This comparative study examines trends in the representation of the environment in Malaysian and New Zealand newspapers over an eight year period. By comparing the two media contexts, it explored the role of journalism’s occupational norms, of the relationship between journalists and sources and of media ownership in determining the quality of news coverage of the environment. The sample was made up of eight mainstream newspapers which were selected based on biggest circulation figures, sampled in 1996, 2000 and 2004. The four Malaysian newspapers, all nationally distributed, were the English-language papers The New Straits Times and The Star, and the Malay-language papers Berita Harian and Utusan Malaysia. The four New Zealand newspapers, all regionally distributed, were The Press, The Dominion Post, The New Zealand Herald and The Otago Daily Times. The study employed content analysis as the prime method to observe trends in environmental news; while in-depth interviews with 40 respondents were used to verify from subjects’ experiences the various forces that might cause the trends. Major content analysis findings were that environmental news is underrepresented in both countries and that the news patterns in the two countries are quite similar. The study raised questions about the quality of the news, with much of the coverage being conflict-framed, one-source event stories, with high dependency on government officials. These problems were less acute in New Zealand. Trends were largely stable across the three years. The most significant change in Malaysian coverage was an increase in the use of the public and scientists as sources over time. Interviews revealed some differences between New Zealand and Malaysia in journalists’ awareness of organizational determinants of news, editorial policies towards the environment, sources criticisms of journalists’ laziness, but also many common problems, including journalists’ lack of knowledge about environmental issues and science. In Malaysia, government control of the news and editors’ self-censorship of sensitive news was identified as a problem. The study concludes that newspapers in both countries do not operate as information providers or educators, but most of the time are reactive towards environmental issues.

Studien tittar på miljönyhetssidorna Supermiljöbloggen och Aktuell Hållbarhet, samt den slutna gruppen Omställning Sverige, på Facebook. Vi har utfört en innehållsanalys på de 40 mest gillade inläggen under tidsperioden 1 april 2015 – 31 mars 2016 på respektive sida. Vi valde att kategorisera inläggen utifrån vilken aktör som ansvarar för lösningen/problemet. Är det staten, vetenskapen, individen eller marknaden? Vi har även placerat inläggen och sidorna i ett spektrum mellan följande idéströmmningar; ekologisk modernisering och sufficiency. Vi har funnit att de inlägg som lockar till sig flest gilla-markeringar, i både Supermiljöbloggen och Aktuell Hållbarhet, överensstämmer med en svagare ekologisk modernisering. Detta korrelerar även med att de dominerande aktörerna på dessa sidor är Staten och Marknaden. Omställning Sverige- gruppens inlägg uppvisar mestadels en diskurs som följer mikro-sufficency vilket också korrelerar med Individen som största aktör. Att ekologisk modernisering lockar till många gilla- markeringar tror vi beror på ett mer slagkraftigt språkbruk än sufficiency. / Social media is today established as a natural part of peoples information-gathering. Different framings of the environment in media triggers actors to act in different ways. We studied therefore the newspages Supermiljöbloggen and Aktuell Hållbarhet on Facebook. We also included the closed group Omställning Sverige in the study. We conducted a content analysis of the 40 most liked post from each page or group, during the time span 1 April 2015 - 31 March 2016. The posts were categorised from which actor that was responsible for the solution/problem. Is it the State, the Scientific sector, the Individual or the Market? We have also placed the posts and the pages/group in the spectra of the though paradigms: Ecological Modernisation and Sufficiency. We have found that the posts that attracts the most likes in both Supermiljöbloggen and Aktuell Hållbarhet, is in accordance to the weaker ecological modernisation. This also correlates with the dominating actors on these pages, which are the State and the Market. The posts in the group Omställning Sverige proves to have a discourse that is according to mikro-sufficiency which correlates with the Individual as the greatest actor. The reason why ecological modernisation attracts alot of likes is, according to us, partly because of the hard-hitting use of language compared to Sufficiency.