ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of relevant theories within research on media effects on environmental issues. Theories of media effects can be classified in three levels: theories on the micro level usually dealing with individual’s cognition, emotion or action, theories on the meso level usually dealing with relationships between groups of individuals or organizations and theories on the macro level usually dealing with relationships within social systems. The chapter describes the view beyond the main traditional theories on media effects and expands it to theoretical approaches in the field of media exposure, persuasion or risk perception. The Risk Information Seeking and Processing Model precede the actual risk perception by emphasizing the pre-communicative phase of information seeking and the present-communicative phase of information processing. The impact of media use on objective or perceived knowledge of audiences is a broadly researched field in communication science literature and its influence is well documented.
