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Climate Change 2016
October 27-29, 2016
Volume 7, Issue 9(Suppl) J Earth Sci Clim Change
ISSN: 2157-7617 JESCC, an open access journal
conferenceseries .com
October 24-26, 2016 Valencia, Spain
World Conference onClimate Change
Individual and societal-level consequences of global warming media use and energy saving and carbon
reduction coverage
Huiping Huang
National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
The impact of global warming is worldwide. However, the consequences it has caused may differ across countries. In
Taiwan, the total and per-capita carbon dioxide emissions are among the 20 worst nations. Mitigation effort is desperately
needed. My recent research starts from a national survey aiming to identify factors affecting people’s environmental behavior.
As people receive information about global warming, energy saving and emission reductions mainly from the media, I first
propose a synthetic model to examine the impact of media use on environmental actions. Results show that exposure and
attention to global warming media coverage (on TV, newspapers and the Internet) positively affect individuals’ willingness
to adopt environmental actions, including accommodating, promotional and proactive actions. Environmental beliefs and
self-efficacy also function better in predicting people’s environmental behavior after considering the effects mediated by media
use. The findings reveal the central role of global warming media use in the model. Organizations should actively market
their mitigation policies or efforts through various media channels to encourage individuals’ environmental actions. After
confirming the media’s important roles, I analyze 1,156 news articles on energy savings and emission reductions from Taiwan’s
major newspapers and find that the mainstream media cover the subject mainly from local viewpoints and lack international
perspectives. The primary target audience of the news reports is the public. The media have overlooked the responsibilities the
government and the industry should take, even though the latter contributes the most to carbon emissions. This may hinder
the society from making effective mitigation efforts.
Biography
Huiping Huang has completed her PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is Associate Professor of Institute of Communication Studies at National Chiao
Tung University. She has published research articles and comments in reputed journals and newspapers and has served as an Associate Editor and Editorial Board
Member of reputed journal in Taiwan.
Huiping Huang, J Earth Sci Clim Change 2016, 7:9(Suppl)