Download HOW ONLINE INDIAN NEWSPAPERS FRAME ENVIRONMENTAL

HOW ONLINE INDIAN NEWSPAPERS FRAME ENVIRONMENTAL
STORIES
T. Nirmala1 and Dr. I. Arul Aram2
1.
Ph.D. Research Scholar (Science Communication), Department of Chemistry, Anna
University, Chennai-600025 (India)
2.
Associate Professor (Science Communication), Department of Chemistry, Anna University,
Chennai-600025 (India)
Email: [email protected]
ABSTRACT
A healthy environment is essential for the survival of living beings on the Earth. We depend
on climate, weather, and natural resources for survival and economic activity. Nature is being
destroyed by the human beings for their development. Development has resulted in lot of
environmental problems. Pollution is the major environmental issue in urban India due to
overpopulation, vehicular traffic and poverty. We are emitting a high level of pollutants
which come from vehicles, factories, homes, and power plants that burn fossil fuels such as
oil, coal and natural gas. Pollution traps heat in the atmosphere that is causing severe
environmental problems like climate change. The media – newspapers in particular – play an
important role in disseminating environmental issues. The media cover the environmental
stories in diverse perspectives such as those of government, human interest, nature/wildlife,
pollution, business/economic, and science and technology. The journalists play a vital role on
how environmental issues are perceived by the public. This study focused on how online
newspapers covered news stories about environment issues. The objectives of this study are
to find out how dominant online newspapers in Chennai framed environmental issues and to
identify the difference between the English and Tamil online newspapers in covering
environmental stories. Two English (The Hindu and The Times of India) and two Tamil (the
Dina Thanthi and the Dinamani) online newspapers were analyzed for the calendar year 2014
to find the newspaper framing of environmental issues. The articles from the online
newspapers were categorized into local, national, and international. The results suggested that
the communication of climate science through local media might improve the public’s
knowledge level regarding environmental issues in general and climate change in particular.
Keywords: Environment, Online Newspapers, Climate Change, Pollution, Journalists.
Introduction
A healthy environment is essential for the survival of living beings on the Earth. We depend
on climate, weather, and natural resources for survival and economic activity. Nature is being
destroyed by the human beings for development which has resulted in lot of environmental
problems. Urban biophysical environments are now undergoing dramatic changes. The most
visible changes are related to the physical expansion of urban areas (Leichenko & O’Brien,
2008). Urban expansion typically entails conversion of agricultural lands and natural habitat
areas of residential and industrial uses. Pollution is the major environmental issue in urban
India due to overpopulation, vehicular traffic and poverty. We are emitting a high level of
pollutants which come from vehicles, factories, homes, and power plants that burn fossil fuels
such as oil, coal and natural gas. Pollution traps heat in the atmosphere that is causing severe
environmental problems like climate change. Climate change is a change in weather patterns
over many decades around the world. The average temperature of the Earth has been
increasing drastically after the industrial revolution in 1751 resulting in many environmental
changes. This resulted in higher temperatures and altered precipitation patterns which led to
changes in water availability, a significant concern for cities (Hardoy et al., 2001). In addition
to these changes, sea level rise is a major threat particularly for low-lying coastal cities. Sea
level rise may also increase the impacts of storm surges associated with extreme weather
events. Storm surges are responsible for a significant amount of damage in coastal cities.
Media representations are an important factor in public understanding and engagement with
climate science, and thus deserve critical consideration (Boykoff, 2008). The media has a
responsibility to inform and to educate, to tell us not only what is happening today but also
why it is happening and what it will mean to us today and tomorrow (Hiebert, 2006).
According to Al Gore (2006), the media must do more than presenting sensationalized
information about the environment. They must present detailed information in an accurate
manner to equip the public with the knowledge they need to guide their understanding and
actions toward the natural environment. Journalists play an equally important role in how
environmental issues are perceived by the general public (Kostarella et al., 2013). The
internet along with other forms of digital communication is believed to have compressed the
world into McLuhan’s global village. The new communication technologies have created a
global stage for events, bringing the world into our intimate personal space (Nambiar, 2014).
This paper explains how the online newspapers have covered environment issues and
identifies the difference among the newspapers based on region and language. To do this, we
examine the quantity and quality of environmental coverage in the online newspapers – The
Hindu, The Times of India, the Dina Thanthi and the Dinamani – for the calendar year 2014.
Role of newspapers in environmental coverage
The role of mass media in shaping public understanding of environmental issues has been
well documented in recent years (Burgess, 1990). The media are instrumental in shaping
public understanding of environmental issues in India (Chapman et al., 1997). The media –
newspapers in particular – play an important role in disseminating environmental issues.
They cover the environmental stories in different perspectives. Environmental issues such as
climate change, pollution, and soil degradation are often covered in the newspapers. It is the
media that decide what is important for the public and prioritize the issues that are to be
addressed. For the news selection, authors use specific criteria such as human interest,
general importance, conflict, temporality, and geographical or cultural proximity (Shoemaker
& Reese, 1996).
The growth of the internet and dependence on digital information has changed the way and
means of disseminating news in the field of journalism. Online newspapers are providing
news frequently with up-to-date information. They have advantages over traditional news
media. We can access a numerous newspapers and their archives paperless. The Android
news applications make it easy to access news in our smart phones and tablets. Online
newspapers are not same as those of print versions; they offer interactive features of
information that could not fit in print versions.
Environmental issues fall into the category of soft news. Environmental news items are often
seen by the newspapers as useful filler items in the absence of something more urgent, timely
or pertinent to report (Adam, 2000). The way in which the media frame global warming can
have an important effect on public understanding of environmental changes and by
consequence on the actions that people are willing to take.
Review of Literature
Antilla (2005) did a quantitative review of one year of the US newspaper coverage of climate
science with a qualitative, comparative analysis of media-created themes and frames using a
social constructivist approach. In addition to an examination of newspaper articles, this paper
includes a reflexive comparison with attendant wire stories and scientific texts. Special
attention is given to articles constructed with and framed by rhetoric emphasizing
uncertainty, controversy, and climate scepticism.
A study by Boykoff and Boykoff (2007) explained how journalistic norms have shaped mass
media coverage of human contributions to climate change. It examined barriers in climate
science communication via the media by analyzing the quantity and quality of anthropogenic
climate change coverage in the US mass media – daily print and television – from 1988 to
2004. This study found that news media play a key role in shaping the climate change
information.
A study by Pompper (2004) surveyed 15 years of environmental risks stories in three national
newspapers. The study found that the mainstream newspapers used frames that relied heavily
on government and industrial sources which stressed on preservation of natural resources,
protection of worker safety, and ensured that enough research had been performed. The
voices of the common people who live with environmental risk everyday are suppressed. A
study by Kosteralla et al. (2013) found that there was reduced reliability in the Greek media
as far as the quality of environmental information is concerned.
Francis (2014) did a content analysis of four newspapers in Kerala – the Malayala
Manorama, the Mathrubhoomi, The Hindu and The New Indian Express. He found that The
Hindu newspaper had sufficient space allotment for environment stories compared to other
newspapers in Kerala. He also found that the crime stories dominate in all the sampled
newspapers and agriculture stories are covered least.
Theoretical framework
Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw (1976) formulated the Agenda Setting Theory which
argued that audiences learn about public issues and other matters through the media. They
also learn how much importance to attach to an issue or topic from the emphasis the mass
media places on it. The media (mainly the news media) are not always successful at telling us
what to think, but they are quite successful at telling us what to think about.
A key function of mass media coverage of environmental issues has been to ‘frame’ them for
policy actors and the public. Generally, framing is employed to contextualize and organize
the dynamic swirl of issues, events and occurrences. It can be defined as the ways in which
elements of discourse are assembled that then privilege certain interpretations and
understandings over others (Goffman, 1974).
According to Robert Entman (1993), journalists may follow the rules for objective reporting
and yet convey a dominant framing of the news that prevents most audience members from
making a balanced assessment of a situation. In recent years, framing theory has taken over
from Agenda-Setting and Cultivation Theory as the most commonly applied research
approach in the field of communications science (Bryant & Miron, 2004). The Agenda
Setting Theory establishes what we, as readers, should think about. But framing as second
level of agenda setting advocates, not only establishes what should the readers think about,
but also influence how he/she should think about it (Kuypers, 2009). Jenny Kitzinger (2007)
mentioned that framing can be used to examine the production of media coverage: how
journalists and their sources operate and how this can affect the way a story is told. How an
issue is characterized in news reports can have an influence on how it is understood by
audiences (Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007).
Methodology
This paper analyzed the environmental stories based on quantitative and qualitative content
analysis. Two English (The Hindu and The Times of India) and two Tamil (the Dina Thanthi
and the Dinamani) newspapers were analyzed for the calendar year 2014 to find the
newspaper framing of environmental issues. According to the Indian Readership Survey
(2014), The Times of India is the most read English newspaper in India. The Hindu is the
third most read English newspaper in India and widely read in Tamil Nadu. Among the Tamil
newspapers the Daily Thanthi and the Dinamani are widely read Tamil dailies. The articles
reported within the state of Tamil Nadu were considered as local environmental problems.
The environmental stories within the country were considered national problems. The stories
that were concerned with a foreign country were regarded as foreign problems. The articles
that reported on climate change and global warming were considered as global environmental
problems. The content analysis revealed
•
How dominant newspapers in Chennai framed environmental issues?
•
What types of environmental issues are reported?
•
What are the differences in the coverage of environmental issues between English and
Tamil newspapers?
Results and Discussion
Coverage of environmental issues in newspapers
The environmental issues in four of the most influential newspapers published in Chennai for
the calendar year 2014 were analyzed. The samples were taken from the online archives of
the newspapers. A total of 917 newspaper articles were retrieved, of which 434 were from
The Times of India, 349 from The Hindu, 56 from the Daily Thanthi and 78 from the
Dinamani. The Times of India has reported more news on environmental issues.
The articles searched were at least one of these environmental terms ‘Climate Change’,
‘Global Warming’, “Pollution’ and their equivalents that appeared in the headline or
somewhere in the first three paragraphs in English newspapers. In Tamil newspapers the
terms looked for were ‘Sutrusuzhal’ (Environment), ‘Paruvanilaimatram’ (Climate change),
and ‘Ulagaveppamayam’ (Global warming).
The contents from the four sampled newspapers were analyzed only from articles appeared in
state, national, international, science and technology, and environment pages. Among the
articles published in the online newspaper, pollution was the most frequently mentioned
environmental issue in both English and Tamil newspapers. The newspapers had covered
more articles on air pollution followed by water pollution. The initiative taken by the
government to clean the river Ganga was published in all the four newspapers. This shows
that news about politics and government are given priority in online newspapers. Climate
change was covered more in English newspapers. It was also observed that there were more
news articles on climate change in the month of October, November and December. This
might be attributed to the climate change conference happened at Lima, Peru in December.
The news articles on global warming were covered least in both Tamil and English language
newspapers. The Sci-Tech page in The Hindu newspaper covered environmental issues
regularly. Scientific research information was covered in detail in English newspapers
particularly in The Hindu.
Act now on climate change, says new IPCC report (The Hindu)
SCI-TECH » ENVIRONMENT NEW DELHI, November 3, 2014
“India has to internalize climate considerations into development planning,” Chairperson of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) R.K. Pachauri on Sunday said the window of action on
tackling climate change was closing rapidly and warned that the path of inaction would be more costly than the
path of action. Speaking at the launch of the IPCC’s Synthesis Report in Copenhagen, he said the scientific
community had done its job and was in a sense passing on the baton to politicians and decision-makers. The
Synthesis Report points to the human influence on climate but also points out that there were means to limit
climate change and build a sustainable future. He said the global community must look at the numbers in this
report and bring about change. “There is no Plan B because there is no planet B,” he said to questions. “The
report tells us that we need to tackle climate change with a combination of adaptation and mitigation,” he added.
Navroz K. Dubash, one of its lead authors, said for India, keeping the pressure on for global mitigation was also
key.”
Scientific research and Technology frames were reported least in Tamil newspapers because
it requires some basic knowledge about the environmental science among journalists.There
were more stories on climate related decisions and policy making in The Times of India. The
Hindu covered more informative stories on climate change and its impact on coastal
ecosystem, biodiversity etc. The results found that English newspapers allocate more space
compared to the Tamil newspapers. This indicates that English newspapers give more priority
to environmental stories than Tamil newspapers. The local news stories found to be less in
numbers in all newspapers. However , there were local news stories on plastic waste, garbage
crisis etc. ‘The environment day’ and awareness programmes conducted in various schools
and colleges were covered more in the month of June in Tamil newspapers. When compared
to the Dina Thathi, the Dinamani published more articles on environment probably since it
catered to mostly educated readers.
Limitations
We limited the study to the online newspaper media because it provided an easy way to
search for and get articles published within the period. The analysis was limited to some of
the highest circulated newspapers in Tamil Nadu. There was limited availability of articles
from the online archives. Also, the retrospective nature of the data collection too is a limiting
factor.
Conclusion
The online newspaper coverage of environmental issue was found to be low in comparison to
crime and politics. Articles that reported on environmental issue focused more on pollution
which are associated with health issue. More news articles appeared in environment section
than main pages. The front page news on environment issue was limited. Climate change is
affecting the ecosystem, but articles on climate change and global warming were reported
least in Tamil newspapers. The results suggested that the communication of climate science
through local media might improve the public’s knowledge level regarding environmental
issues in general and climate change in particular.
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