Influence of social media use for climate change communication among the local people in Mountain Elgon in Uganda.

Abstract

Climate change communication is a fundamental instrument to inform and engage humans about the adoption of positive behaviour towards climate change mitigation and adaptation. As such, social media platforms have become important communication channels for climate change. The study explored the influence of social media use on knowledge uptake and inducing behaviour towards climate change mitigation and adaptation. The specific objectives of the study were to; (i) determine the influence of social media use on knowledge uptake on climate change mitigation and adaptation, (ii) analyse the influence of social media use on inducing behaviour towards climate change mitigation and adaptation, and (iii) find out challenges faced in the social media use for climate change communication. The study utilised cross-sectional and descriptive research designs using a mixed methods approach. A total of 258 household respondents were selected from four villages in Mt. Elgon. Findings show that social media use positively and significantly influences knowledge uptake on climate change mitigation (r = 0.261, p-value = 0.000) and adaptation (r = 0.345, p-value = 0.000). In addition, social media use for climate change induces positive behaviour towards climate change mitigation (r = 0.356, p-value = 0.000) and adaptation (r = 0.357, p-value = 0.000). The study revealed that there are challenges in social media use such as high data-associated costs, failure to store information for future use, lack of timely feedback on clarification, complex scientific climate change issues, limited availability of information, language barrier, network failure, and frequent disruptive pop-up blogs with inappropriate information. The study concludes that social media should be used for climate change communication but accompanied by traditional media as its contribution to knowledge uptake and inducing behaviour towards climate change mitigation and adaptation is minimal. The study recommends designing climate change mitigation and adaptation messages in local dialects and disseminated on through convenient social media platforms such as WhatsApp.