Relationships between media exposure and portuguese adolescents' agency modes toward climate change

Este estudo investigou como três variáveis relacionadas à exposição à mídia frequency of media use, attention to media e family conversations prompted by media predizem os modos de agency (individual, proxy e collective) de adolescentes portugueses em relação à mitigação das mudanças climáticas. Participaram 298 estudantes entre 12 e 19 anos, que responderam escalas validadas para cada constructo. A análise multivariada indicou que attention to media e family conversations prompted by media predizem todos o s modos de agency, enquanto frequency of media use foi relevante apenas para proxy agency e collective agency. O maior impacto foi observado para attention to media. Esses achados reforçam o potencial da mídia, sobretudo quando acompanhada de atenção ativa dos adolescentes, e das conversas familiares, para promover comportamentos intencionais e sustentados frente às mudanças climáticas. Os resultados ampliam o entendimento do papel da mídia para além da transmissão informativa, destacando sua
influência na formação da agency juvenil.
Climate change represents an urgent global challenge, and adolescents are a crucial population both for their
vulnerability and their potential to foster social change. Media have been shown to influence pro -environmental attitudes and behaviors, yet their -related variables (frequency of use, attention to content, and family discussions prompted by medi agency toward climate change mitigation. A sample of 298 adolescents (12 19 years) completed validated scales assessing these constructs. Multivariate regression analysis revealed that at tention to climate-related media content and family conversations consistently predicted all three modes of agency, while frequency of media use predicted only proxy and collective agency. Effect sizes were small to moderate, with the strongest association s found for attention to content. Findings highlight the potential of media, particularly when adolescents present a higher level of attention towards what they are consuming, to promote intentional and sustained climate action in adolescents.