The First Step To Communication With Environmentally Responsible Consumer: Measuring Environmental Consciousness Of Turkish Consumers

Abstract

In recent years a growing concern for global warming and environmental issues has become apparent. Turkey as a rapidly developing country has several environmental problems. In that situation, the attitudes towards to environment and the consciousness level of the Turkish consumers have gained much more importance. For the purpose of increasing the level of consciousness about environmental issues, communication professionals have to establish a relationship between a positive environmental attitudes and environmentally responsible behaviors through the means of communication. Before designing and implementing any kind of communication process, the characteristics and current consciousness level of target group has to be clearly identified. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the attitudes of the Turkish consumers regarding to their current environmental consciousness and their willingness to adopt environmentally friendly consumption behavior. The environmental consciousness survey used in this study was delivered to the 186 students of 298 attending the first year obligatory courses in Communication Sciences Faculty. In this study, the environmental consciousness was formed by the factors related to awareness and act, concern about environment and willingness, were statistically were analyzed in terms of the opinions of the respondents concerning the environmental consciousness in terms of gender, the region that they came from, their department in the faculty of communication sciences, education level of parents, any kind of training concerning the environmental issues or any environmental associations or social clubs memberships.