The Effect of Hope and Awareness on the Decoding of Climate Change Information Accessed on the Internet

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to reveal the connection between the way of decoding information about climate change and the level of awareness and hope possessed by individuals. In this context, a research model that includes hope, awareness and decoding is used. Data were obtained from a sample of 383 people in the research. While the relationship between the research variables was examined with correlation analysis, the effect of independent variables on the dependent variable was examined with regression analysis. Difference tests were also performed. Results of the correlation analysis showed that decoding had positive weak and moderate relationships with hope and awareness, respectively. When considering the regression analysis results, it is striking that although awareness positively predicts decoding, a sub-dimension, Recklessness Act to Climate Change, negatively predicts it. The difference tests reveal that hope only includes the average difference of the sub-groups in terms of the education categorical variable. In this sense, education can be considered an important determinant in terms of hope.