본 연구는 휴리스틱-체계적 정보처리 모형과 위험정보탐색처리와 관련된 이론적 모형을 바탕으로 미디어를 통해 전달되는 환경정보가 사람들의 친환경 행동에 영향을 미치는 과정에서 어떻게 정보처리를 하며, 정보 불충분성과 정보 수집능력의 역할은 무엇인지를 검증하였다. 2023 국민환경의식조사의 2차 데이터를 활용하여 전국 성인 남녀를 대상으로 실시한 총 3,054명의 응답 데이터를 기반으로 경로 모형을 분석하였다. 분석 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 미디어를 통한 환경정보 이용은 직접적으로 친환경 행동에 정적인 영향을 미치는 한편, 환경정보 불충분성에는 부적인 영향을 미쳤다. 둘째, 정보 불충분성은 정보의 체계적 처리에만 부적인 영향을 미쳤다. 셋째, 체계적 정보처리는 친환경 행동에 정적인 영향을, 휴리스틱 처리는 친환경 행동에 부적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 넷째, 개인의 정보 수집능력은 체계적 및 휴리스틱 정보처리 모두에 긍정적인 영향을 미쳤다. 다섯째, 미디어 이용은 정보 불충분성과 체계적 및 휴리스틱 정보처리 과정을 각각 매개하여 친환경 행동에 긍정적인 영향을 미치지만, 연속매개효과는 유의하지 않았다. 마지막으로, 정보 수집능력의 조절 및 매개된 조절효과는 통계적으로 유의미하지 않았다. 이상의 결과를 바탕으로 미디어를 통한 환경정보 이용이 개인의 친환경 행동에 영향을 미치는 과정에서 정보 불충분성, 정보 처리 과정, 정보 수집능력의 역할을 살펴봄으로써 향후 환경 캠페인 및 정책 수립에 기여 하고자 하였다.
Environmental pollution is a serious social risk issue. A variety of environmental information is provided through various media, but it sometimes does not receive enough attention from the public and often fails to lead people to engage in pro-environmental behavior. Therefore, understanding the conditions and processes through which media use of environmental information affects pro-environmental behavior is an important task for both communication researchers and practitioners. Guided by the heuristic-systematic information processing model and the risk information seeking model, this study examined how environmental information delivered through the media affects people’s pro-environmental behaviors, as well as the roles played in this process of information insufficiency and information gathering capacity. Secondary survey data (“2023 National Environmental Awareness Survey”) collected nationwide among 3,054 Korean adults were analyzed, and a path model was fitted. The path model tested direct, mediated, and moderated mediation effects among media use, information insufficiency, information gathering capacity, heuristic-systematic information processing, and pro-environmental behavior. The results are as follows; First, environment-specific media use had direct positive effects, while information insufficiency had negative effects, on pro-environmental behaviors. Second, information insufficiency had negative effects only on systematic processing. Third, systematic processing had positive effects, while heuristic processing had negative effects, on pro-environmental behaviors. Fourth, an individual's information gathering capacity had positive effects on both systematic and heuristic information processing. Fifth, media use had positive effects on pro-environmental behaviors mediated by information insufficiency and systematic and heuristic information processing, respectively, but the serial mediation effect was not significant. Finally, the moderating and moderated mediating effects of information gathering capacity were not statistically significant. This study provides practical implications for future environmental campaigns and policymaking through its examination of the roles of information insufficiency, information processing, and information gathering capacity in the process of environment-specific media effects on pro-environmental behaviors. In particular, our results emphasize that it is important for environment-related organizations and governments to provide environmental information through various media channels, but it is even more critical to understand how sufficiently people perceive environmental information, how capable they are of collecting, discriminating, and interpreting such information, and under what circumstances they are processed systematically. In addition, people's ability to efficiently collect and process accurate information from various sources on various risk issues may affect eco-friendly behavior by processing environmental information more efficiently and sometimes systematically. Therefore, environmental communication practitioners should develop various strategies to prormote pro-environmental behavior while enhancing the public‘s ability to pay attention to environmental issues and to identify and collect high-quality information in a complex media environment.