Media and environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) roles in environmental sustainability communication in Malaysia

1. Mediaandenvironmentalnon-
governmentalorganizations
(ENGOs)rolesin environmental
sustainabilitycommunicationin
Malaysia
Abstract 6
Kaitlyn Rieper
JOU 5350

2. Introduction
 Malaysia at particular risk for environmental crises, especially
water pollution
 Environmental communication relatively new to Malaysia
 Environmental communication mostly through ENGOs instead of
environmental journalists
 Gap in literature on roles of environmental communication in
Malaysia

3. Research
questions
 What kind of roles do the Malaysian media and ENGOs play in
environmental communication?
 Do the Malaysian media and ENGOs which have different
organizational backgrounds (media for profit and ENGOs as non-
profit) have different or similar roles in environmental
sustainability communication?

4. Methods
 In-depth interviews
 24 people – 13 journalists and 11 ENGO staff
 Journalists from two major Malaysian newspapers
 ENGO staff from two ENGOs with the largest impact in Malaysia
(WWF and MNS)
 Selective sampling of people with environmental communication
experience
 Snowball sampling to identify other interviewees through
colleagues

5. Results
 Seventeen of the interviewees were female
 Fourteen of the 24 only had one to five years of experience
 Analysis identified four key themes
1. Reporting environmental matters to the public (only for the
media)
2. Conducting research
3. Informing
4. Educating about the environment (for both media and ENGOs)
 Most saw their job as part of environmental education
 Journalists’ main goal was accuracy and truth
 ENGO staff’s main goal was research and conservation

6. Discussion &
critique
 Each group saw their roles as relatively the same despite different
overall goals
 The ENGOs have carved out more of a niche in Malaysia for
environmental communication than the media has
 Researchers suggested that universities place more of an
emphasis on environmental communication for journalism
students
 This study offered good insight into how environmental
communicators view their roles, but the methods did not seem to
answer the research questions as well as they could have
 Potentially a better content analysis and comparison study of
existing environmental communication from media and ENGOs