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

我们在1994年、1995年和1996年就环境问题和对大众媒体的采访进行了调查研究。1994年的这项调查对东京板桥区的1500名成年居民进行了调查。完成的样本为760个。这项调查是在1995年对东京23区900名成年居民进行的。完成的样本为587个。1996年的这项调查是在东京都30公里范围内对1920名年龄在16-74岁之间的居民进行的。完成的样本为875个。调查的主要结果如下：(1)公众对环境问题的关注程度自1992年以来一直保持在较高水平；(2)公众对全球环境问题的关注程度或对环境保护的态度与日常接触报纸的程度呈正相关，而与接触电视的程度呈微弱的负相关。这些发现支持了我们的假设，即大众媒体的环境报道影响了公众对全球环境问题的认识或态度。我们还对有关全球环境问题的报纸文章进行了密集的内容分析，特别是关于全球变暖和臭氧消耗问题的文章。内容分析结果表明：(1)媒体对环境问题存在议程设置效应；(2)公众对环境问题原因和责任的归因与媒体对环境问题的报道框架存在差距。通过三年的研究，我们在公众对全球环境问题的行为意识与媒体报道之间的关系方面，得到了许多有价值的发现。

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.