Media uses and social representations of climate change

• Autor(es): Cabecinhas, Rosa ; L??zaro, Alexandra ; Carvalho, Anabela
• Data: 2008
• Identificador Persistente: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/29916
• Origem: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
• Assunto(s): Climate change; Media; Social representations; Attitudes; Risk
• Tipo de Documento: Parte ou capítulo de livro
• Idioma: Inglês
• Editor(es): Carvalho, Anabela

Descrição

A survey study with Portuguese participants (N=614) was carried out to investigate the relationship between practices of media consumption, the use of other sources of information, and social representations of climate change. Results show a moderate level of knowledge about climate change, a high level of concern and a high level of perceived risk towards the potential effects of climate change, emotionally negative images associated with climate change, and low frequency of climate-friendly individual behaviour. News media are reported to be the main sources of information on climate change and are positively assessed in terms of credibility. Practices of media consumption are a predictor variable of individual mitigation actions, behavioural intentions, concern about climate change and, in a smaller degree, knowledge about climate change. However, they have little impact on risk perceptions and on the emotional valence of the images associated with climate change.