University students’ preferred channels and sources of communicating climate change

Understanding students’ climate change concern may be a key strategy for building a citizenry that supports climate change action. Students’ information seeking and media use condition is a major challenge to overcome for the effective climate change communication. This study was conducted as a descriptive survey analysis of the Filipino university students’ preferences on climate change information channels and sources. The research participants were the 200 sampled university students. Descriptive statistics such as frequency and parentage were used to analyze and interpret the data gathered through survey checklist. Results of the study showed that television, internet, cell phone, radio, family and friends are strong information channels to communicate climate change to young sectors of the Philippine society. Meanwhile, the role of family and friends cannot be undervalued as a communication source of climate change. The students also highly preferred communication sources from science institutions, teachers and professors, and government organizations showing a positive level of environmental concern and attention to the environmental news. This study also reveals that the students were highly attentive to environmental news. This implicates that most of the students perceive climate change as a problem that will primarily affect future generations of people as well as their health, security, and safety. This is also attributed to the recent devastating typhoons that hit the Philippines making the young respondents have been interested in environmental concerns.