Media Portrayal on Global Climate Change: an Analysis of Malaysian Mainstream Newspapers

Abstract

The global climate change can affect human life and activities through the increasing amount of natural disasters, global warming and the melting of the icebergs. This study was conducted to analyze the Malaysian media's coverage of global climate change in four Malaysian mainstream newspapers. The data for this study were collected for two years, beginning January 2008 to December 2010. A content analysis was conducted to identify the frequency of the articles related with global climate change and the trend of newspaper coverage and the frames of the articles. The findings for this study will provide an understanding about the ways Malaysian mainstream newspapers provide the coverage about global climate change and the public's reactions. The findings also revealed that the coverage was influenced by other global events when the trend of newspaper coverage shows a dramatic surge in coverage during important events related to global climate change.

Antarctic values and Malaysia's involvement in Antarctica: perceptions among young citizens of Malaysia

“…Meanwhile, the research findings by the scientists on the polar regions should be widely covered by the local electronic and print media. The media also has the ability to influence public opinion and the ability to change public consciousness, making it a powerful tool that can persuade the public into taking appropriate actions (Azmi and others 2015). Instead of stressing that Malaysians are exploring the polar regions, the Malaysian government needs to emphasise its strong commitment to preserving them and finding solutions to global climate change through its scientific research in the region as a responsible and mature nation.…”

Exploring Denial Strategies against Climate Change across Agents and Media Platforms

“…Additionally, different strategies are employed by agents to convey disinformation across various media platforms (Bontcheva et al, 2020). As people depend on media for information (Azmi et al, 2015;Taylor & Johnston, 2020), exploring the various strategies used by agents to convey climate change disinformation becomes crucial. In Malaysia, a few studies focused on how the media, particularly newspapers, report the issue of climate change in terms of trends and coverage (Azmi et al, 2015).…”

“…As people depend on media for information (Azmi et al, 2015;Taylor & Johnston, 2020), exploring the various strategies used by agents to convey climate change disinformation becomes crucial. In Malaysia, a few studies focused on how the media, particularly newspapers, report the issue of climate change in terms of trends and coverage (Azmi et al, 2015). However, as digital media platforms continue to grow, understanding how agents of climate change disinformation use different media outlets becomes necessary.…”

“…This is because newspapers are recognized as a strong source of data used by researchers to support decision-making for various purposes (Hassan et al, 2020a). Also, online newspaper content has been considered as a practical means through which information about climate change can be accessed as newspapers tend to cover various local and global issues of climate change (Azmi et al, 2015). It was envisaged that the findings of this study could provide relevant authorities, including climate change activists, with useful information to help mitigate disinformation about global climate change.…”

“…As people depend on media to understand information on various phenomena such as environmental issues (Azmi et al, 2015;Taylor & Johnston, 2020), analyzing how various agents convey climate change disinformation using different media outlets is crucial. Also, as pointed out by Cummings and Kong (2019), the ability to quickly identify despicable agents can help to restrain the spread of disinformation.…”