Role of Social Media in increasing Environmental issue Awareness in Saudi Arabia Type: Assignment

Introduction and Background of Role of Social Media in increasing Environmental issue Awareness in Saudi Arabia

Background of Role of Social Media in increasing Environmental issue Awareness in Saudi Arabia

In the 21st century, many countries are facing a critical issue of global warming and climate change. Apparently global warming does not seem like a major issue, but if this issue is analyzed critically than it can be understood that global warming has drastic consequences, which might affect all the living beings on planet earth. The climate change has huge impact on all living beings, and if the climate of the planet changes heavily, then the planet earth might not remain habitable anymore. All the living beings on earth can tolerate high temperatures up to a limit. If the temperature of the earth rises above that limit, then living on earth will become impossible.

In the past several decades,' many countries have experience industrial revolution, which leads to development of their economies. Although the industrial revolution has provided many new opportunities to the people and provides them such products which they have never imagined due to heavy industrialization the amount of pollution the planet increases up to a lot of extents. The increase in the carbon footprint increases the temperature of the planet. The greenhouse gases and chlorofluorocarbons become a major cause of climate change. The chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) become major reason for Ozone layer depletion.  The ozone layer protects the earth from harmful rays, but due to the increase in greenhouse gases, it is depleting at an alarming rate (Meehan, Lunney, Curran, & McCaughey, 2016).

In addition to this, the environmental education practices in education have been raising the environmental awareness of the students. In fact, the students now are getting aware of the problems such as global warming, earth pollution, all the causes, the effects, and those students even have suggested some recommendations to solve these issues (Simsekli, 2015).  For this reason, the education-based approaches to motivate maintenance behavior among the students, faculty and staff, have given the result in the modest changes in behavior. The usage of social media sites has consequently not been extensively used to carry behavioral interferences on campus. On the other hand, this could possibly demonstrate to be useful for certain universities that are interested in motivating the waste reduction behaviors for their students. At best, social media might be considered as an addition to a further concentrated social-based interference. For that reason, the forthcoming campus struggles in supporting waste reduction or further changes in behavior must use a variety of diverse schemes and methods of which social media might be one element, but it must not be the key resource of changing behavior. (Jhenna, 2015).

Today many countries have started taking steps to protect the environment by taking various initiatives. The countries have not only created new laws but also creating awareness in the people about environment protection and why environmental protection is essential for healthy living. In the past there were a limited number of medium through which awareness can be created among people such as television, radio, newspapers, and billboard. But after the development of the internet and social media the authorities today have a great opportunity to reach huge amount of people by using social media. Not only they can create awareness but also ca take feedback from people regarding environment protection related issues. The social media is a very powerful tool, and if used appropriately it can help the environment protection agencies to achieve their goal (Hamid, Ijab, Sulaiman, Anwar, & Norman, 2017).

1.2    Problem Statement of Role of Social Media in increasing Environmental issue Awareness in Saudi Arabia

There is need to create awareness in the people about the environment protection and how the environment-related issues like global warming and rising seas level should d be controlled (Hamid, Ijab, Sulaiman, Anwar, & Norman, 2017). People need to understand the severity of the situation and how global warming can impact their lives. If people are not going to understand the severity of the situation, then achieving the goal of environment protection cannot be achieved accurately. The social media is a powerful tool and many people around the world use it for sharing information, getting information and communicating with their friends and family. The features which social media provides can play a major role in creating awareness (Zita, Burger, & Scholtz, 2014).

However, it is not known up to what extent social media can play a role in environmental protection. Therefore the research will be conducted to find the role of social media in increasing environment issue awareness. The research will find out up to what extent social media will be useful in creating awareness in the people about environmental issues. The research will provide information about the role of social media in awareness creation. The research will analyze how people get attracted to the issue and which approaches are being used using social media for creating awareness in the general public as well as in education regarding environment protection (Roshandel Arbatani, Labafi, & Robati, 2016).

1.3    Aim and objectives of the Research of Role of Social Media in increasing Environmental issue Awareness in Saudi Arabia

The aim of the research is to provide deep insights regarding the role of social media in creating awareness regarding environmental issues. The research will evaluate how effective is social media in creation of awareness and what opportunities and threats exist regarding social media usage. The research will discuss the strengths & weaknesses of social media platforms and try to elaborate various features of social media through which awareness in the people can be created. The researchers will gather a significant amount of data to investigate what people think about social media platforms and whether they are influenced by social media awareness campaigns or not (Chou & ChanLin, 2012).

The research will evaluate the social media capabilities & abilities fir determine its role in awareness campaigns. Many businesses and institutions are using social media today to generate sales and increasing their profitability. The social media become a popular platform for advertisements and many people today get attracted to various products after watching the advisement on social media. If this concept is kept in mind, then an ad film that focuses on environment protect can create diverts the attention of the people globally, and the students specifically, toward the environment-related issues (Cetina & Nisanci, 2010).

The researchers have not measured the true potential of social media and up to what extent it can be used. There is a need to conduct such a researcher through which the possibilities of social media usage can be known. This research will focus on the aspects which make this platform exception for awareness campaigns. The research will focus whether social media plays any role in awareness creation or not. The key objectives and aims of this research are explained as follows:

·         To investigate the features of social media which helps in awareness campaigns

·         To understand the needs & preferences of the people and students

·         To investigate how people get attracted toward a specific post on the social media platform

·         To understand what purposes people use social media sites

·         To understand which social media platform is most effective for awareness campaigns

·         To investigate whether social media sites help the environment agencies to reach a huge number of people (Hamid, Ijab, Sulaiman, Anwar, & Norman, 2017).

·         To know up to what extent social media can be used for creating awareness regarding environment-related issues

·         To investigate whether social media have to increase environment-related awareness in people or not.

·         To investigate how social media could affect the changing behavior of the students regarding the green environment

1.4    Research Contribution of Role of Social Media in increasing Environmental issue Awareness in Saudi Arabia

The research has a huge scope because it is providing vast information regarding the topic. The research will contribute to the relevant literature, and future researchers can use this research to further investigating the opportunities and threats of social media sites. There are researches that have focused on social media usage and its role however there is a need to further investigate the potential of social media in creating awareness regarding environmental issues. This study will fill the research gap which exists regarding the role of social media in environment protection awareness generation. It is evident that social media have revolutionized the world and open many possibilities for the institution's business and different authorities. Now it has become important to know how social media can be used in various field and what role it can play in achieving the goal which set by people of different fields (Tlebere, Scholtz, & Calitz, 2015).

This study will provide information about how social media can be used for creating awareness in people. The study will investigate the potential of social media regarding awareness creation. Through the study it will be known that how social media allow any individual or institution to reach huge amount of people.

The study will gather a significant amount of data from a qualitative approach. The primary, as well as the secondary data, will be gathered to investigate the research problem. The data in abundance will improve the validity and reliability of the study. Although the study will provide a vast amount of information however it will have some limitations as well. The study will be based on the county of Saudi Arabia which means that the research will unable to cover other regions of the world. The limitation o the study, however, won’t affect the credibility of the research (Hamid, Ijab, Sulaiman, Anwar, & Norman, 2017).

Research Outline of Role of Social Media in increasing Environmental issue Awareness in Saudi Arabia

The research will follow a descriptive research approach. The research report will be divided into different sections, which include the introduction section, the literature review section. The research methodology section, Findings & discussion section, and finally the conclusion & Recommendation section. The research questions which the study will provide answers are mentioned as follows:

·          Which social media platform is most effective for awareness campaigns regarding environmental issues?

·         Does social media sites help the environment agencies to reach a huge number of people?

·         Up to what extent social media can be used for creating awareness regarding environment-related issues?

·         Does social media in the past have increase environment-related awareness in people or not?

·         Does social media present a great influence for the students regarding the green environment?

An extensive literature review will be performed in the study which will provide information about the research gap. The literature review helps in knowing what other researchers have contributed regarding the selected research topic. As discussed earlier the data will be of both primary and secondary types. The primary data will be gathered by performing a survey and interview approach. Whereas the secondary data will be gathered using the literature review, books, and authentic internet sources. After collecting the data the data will be analyzed using statistical approaches like regression analysis, standard deviation, etc. (Hamid, Ijab, Sulaiman, Anwar, & Norman, 2017).