Media’s Support in Promoting Environment Awareness

Environment is a basic need for all living beings because every necessity for them depends on it. Unless the environment is protected, the existence of life on the planet Earth would be impossible. That is why environmental issues have become globally important. All people must give their contribution for the betterment of environment. In the past decades, sustainability and environmental awareness have gained media attention. Due to increasing media coverage, our society is becoming more aware of the effects that our activities put on the health of the environment. In this regard the media has a big role to play in making people aware of environment issues and taking actions to protect the environment. Global media channels reach nearly 1.5 billion people across the globe. Through this data a conclusion can be derived that most of the people are getting environmental awareness through media. Global warming, Ozone depletion, Climate change are the current global environment problems the world is facing. How do people from different cultures perceive these problems? How do they react to them? The aim of this study is to figure out what factors are most important in explaining different levels of awareness concerning environmental problems and to compare the level of awareness as well as the actual behaviour of people living in developing and developed countries towards environment. Media has played an important role in setting perceptions and creating awareness on environmental issues. Government officials, scientists, journalists have shaped government policies for more than thirty years. When the world saw the picture of the earth, photographed from space during1960's, awareness of the earth as a whole system, fragile and finite, became a paradigm of our era (Dryzek, 1997). This awareness was accompanied by an insight of environmental issues that our earth is facing. Geographers argue that environmental issues today have drawn the attention of the common man as environmental derogation and pollution have assumed global dimension and even threatening the survival of mankind (Singh, 2000). Due Aseen Khan IJSRE Volume 4 Issue 8 August 2016 Page 5589 to this, environmental problems and the aftermaths of human activities such as economic development, population explosion, and land degradation among others were given an increasingly political character. One of the most dire problems facing countries is environmental crisis which threatens to precipitate and deepen the countries' precarious economic and social state. Everyone needs to understand that, among otherthings, this environmental crisis is a result of excessive use of natural resources and not so wisely planned development projects, promoted by rapid population growth (EPA,1997). As a result, many countries over the last few decades, have faced a serious degradation of nature‟s gifts and damage to the environment and human health. The media used for the investigation of environmental awareness are newspaper, radio and television programs which are widely and frequently used modern media. There is a set of ideas about media tasks in society, like heralding information about events and conditions in society and the world, facilitating innovation, adaptation and advancement (McQuail, 1994). Awareness promoting tasks performed by the media and several environment protection clubs and organizations that deal with environmental protection have not got huge success. It is noted that both urban and rural people were not educated properly about the mode of destruction and protection of the environment.
Conclusion
The role of the media to raise the community concerns and commitment for social and environmental issue is a very critical one. Awareness creation for the protection of the environment and the sustainable use of finite resources are matters that directly concern each citizen. The media can be an instrument in breaking the silence that surrounds the environmental problems and in creating an environment that encourages discussions of how the community can participate and change their behavior. It is truly crucial to raise public awareness of environmental issues. Media's efforts to sensitize the public about environment issues and its continuing central role in the struggle against the cause of environmental problems are indispensable. However, the level of involvement of the media in the country to address environmental challenges is only event based. Environmental issues have not yet reached a stage where they are the media's prime agenda. The media fails to take a creative approach in producing stories about environmental protection and gives insufficient attention to environmental degradation and its consequences. The media does not seem to be in a position to create environmental awareness to the public in a given geographical area. The major media focus even now is on issues that take place around the big cities, there is no diversified community media at grass root level. Furthermore, the media does not give fair and optimal space and time to environmental issues. No detailed studies to ascertain the role of the media in environmental awareness issues have been done unlike other development and political issues. Even though some activities undertaken so far are positive, the work done to date in the study area is very inadequate compared to the consequences of environmental challenges.