A study on the influence of mass media reportings upon the public awareness of the global environmental issues

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We conducted survey research in 1994,1995, and 1996 regarding environmental issues and eposure to mass media. The survey in 1994 was carried ont to the 1500 adult residents in Itabashi-ku, Tokyo. The completed sample was 760. The survey in 1995 was carried ont to 900 adult residents of Tokyo 23 wards. The completed sample was 587. The survey in 1996 was carried out to 1920 residents aged 16-74 within 30km range of Tokyo metropolitan area. The completed sample was 875. The major findings from the surveys were as follows : (1) The level of concern with environmental problems has been keeping relatively high among the public since 1992, (2) The strength of concern about the global environmental issues or the attitude favorable of environmentalism show positive correlationship with the degree of daily exposure to newspapers, but show weak negative correlations with the exposure to television. These findings support our hypothesis that the envionment reportings of mass media influence the awareness or attitude of the general public toward global environmental issues.We also conducted the intensive content analysis of newspaper articles on the global environmental issues, especially on the global warming and ozone layr depletion problems. The result of content analysis showed that (1) there was an agenda-setting effects in media regarding environmental issues, and that (2) there was a gap between the public's attribution of cause and responsibility in environmental problems and the frames of media reportings about environmental issues. We could not find any significant "framing effects" of environmental reportings in particular.Throughout the research for three years, we obtained a great deal of valuable findings about the relationship between the public's awareness of behavior regarding the global environmental problems and the mass media reportings.