement bear upon activities of managers responsible for promoting and overseeing pine barrens restoration. Given the current paradigm of public accountability for forest management plans, this thesis uses the term “stakeholders” to focus more specifically on the non-managerial contingent of individuals who have interests in using, visiting, and enjoying public lands. Stakeholders in this case include both nearby residents of national forests – whether seasonal or permanent – and visitors. 2.2.2 Attitudes Attitudes entail positive or negative evaluation of an object (Eagly and Chaiken 1993; Petty, Wegener, and Fabrigar 2006; Crano and Prislin 2006), and therefore provide an inlet to social acceptability that researchers, ecosystem managers, and landscape architects have used to assess public dis/approval on different forms and intensities of fire management (Absher, Vaske, and Shelby 2009; Loomis, Bair, and González-Cabán 2001), mechanical thinning (Tahvanainen et al. 2001), and landscape alteration (Cranmer et al. 2020). Attitudes are popularly seen as having affective (emotional) and cognitive (beliefs, knowledge) dimensions that, while dynamic, may mediate between general 22 value orientations and resulting behavior and decision-making (Whittaker, Vaske, and Manfredo 2006). Social psychological research into attitudes is often associated with cognate research on persuasion and communication, even as the concept of attitudes has been deconstructed over the last two decades. For instance, the traditional arc of attitude research in the 20th century treated attitudes as “fixed ‘things’ [in memory] waiting to be pulled out, used, and put back in place” (Banaji and Heiphetz 2010, 357). A constructivist view of attitudes today realizes they instead may be partly implicit, and even “formed when needed, rather than enduring personal dispositions” (Schwarz, 2007, 639, as cited in Banaji and Heiphetz 2010, 357). In other words, “attitudes can be short-term or long- term” (Alice H. Eagly and Chaiken 2007, 585). More specifically they may be flexible, and open to persuasion through informed learning and experience. People also may hold one or more attitudes toward an object and their expression of these attitudes may change given different contexts (Ajzen 2001, 29). All of these characteristics inspire researchers to analyze both the latent components or antecedents of attitudinal strength (Visser, Bizer, and Krosnick 2006), and what communication methods can impact and enhance attitudinal responses (Crano and Prislin 2006). Unpacking the components of “strong attitudes” has long been guided by academic interest in the power of attitudes to influence “perception, cognition, and behavior” (Visser, Bizer, and Krosnick 2006, 2). Notwithstanding these developments, the priority of attitudinal research still focuses on an evaluative response to a given entity (or “attitude object”), which analysts may attribute to some combination of longer-term learning or experiential “residue,” shorter- term contextual factors, and more overtly cognitive or emotional internal resources. 23 This thesis uses Eagly and Chaiken’s definition of an attitude as “a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor” (Alice Hendrickson Eagly and Chaiken 1993, 1). Eagly and Chaiken use this definition to distinguish the expression – ie., a person’s vocal statement or written response – from the inner, evaluative tendency. They explain that the evaluative response “reflects a whole range of influences in addition to those that emanate from the inner tendency,” which itself is composed of “mental residues of past experience with the attitude object” (Alice H. Eagly and Chaiken 2007, 586–87). 2.2.3 Construal Theory Construal Level Theory is useful in helping to explain the evaluative tendencies people bring to bear on an attitude object as a function of their familiarity with or sensed distance from that object (N Liberman, Trope, and Stephan 2007). Construal level theory explains that the more that people feel temporally, spatially, or socially distant from a target object or event, the more they mentally construe its features in the abstract and the less certainty it holds. Conversely, people who feel closer to an object through temporal, spatial, or social experience, the more they mentally construe its specific qualities and assume a higher level of certainty for events (Fujita et al. 2006; Nira Liberman and Trope 2008). Numerous studies, moreover, have found that the spatial, temporal, social, and hypothetical dimensions of psychological distance tend to be associated (Nira Liberman and Trope 2008; R. W. Hamilton and Thompson 2007; Spence, Poortinga, and Pidgeon 2012). Although people rely on abstract and concrete construal in tandem, some research indicates that attitudes formed from direct experience are stronger, more enduring, and 24 more predictive of behavior (Fazio and Zanna 1981; Wu and Shaffer 1987). This thesis’s focus on immersive media contributes to persuasive communication scholars’ interest in the persuasive potential of surrogate first-hand experience through immersive media (Ahn 2021). Preceding recent breakthroughs in the field of VR, Rajecki (1982) and Hertwig et al. (2004) showed that direct experiences impact people's perception of risk and decision-making, as the personal experience becomes a more salient reference point. This effect on perception may be due to the fact that direct and indirect experiences are encoded in the mind in different ways (R. W. Hamilton and Thompson 2007). One example where this is borne out is in climate change risk, where researchers found that people who sensed a closer relationship to the issue of climate change indicated greater concern for its impacts (Spence, Poortinga, and Pidgeon 2012). Similar to the premise that closer psychological distance in message content is more likely to compel action (Zwickle and Wilson 2014), Spence et al. (2012, 13) argue that climate change risks must be communicated in ways that bridge psychological distance and impress upon people’s lived experience. Advances in technology today make it more possible to build on early research suggesting that 3D, interactive landscape visualizations decrease the abstract qualities of message content (Sheppard 2005), whether this be climate change or even, in this case, pine barrens restoration plans. Field research interviews in this thesis suggest that psychological distance undercuts efforts to communicate pine barrens restoration goals, rationale, and scope. Firstly they are already a very rare habitat that relatively few people may recognize, which may engender both social and spatial psychological distance. Secondly, their creation through long-term intensive management procedures is temporally distant since 25 the target flora may only germinate several seasons after restoration procedures begin. Moreover, following the research by Hamilton and Thompson (2007),11 it is arguable that the USFS’s means of communication – including mainly informational mail and in- person stakeholder meetings – are more likely to inspire people’s abstract construal of the ends and means of pine barrens restoration. This reliance on abstract evaluation can lead to more uncertainty regarding the goals and outcomes of restoration since certainty is a dimension of psychological distance that is linked to the other spatial, temporal, and social dimensions (Nira Liberman and Trope 2008; R. W. Hamilton and Thompson 2007; Spence, Poortinga, and Pidgeon 2012). As immersive media scholar Sun Joo Ahn says, “when designing for persuasion, experiences that closely mimic first-hand events may be more effective than secondhand depictions” (2021, 165). USFS personnel responsible for pine barrens management echoed this sentiment, endorsing the idea of a 3D, interactive environment to showcase the outcomes of restoration and the many ecological assets of pine barrens. 2.3 Immersive Technology’s Persuasive Presence The goal of measuring the impact of immersive media experiences on individual attitudes toward pine barren restoration arises from diverse literature on the persuasive potential of new media technology for enhancing attitudes and learning outcomes in myriad contexts, including virtual tours. Immersive technology is generally characterized by media richness or life-likeness, and interactive opportunities rather than passive 11 Their research shows that people who interact with a product form more concrete mental construals than those who learn about the same product through PowerPoint presentations (R. W. Hamilton and Thompson 2007). 26 transmission (Bailenson 2018; Breves and Heber 2020; Zhao et al. 2020; Hruby, Ressl, and de la Borbolla del Valle 2019). While interactive interfaces have a legacy of strategic use in persuasive communication and geovisualization (Coyle and Thorson 2001; Oh and Sundar 2015; Andrienko, Andrienko, and Gatalsky 2003), immersive technology pushes this envelope by inducing sensations of direct experience. In other words, the qualities of immersion lead to the subjective “sense of ‘being there’ in a mediated environment” (Li, Daugherty, and Biocca 2002, 44; Slater 1999; Hein, Mai, and Hußmann 2018), an effect often referred to as “spatial presence” (Hartmann et al. 2016; Lombard and Ditton 1997; “physical presence” in Lee 2004; “telepresence” in Draper, Kaber, and Usher 1998). Short of providing an entirely virtual simulation of pine barrens, this study integrated 360º video (ie. omnidirectional video, see Rothe, Buschek, and Hußmann 2019) footage into a video game software for added interactivity. Diverse research using 360º videos on their own and in combination with interactive software have produced enhanced attitudes toward the content of disaster communication messages (Fraustino et al. 2018), attitudes and emotions toward wolf reintroduction (Filter et al. 2020), expectations surrounding planned wind farms (Cranmer et al. 2020), and learning outcomes for environmental education (Arvaniti and Fokides 2020; Ahmad, Mohamad Ali, and Mei Choo 2019; Ritter III, Stone, and Chambers 2019). Although immersion12 increases when using head-mounted displays (HMDs, AKA “VR headsets”) rather than desktop computers (Zhao et al. 2020; Klippel et al. 2020; Fonseca and Kraus 2016; 12 Technology scholars identify “immersion” as a trait of the hardware or medium of communication, whereas the subjective sense of being immersed is denoted through the term “presence” and its iterations (eg. “social presence” is the feeling of being somewhere else with other people). 27 Breves and Heber 2020), Klippel et al. (2020) cite some instances where greater immersion diminished learning outcomes (Makransky et al. 2018; Oprean, Simpson, and Klippel 2018), suggesting that desktop experiences have credible application for certain learning scenarios. The research product at hand necessarily had to compile sensory information on not only the outcomes of pine barrens, but also the processes that generate them. That is, any attitudinal research into stakeholder views on pine barrens must address both the ends and means of these restorative projects. Landscape managers are interested in better understanding and accounting for people’s attitudes toward not only restoration outcomes but also the processes that compose them – in this case, clearcutting and prescribed burning. Scant research has taken place within this exact context, yet there is relevant literature inspecting both evaluations of landscape treatments and their outcome that also includes cognitive and emotional dimensions of experience. Although the following discussion of literature on public acceptance and perception encompasses more than attitudes per se, the literature helps frame the current study’s intellectual merits. 2.4 Localized Context for Attitude Research Two of the most significant dimensions that inform public perception – and thereby social acceptability – of landscape change are aesthetics and a sense of risk, or what is practically conveyed as trust in management agencies (Ford et al. 2014; Ribe 2013; Gobster et al. 2007; Gobster 1996; Daniel 2001; Estévez et al. 2015). People predominantly articulate their aesthetic notions through visual perception to discern a sense of scenic beauty that Daniel (2001) terms the “public-perception based approach” to visual landscape management. Since these perspectives are composed of latent, 28 culturally-informed assumptions of “naturalness” (Ford et al. 2014, 482; Gobster et al. 2007, 967), researchers associate them with people’s emotional attachment to a “sense of place” (Tuan 1974) and the pleasure they derive from the surroundings (Gobster et al. 2007, 961; Buijs 2009, 2681). Indeed the visual evaluation method is central to recent stakeholder surveys indicating that pine barrens are “aesthetically challenged” and therefore less favorable as a management outcome for stakeholders (Gobster, Arnberger, et al. 2021). This is despite people’s avowed approval of management decisions based on biodiversity outcomes. On the other hand, trust in management agencies is directly implicated in the sense of risk that non-expert stakeholders bring with them during public consultations. As Ford et al. (2014) explain, peoples’ sense of trust can be analyzed in terms of “social trust” or the perceived similarity in values held by all stakeholders, and agency “competence” that includes the “consequences of management” (483). These aspects therefore not only often frame stakeholder dialogue, but also are integral to the case study at hand given the rarity of pine barrens, their drastic visual difference from over-stocked forests, and the relatively novel use of prescribed fire in northern Wisconsin (Shindler, Toman, and McCaffrey 2009, 162). 2.4.1 Fire Perceptions in Northwoods The slow revision of fire suppression in the Northwoods means that many people are still wary of prescribed burning (Shindler, Toman, and McCaffrey 2009, 162) even as this treatment is often an effective means to reduce wildfire risk and increase biodiversity (Hmielowski et al. 2016, 1019). Shindler et al. (2009) found that relative to their neighbors in Minnesota, Wisconsin residents were more wary of prescribed burning and “may be more watchful as treatments are employed” (162). Moreover, both of these 29 groups appeared to have relatively less interaction with management agencies than their counterparts in other regional studies with a notable trend of “neutral” opinions regarding trust in the Forest Service (Shindler, Toman, and McCaffrey 2009, 162–63). The need to build cooperative trust and approval of prescribed fire across public-private ownership boundaries in northern Wisconsin is further highlighted by several socio-ecological features. These include the fact that northern Wisconsin already hosts the state’s highest density of residents in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) (E. Hamilton 2018; Radeloff et al. 2018) and that new development is increasingly fragmenting property parcels in areas adjoining national forests (Haight and Gobster 2009; Thompson 2018). Moreover, Hmielowski et al.’s (2016) priority analysis of prescribed fire in Wisconsin based on ecological factors and feasibility found that “the highest priority areas for applying prescribed fire occurred in the central, northwest, and northeast portion of the state” (Hmielowski et al. 2016, 1018). The importance of building private stakeholder trust and approval of prescribed fire in this landscape is reflected in these researchers’ intention to use spatial analysis to strategically include private landowners in overall fire management plans and activities (1026). The case study of Waubee Barrens indicates that vocal opponents of prescribed fire resisted management plans despite public outreach explaining how barrens restoration can aid the “Fire-Wise” program whose purpose is to lessen wildfire risk.13 This is a possible reflection of the public wariness that Shindler et al. (2009) found in responses of Wisconsin residents toward prescribed fire. Although Forest Service staff 13 John Lampereur, interview with author, April, 2021. 30 coordinated more outreach and stakeholder research after the public criticism, these communication strategies plus the initial letters sent to landowners all correlate with indirect experience of pine barrens education in light of the previous theoretical discussion. Beside attempting to build an immersive tour to communicate more specific construal of pine barrens, future research could target micro-contextual factors with residents at Waubee Barrens such as burn frequency, amount of acreage, or the exact location of the burns. I focused on the medium of the message, especially because USFS personnel indicated that people needed to experience barrens in order to appreciate them. Beyond this context, it appears that people may also benefit most from guided tours of prescribed burns, as Shindler et al. (2009) found that residents of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan responded most favorably to guided tours over any other informational material. 2.4.2 Overcoming Disapproval of Clear-Cuts and Barrens People’s trust in the competency of natural resource managers can also be informed by their aesthetic judgments of what is “natural.” Research on social perceptions of “natural” and “healthy” habitats indicates that public ideas of environmental health often positively correlate with their scenic appraisals of forested and dramatic landscapes (Gobster et al. 2007; Ribe 2013). Yet many biologically diverse ecosystems contain dynamic processes and patterns that may be far from picture-perfect. Moreover, closer inspection of lush forests may reveal disease outbreaks, invasive species, and ahistorical conditions promoting fire danger. In this vein, landscape managers in upper Wisconsin face a communicative challenge when reconciling the primary rationale of pine barrens restoration – that is, biodiversity – with popular 31 conceptions of the Northwoods as lush, forested, and therefore natural. Popular demand for the lush environments of northern Wisconsin is built from a century of afforestation that grew in tandem with tourism marketing of the lake-filled, forest-blanketed Northwoods (Shapiro 2013). Upon first visual inspection, barrens don’t match up to this socially-informed landscape ideal. Paul Gobster has theorized the common gap between more wholistic comprehension of ecosystem processes and conventional visual judgments of naturalness and health. Gobster’s use of the terms “ecological aesthetic” and “scenic aesthetic” (1996; 2007) – based on the work of Wisconsin’s own Aldo Leopold – are helpful for distinguishing such differences in how people evaluate habitats or landscapes. Whereas the scenic aesthetic prioritizes both what is “dramatic and visual,” immediately and affectively perceptible, the ecological aesthetic encompasses the “subtle, multimodal characteristics of a dynamic environment” and its natural processes. The ecological aesthetic, with its emphasis on biodiversity, an understanding of systems and how ecological components form a greater sum than their parts, stems from Leopold’s “land aesthetic” that he developed in essays that culminated in Sand County Almanac. Flader and Callicott (1993) highlight the importance of this notion in their compilation of Leopold’s writings: By contrast [to the scenic aesthetic], in Leopold’s revolutionary land esthetic all the senses, not just vision, are exercised by a refined taste in natural objects, and esthetic experience is as cerebral as it is perceptual. Most important, form follows function for Leopold as for his architectural contemporaries. For him, the esthetic appeal of the country, in other words, has little to do with its adventitious colors and shapes – and nothing at all to do with its scenic and picturesque qualities – but everything to do with the integrity of its evolutionary heritage and ecological processes (9-10). 32 Just as paradigm shifts in ecology have highlighted the ecological importance of disturbances (especially fire), the “ecological aesthetic” promotes human interaction with environments to both actively regenerate them and understand their systems more deeply. It is worth noting that where Leopold’s philosophy espouses deeper, experiential human engagement with and understanding of the environment, these characteristics are hallmarks of much longer cultural lifeways endemic to Native societies of this continent (Simpson 2017; Robin Wall Kimmerer 2020; Ray, Kolden, and Chapin III 2012; R.W. Kimmerer and Lake 2001; Molnár and Babai 2021). Indeed, the visual intake of North American scenery as an idyllic nature “untouched” and meant for preservation is built on Native dispossession and erasure of Native stewardship of bountiful, dynamic landscapes (Anderson 2005), Wisconsin included. These different perspectives on what the land provides is evident in the appraisals of pine barrens by Native nations and the Euro- American settlers who displaced them. On one hand, Ojibwe and Menominee societies “long used fire to maintain the open character of pine barrens as a preferred landscape condition for wildlife habitat, medicines, [and] materials for human subsistence” (Gobster, Schneider, et al. 2021, 2). Early European foresters, on the other hand, derided barrens as “monotonous brushwoods,” “almost worthless,” and as “burned out barrens” to connote a barren landscape (Roth 1898, 10, and Fletcher 1853, as cited in Gobster, Schneider, et al. 2021, 2).14 Interestingly today, although social research indicates people prefer closed canopy landscapes consistent with a Northwoods aesthetic, survey responses also suggest that 14 John Lampereur, interview with author April 2021. 33 those already familiar with pine barrens are more willing to approve of “intensive types of pine barrens treatment designs retaining fewer trees” than those who have not visited pine barrens (Gobster, Arnberger, et al. 2021, 10). Gobster writes that this kind of correlation between familiarity and approval could be evidence of an ecological aesthetic held by some people. Beside this point, the aspect of familiarity also indicates the importance of direct experience in this population’s formation of attitudes. This study anticipated that people would feel more familiar with barrens through spatial presence in the immersive tour, and thereby indicate stronger attitudinal enhancement toward their restoration. The following chapter describes the methods used in this study. 34 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY I analyzed the impact of a novel 3D geovisualization intervention through a between-group participant study with questionnaires measuring attitudes toward the goals and procedures of a habitat restoration project in northeastern Wisconsin. This chapter describes the procedures and elements of the user study. 3.1 Basis of the User Study I presented 192 crowdsourced regional participants with a sociodemographic questionnaire at the start, followed by questionnaires measuring attitudes toward fire, clear-cutting, and the habitat of pine barrens. These questions were presented to participants twice: once before the randomized stimuli, and once afterward. I used quantitative analysis in R to measure for significant differences in each group’s reported “pre-test” and “post-test” attitude scores for each category (fire, clear-cuts, and pine barrens). This methodology matches standard academic design that uses people’s ordinal, closed responses (ie. a Likert scale of, for instance, five responses from “highly disagree” to “highly agree”) to questions about an entity to measure the respondent’s attitudes toward that entity (Banaji and Heiphetz 2010). As for the informational stimulus, my study randomly assigned participants to learn about pine barrens restoration goals and practices either through 1) a desktop-based virtual tour, or 2) a website. In this study I built a desktop version of an immersive tour due to COVID restrictions and because immersive desktop experiences from 360º videos provide lower technological entry-point at both the producer and consumer ends in the event that a virtual tour as constructed here proves valuable in the future. The website 35 was created as a control representing a more conventional, but less interactive, media of textual explanation with photographic imagery. Both stimuli contained roughly the same message content to the degree that is feasible. Users then answered an exit questionnaire adopted from Hartmann et al. (2016) that measures subjective experience of “presence” or the feeling of immersion in a media presentation. The following explains the rationale and procedures related to recruiting participants, designing materials, and running the user study. 3.1.1 Participants I solicited 192 participants for the study from the recruitment website Prolific. Participants were able to take part in this online study if they indicated through their Prolific profile that they are at least 18 years old, fluent in English, and a resident of the state of Wisconsin or Minnesota. Each participant was paid $6.25 through Prolific for an average of 20-25 minutes of their time after they completed the study. I prioritized geographic recruitment (to Prolific users in Wisconsin and Minnesota) since the study focuses on landscapes of northern Wisconsin; an open pool of respondents beyond this region may not have the same connotations of or attachments to the Northwoods as this group. Prolific allows researchers to filter through respondent profiles based on geography, and my final study’s incentive structure was more robust than an initial attempt to recruit undergraduate responses through collegial networks at University of Wisconsin. Willing professors in Geography and related fields at UW were helpful in forwarding links and advertisements to the user study, but relying on voluntary interest in a random drawing for a 25$ Amazon gift card resulted in poor response rates. 36 Grant money from the University of Oregon’s Center for Science Communication Research allowed me to re-distribute the user study and pay participants through Prolific. Moving from distribution through collegial networks to a more dispersed delivery across a wider public also generated a greater sociodemographic variety of respondents, and potentially prevented more exposure bias associated with the academic interests of undergraduates enrolled in Geography or similar classes focused on natural resources. 3.2 Materials 3.2.1 Distributing the study through Prolific Prolific is a crowdsourcing website that is useful for quantitative studies seeking larger recruitment numbers to legitimize generalizable results because it advertises research study participation to willing members of the public at large. Kraut et al. (2004) argue that sites like Prolific (or its competitor Mechanical Turks) ease the barriers to conducting social scientific research, making studies “less expensive and easier to conduct” because of automated recruitment (106). Psychological studies of visualization media benefit from the scalable features of crowdsourcing that reduce burdens of participation and diversify the pool of subjects (Heer and Bostock 2010). Users on Prolific are paid for their time by the research team, which further incentivizes participation. Paying for crowdsourcing is scalable since reimbursement is pegged to a relatively low amount per user due to the often simple nature of tasks that people are asked to do in these types of research studies. 3.2.2 Qualtrics and Informed Consent The Prolific advertisement for this study redirected participants to Qualtrics, a survey making and taking website. Participants were directed to my study which included 37 the stimuli and questions for the user study. Upon visiting Qualtrics, users entered their Prolific ID to cross-reference with their Prolific profile information to receive compensation. The second page of the Qualtrics study provided the participants with the consent form (Appendix A). Participants needed to answer “yes” to indicate that they read the information about the study and consent to its terms in order to continue to the rest of the questions in the user study. 3.2.3 Socio-demographic data Participants input basic socio-demographic and lifestyle information through an introductory questionnaire consisting of four questions. The first two ask for age and gender identity. The latter two are Likert style scales asking about people’s familiarity with Wisconsin’s Northwoods and if they or their family own/s property there (including for how long, if so). 3.2.4 Pre-test and Post-test Questionnaires Items in the pre- and post-test questionnaires were designed to gather information for measuring people’s attitudes toward prescribed fire, clearcutting, and pine barrens. The questions in the study balanced contextual specif