Awareness of university students towards environmental communication on social media

Abstract

With the rapid growth of the technology era, dissemination of information has undergone dramatic transformations. Social media has become a trusted platform on environmental knowledge to the general public as environmental issues become more serious and require more attention. Nonetheless, the extent of awareness amongst university students towards environmental issues on social media is still not clear, although they are the major Internet user group in the Malaysian society. Focusing on environmental communication, this study aims to examine the awareness of university students towards online environmental information. Additionally, it aims to identify how issues are presented online and the type of information available. Towards this end, the study adopted the mixed-method explanatory sequential research design. A total 346 university students were involved in online surveys (quantitative research) while seven informants participated in in-depth interviews (qualitative research). The findings reveal that the education level of university students contradicts with their awareness to environmental communication on social media, although the awareness of university students was found to be of modest fit to environmental communication (Adjusted R2 is 0.021). Meanwhile, visual communication was identified as the most effective type of information to present environmental issues in cyberspace. The findings can help guide environmental organisations and media players on the most effective form of environmental communication for their target audience.