Environmental risk and the media: A study into the impact the media has on the public’s perception and understanding of climate change and the associated risks

Abstract

Climate change is one of the most complex issues of the century and public awareness has been found to be inconsistent and extremely media dependent. Struggles have of ten been found with communication and the media have been known to cause public uncertainty about the reality of anthropogenic climate change and the affects it may have both locally and globally. Misrepresentations of scientific evidence have caused the public to view the media as being unreliable. This study, using two popular forms of methodology covered all areas of the media, comparing information and assessing its public impact. A range of media was analysed and issues were found amongst all areas. Results found the media to cause misconceptions concerning the reality of climate change, increasing public levels of
scepticism. This scepticism was then further encouraged due to a large amount of conflictions across all sources analysed, overall diminishing any want to become involved in
combating climate change.