Return to search

Communicating climate change: a study of the roles of the media and the public perceptions in Thailand

Human society is faced with a changing climate, which will affect the economies of every region of the world, including Thailand. One of Thailand's strategies on climate change is to call upon the public to take actions towards climate change with the media between government and the public to provide a key link by communicating climate change issues to the nation. Therefore, this research analyses the role and contribution of the media, in particular the national broadsheets and television stations. This research has developed a theoretical framework to investigate why and how the media communicates climate change news to the Thai public and how the public responds to climate change issues. This research employed two main methods: interviews and a questionnaire survey. Thirty interviews with journalists from four Thai newspapers and six television channels were conducted to examine the process of producing climate change through the newsroom. In order to study the public reception of climate change news from the media, a questionnaire survey was carried out amongst the Thai public. The findings of this research suggest that there are various reasons why journalists report climate change news to the public, including public demand, the media organisations' new policy and journalists' personal interests. However, the final decision on whether to report climate change news is shaped and framed by the editors who play a main gatekeeper role in the news production process to assure newsworthiness as the dominant criterion in news selection. The focus of Thai climate change news content shifts from coverage of the scientific aspects of climate change that had characterised news content for many years to coverage concentrating on other issues, such as politics, poverty, economics and social science.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:616922
Date January 2014
CreatorsSuttirat, Supoj
PublisherUniversity of Surrey
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

Page generated in 0.002 seconds