Eleventh International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

Lately, there have been concerns and talks about the climatic conditions in various regions of the world changing. Although human and natural actions have been identified as contributing to climate change, anthropogenic drivers (human actions that cause climate change and the factors that shape those actions) have been observed to be the main cause of climate change. Ghana’s recognition of the adverse effects of climate change, has compelled the government to put in place a National Climate Change Policy (NCCP) to safeguard her from climate change through the measures and programmes detailed out in the policy document, while highlighting the need to communicate climate change. Acknowledgement of communication brings to bear the critical role of media, be it new media or legacy media as it has been established that the media is a key factor in climate change communication since. More so, the fact that the general population pays more attention to and derive much of their information from the media as compared to scientific reports, specialist web¬sites or the reports or publications of environmental organisations makes a strong case for this. In the light of this, the study attempts to establish what audience members (graduate students) perceive of how the media is taking up the role of providing the needed information on climate change and, in a way, influence what media churns out about climate change and, perhaps, meet audience demands.