TY - JOUR

T1 - The struggles of Malaysian media and environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) in communicating the environment within semi-democratic nation

AU - Mohamad Saleh, Mohamad Saifudin

AU - Heinrichs, Harald

AU - Nik Hasan, Nik Norma

PY - 2018/1/2

Y1 - 2018/1/2

N2 - Unlike in the Western countries, the media and the environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) in Malaysia are not truly at liberty in communicating the environmental issues to the public. Concerning the importance of free and independent media and ENGOs, this paper sought to investigate the perspectives of Malaysian media and ENGOs on the importance of freedom in environmental communication, and the challenges faced by them. The result of this study will provide a better understanding of the struggles of Malaysian media and ENGOs as environmental communicators in semi-democratic society. It is hoped that it will serve as a guideline that could assist the improvement of the environmental communication field in Malaysia and (Southeast) Asia regions. For the purpose of this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with 13 interviewees from Utusan Malaysia and The Star, and 11 interviewees from World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Malaysia Nature Society (MNS). The result showed that although some interviewees have enjoyed a certain degree of freedom in environmental communication, others especially from the media side were concerned that Malaysian broadcasters have less freedom to retrieve a variety of environmental information, especially the ones linked to the big names and controversial projects.

AB - Unlike in the Western countries, the media and the environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) in Malaysia are not truly at liberty in communicating the environmental issues to the public. Concerning the importance of free and independent media and ENGOs, this paper sought to investigate the perspectives of Malaysian media and ENGOs on the importance of freedom in environmental communication, and the challenges faced by them. The result of this study will provide a better understanding of the struggles of Malaysian media and ENGOs as environmental communicators in semi-democratic society. It is hoped that it will serve as a guideline that could assist the improvement of the environmental communication field in Malaysia and (Southeast) Asia regions. For the purpose of this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with 13 interviewees from Utusan Malaysia and The Star, and 11 interviewees from World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Malaysia Nature Society (MNS). The result showed that although some interviewees have enjoyed a certain degree of freedom in environmental communication, others especially from the media side were concerned that Malaysian broadcasters have less freedom to retrieve a variety of environmental information, especially the ones linked to the big names and controversial projects.

KW - democracy

KW - ENGOs

KW - environmental communication

KW - Malaysia

KW - media

KW - Sustainability Science

KW - Politics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85034635606&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/13216597.2017.1406868

DO - 10.1080/13216597.2017.1406868

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85034635606

VL - 24

SP - 55

EP - 75

JO - Journal of International Communication

JF - Journal of International Communication

SN - 1321-6597

IS - 1

ER -