Paper accepted for presentation at International Conference Future Imperatives of Communication and Information for Development and Social

Change Bangkok, December 20-22, 2010. http://www.jcconference.co.cc/.It This conference is jointly coordinated by the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication at Thammasat University; the Department of Communication at the University of Nagasaki; and the Center Communication for Sustainable Social Change (CSSC) at UMass Amherst. The conference forms part of a series of preparatory and inter-connected conferences, coordinated by ORBICOM-UNESCO Chairs in Communication, across the regions of the world to focus the attention of the most experienced and innovative information and communication scholars, practitioners and policy-makers on the new challenges towards world development and sustainability.

From Development Communication to Development Journalism: Agenda Setting on Environmental Issues in Bangladesh News Media

Working Draft

S. M Shameem Reza Assistant Professor, Department of Mass Communication and Journalism University of Dhaka

Ashfara Haque Lecturer, Department of Communication and Media Studies University of Development Alternative (UODA)

Abstract
Bangladesh news media report environmental changes both from global and regional perspectives. Generally, news media report on the consequences of natural disasters which affected different parts of the Bengal Delta, particularly the coastal regions of Bangladesh. Recent investigations and reports in newspapers have been influenced by the global debates on climate change, ecological and environmental issues. It is however, a matter of further examinations whether reports in Bangladesh print media are representations of global political and scientific inquiry of issues, such as global warming or the catastrophes which are specific to the region.

A large number of newspaper reporting are characterized by the tendency of linking the local and regional environmental issues, such as cyclone SIDR or AILA with those of global issues and as a consequences of climate change. There are stories, which are not substantiated by any scientific authority or arguments, while the rest capitalize on the popular public discourses that local or regional natural disasters are somehow linked with global climate change, for which the developed countries are to be blamed. At the same time, there are examples of attempts by several mainstream newspapers to conduct advocacy campaign for saving environment from unethical and illegal activities of benefit seekers and power elites.

Overall, this paper investigates the role of Bangladesh news media in representing global ecological and environmental changes. Specifically, it first looks into news medias role in setting environmental agendas. It then moves to analyze the issues responsible for shaping the agendas of reporting on climate change in general and local environmental issues in particular. Finally, the paper identifies key actors in the government, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), International nongovernmental organizations, bi-lateral organizations, development partners and civil societies and experts who in different capacities will influence the future media coverage as well as public discourses of environmental journalism in Bangladesh.

Key words:

Environmental Reporting, Bangladesh News Media, Environmental Agenda

Setting, Advocacy Campaign

1. Introduction Consequences of catastrophes and post disaster activities are always on top of agenda in Bangladesh newspapers. In the case of climate change, news media have been key contributors in representing and disseminating major debates and concerns of regional and global importance. Press in Bangladesh has shaped perceptions of various issues of environment, which has affected public knowledge of the issues and policy decisions of the government. One of the most crucial roles played by the newspapers is agenda setting, which has been done either through adopting advocacy approaches or taking up international issues of environmental or climate change. A number of leading national English and Bengali dailies ran campaigns to save some major rivers from made actions and have been successful to impact government policy decisions to take actions. Bangladeshi newspapers published different items about COP 15 and in order to influence government to determine national and regional issues for negotiating at the Copenhagen Summit. At the same time, it has been an issue of investigation whether the press is successful enough in setting agenda on other major environmental issues, which are shaped by the multiple stakeholders, including government, NGOs and international institutions. Historically, reporting environment was considered as a part of development journalism. Like many other developing countries, Bangladesh too looked at the role of traditional news media radio, television and newspaper from developmentalist perspective. Development sector was dominated by the government agencies until the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) came into action as visible development partners in the 1980s. Newspapers were always privately

operated, except a couple of them, which were financed and managed by the government (now defunct) set development agenda from a nationalist point of view. Environment, like other development issues were discussed in a regional context, but unaffecting the business and political interests. With the adoption of growing neoliberal economic policies as NGOs became key development agencies since the 1990s the issues of environment took new turn with newer agenda. The fall of the last autocratic ruler in 1990 news media in Bangladesh led to an unprecedented growth in the media sector. Over the last two decades, under the democratic governance (except a few interruptions) newspaper agendas on environment have been shaped and influenced by the priorities set by NGOs and civil society, issues endorsed by the government and agendas proposed and debated by the international agencies. Environmental agendas in Bangladesh media are now informed and shaped within the discourses of development journalism rather than the old school of development support communication. It is however, a matter of further examinations whether news reports in Bangladesh newspapers are representations of global political and scientific agendas, such as global warming or the speculations, scientific inquiries and development debates which are specific to the country. Generally, newspaper reporting are characterized by the tendency of linking the local and regional environmental issues, such as cyclone SIDR or AILA with those of global issues and as a consequences of climate change. There are stories, which are not substantiated by any scientific authority or arguments, while the rest capitalize on the popular public discourses that local or regional natural disasters are somehow liked with global climate change, for which the developed countries are to be blamed. Since the global discussions about Copenhagen Summit unfolded Bangladesh press seemed more interested in the discussions on climate change compensation funds rather than the issues raised by the environmental skeptics for example.

Newspapers reported more on how Bangladesh would take control of using climate compensation funds than setting agendas on carbon taxing or carbon trading which might or might not affect the country. At the same time, there are examples of attempts by several mainstream newspapers to conduct advocacy campaign for saving local environment from unethical and illegal activities of benefit seekers and power elites. This paper investigates the role of news media in representing environmental changes. Specifically, it looks into the role of Bangladesh newspapers in environmental agenda setting. It also analyzes the issues responsible for shaping the agendas of reporting on climate change in general and local environmental issues in particular. Based on the findings the paper identifies key actors in the government, NGOs, International nongovernmental organizations, bi-lateral organizations, development partners and civil societies and experts who in different capacities influence the environmental agendas in news media as well as public discourses of environmental journalism in Bangladesh. 2. Background of the Study Geographical location of the land has made Bangladesh most vulnerable to climate change. Water is one of the important biophysical resources of Bangladesh and it is now highly sensitive because of climate change. In addition, high population and poverty has placed it among the high risk countries. If the sea level water rise by one meter, 18% of the countrys total land will submerge and it is a direct threat to the lives of 11% of the population (Munir and Khan, 2008:2). In recent years Bangladesh faced considerable environmental changes. Almost every year it experiences floods. Besides global climate change, which is believed to have caused the cyclone

AILA that hit the costal areas of the country, there are other concerns, such as groundwater contamination. Newspapers have given extensive coverage of environmental incidences and catastrophes which happened in the region as well as other parts of the globe, like Tsunami, Haiti earthquake and cyclones SIDR and AILA. Reports of the situations and consequences of floods, heavy rainfall and landslide for example are always dominant in the Bangladesh newspapers in terms of number and treatment and space given. Copenhagen Climate Summit received wide media coverage and newspapers were able to create a public space for discussion. As mentioned earlier, Bangladesh is prone to severe natural disasters, such as cyclones, storm surges, and floods. The death toll from Cyclone AILA rose up to hundreds, left around thousands wounded and at least 58,450 domestic animals were killed (The Daily Star May 27, 2009). The report quoting the ministry concerned informs that at least 30 lakh people in 352 unions and 62 upazilas (sub-districts) in 14 districts were affected by the cyclone. Today thousands of people in the AILA affected areas are displaced and vast areas of lands, on which they were dependent for their livelihoods, are inundated. Consequences of AILA and vulnerability of the people whose lives and living have been devastated by the cyclone have become one of the top agendas in the news media. 3. Objectives Overall objectives of the study was to assess the role of Bangladesh news media in representing and interpreting environmental issues, which was also to look into the agenda setting functions of the newspapers on environmental issues. Specifically, the study evaluated the role of Bangladesh newspapers in bringing forward local and global environmental issues, i.e. it looked into the process and manner that were pivotal in agenda setting in selected national dailies.

The study also observed the pattern of media coverage on issues of environmental changes. Final objective of the analysis of the qualitative nature of news reports and the agendas was to find out how the key actors influenced the coverage and agenda setting functions of the newspapers. 4. Methodology Content analysis was used as the basic research method of the study, which was again substantiated by a number of expert interviews. We applied content analysis to analyze the newspaper items; and interview to understand how key actors influenced the media coverage of environmental changes. Two national dailies Dainik Prothom Alo (Bangla) and The Daily Star (English) were taken for the analysis. Selection of these two newspapers was based primarily on their circulation. In terms of influence on the government policy and civic engagement as well as coverage of environmental issues, these two dailies are considered top newspapers in the country. Contents of the issues (for both the dailies) from December 2009 were analyzed. As the Copenhagen Climate Conference took place during second and third week of December 2009 most of the Bangladesh newspaper, including Dainik Prothom Alo and The Daily Star published highest number of news items, features, independent articles and editorials around that period. 4.1 Media and Environmental Agenda News media is the principle source for people to derive information about the environmental issues and also to receive interpretations on scientific aspects. Studies suggest that the public learns about science through consuming mass media news (Wilson, 1995). In Bangladesh where access to the internet is still low among the majority of the population, most people rely on news

media, i.e. newspapers and television for the local and global discussions, national and regional policy decisions and scientific and popular arguments of global climate change and local environmental changes and their impact on the livelihoods. News media in the developing world is at the forefront of disseminating the news of the impact of climate and environmental change on the local economy. Bangladesh newspapers gave extensive coverage of the Copenhagen Summit, news relating to local ecological and environmental changes. During and after the summit, newspapers advocated the issues of

compensation through different modes of coverage. Bangladesh press created and provided space to the social and community advocates to discuss environmental issues and lobbying with the government to raise certain issues effectively in the summit. According to Anders Hansen (1995), The way in which we make sense of the environmental threats which face human-kind is greatly conditioned by a powerful and omnipresent set of electronic and printed messages - the mass media. For many people, knowledge of environmental issues is based upon what they have learned through print and electronic media, which help construct conceptions of political, social and ecological reality. This statement is particularly relevant to the understanding of the construction of the perception of environmental and climate change as well as the relationship between the newspapers and its readers and policy makers of the state. Reporting and writing on environmental issues has taken a shift from development communication to development journalism. Over decades, newspapers reported local environmental issues from a development perspective, which was more to aide national development process than to advocate on particular agenda. Since the 1990s educating the people about the environmental changes and making them aware of their rights has been a practice of

development journalism. New trends of development journalism is serving as the civic media tools for people to enable them to ask for justice on climate change issues, such on the issue of rehabilitation and compensation for the AILA affected people in Bangladesh. UNDP Human Development Report (2007) in its background paper on Risks, Vulnerability and Adaptation in Bangladesh states Press played an educative role by raising awareness of environment change issue and providing basic information to help the people. And this information gives the people power to act and move forward as among the many developing countries, Bangladesh has a long experience in disaster management and is in a continuous process to improve on its capacity to mitigate the impact of disaster as cyclones, floods etc. Bearing in the mind that media are the main source of information for the public, the main idea behind agenda setting is that the issues that media deem salient will influenced what the public in turn deems salient. This transfer of salience from the media agenda to the public agenda is what is known in communication theory as agenda setting (Ghanem et al., 2009). Agenda setting describes how powerful the media can influence and tell the people what issues are important. In the discussion of agenda setting by the newspapers on environment issues, Gunters (2000) interpretation is quite relevant, which states that an agenda comprises a collection of issues or events that, at any one point in time, are ranked in a hierarchy of importance. In this paper, agenda setting is realized as the Bangladesh newspapers communicate the importance of the environmental and climate change with the different segments of publics and key stakeholders.

5. Results and discussion The finding shows that the English newspaper The Daily Star covers more items, which includes news reports, editorial, articles and opinions than the Bengali newspaper Dainik Prothom Alo. The graph below (Table 1) shows the comparison of items published in both the dailies. Since Copenhagen Conference took place in December 2009 considerable portions of the total items covered by the two dailies are on the issues of global climate change and its impact, international funds for the environmentally vulnerable countries, adaptation and mitigation etc.

Table 1: Number of items published related to environmental changes published in The Daily Star and Dainik Prothom Alo (December 2009)

All the items published in the Dainik Prothom Alo and The Daily Star relating to climate and environmental changes fall into five major categories, namely combating environmental changes, conferences and seminars on environmental issues, impacts of environmental changes, compensations and international funding and miscellaneous issues. Combating environmental change Items in this category encompass issues, such as cutting down carbon emissions, minimizing the effects of changes by making people aware and measures to combat climate change. Other stories in this agenda are issues related to migration of displaced people, climate change refugees and strategies to cope with the environmental changes. Considerable number of news stories is on the discussions between the developed and developing countries as to how best to deal with the environmental changes. Other major coverage is given to the issue of adaptation of the victims to environmental change. Stories under this agenda primarily attempt to provide audiences with the latest information of the environmental changes with a view to making people aware, which, in turn, would empower them to pressurize the government for taking immediate and long-term measures. The dailies also report the debates and discussion which are calling for ensuring financial flows and technological transfer from developed counties to developing countries who are suffering the most to combat the environmental changes. Besides compensation or fund related discussion, a report Bangladesh needs urgent help (The Daily Star, December 12, 2009) writes about deforestation, coastal erosion and flooding linked with global warming. On the issue of

technological advancement and safe environment a report Automobile Green cars to get Copenhagen boost (The Daily Star, Business Page, December 4, 2009) comments that reducing environmentally-damaging greenhouse gases and key to achieving the goal of the conference. Conference and seminars on environmental change This agenda covers events of national and international conferences, meetings, discussions and seminars on environmental change related issues. Under this category, most of the stories published in both the dailies were on COP 15, which took place Copenhagen in December 2009. Impacts of environmental change The effects of climate change, like sea level rise, decreasing underground water level and global temperature rise on the life and property are major issues of this agenda. Compensation and international funding This agenda includes stories in relation to economic assistance provided for mitigation and adaptation. The mostly covered issues are monetary requirement for the developing countries to combat ecological and environmental changes, assistance and compensation to be provided by the developed countries and international communities to the climate victims in the developing countries. One of the most reported issues in this concern is the commitment of the developed countries to generate 10 billion dollars over a three-year period, which will also rise to 100 billion by 2020. Newspapers highlighted the debates between the developed and LDCs over the issue of channelizing and procedures of spending the money. Newspapers also report the

compensation debate whether countries having a bigger population should receive same funding as for a country with smaller population. Miscellaneous and local issues These are the issues related to regional biodiversity and environmental changes, which usually do not come under the above four categories. In biodiversity, stories linked with the threat to different species of plants and animals, migration of different species in search of food and security, and extinction of various species are reported. Other aspects covered as local issues are the role of media, creating mass awareness, climate change and human rights, climate change and health for example. 5.1 Agenda set by The Daily Star The Daily star published 58 news reports, 5 opinions, 4 letters to the editor and 17 editorials on climate and environmental change. Of the total 84 items, 5 are on the issues of combating environmental change, 18 on conferences and seminars, 24 on the impacts of environmental change, 11 on compensation and international funding and 17 stories mainly on the local environmental aspects (Table 2).

Table 2: Environmental agendas in The Daily Star (December 2009)

5.2 Agenda set by Dainik Prothom Alo In December 2009, the Dainik Prothom Alo published 48 news reports, 3 features, 5 editorials and 5 letters related to climate, ecological and environmental changes. Of the total 61 items, 4 covers issues of combating environmental change, 13 on conference and seminars, 12 on the impacts of environmental change and 9 about international assistance and funding. In addition, 12 items cover local and miscellaneous environmental issues (Table 3).

Table 3: Environmental agendas in the Dainik Prothom Alo (December 2009)

5.3 Covering local and global issues The issues and events covered under the five agendas can be further divided into international and local issues. The Daily Star, for example publishes news on regional environmental changes, which are believed to have been related to global climate changes. Coverage of international environmental issues in The Daily Star shows that 62 stories (70% of the total environmental

news published) are international issues or have global implications. With regard to the coverage of local issues, a total of 27 items (30%) appear during December 2009 (Table 4).

Table 4: International and local environmental change related coverage The Daily Star (December 2009)

Due to the Copenhagen Climate Summit, which took place in December 2009 international and global environmental and climate change related news get more coverage in The Daily Star than the local environmental issues. It was found that Copenhagen Conference related news was well covered beside the local environment related issues published in this daily. Bengali daily Dainik Prothom Alo too gives more coverage to international issues than the local environmental

aspects. It published 67 international items (70%) and 27 (30%) local issues and events. The daily also has a couple of items based on bi-lateral environmental issues (Table 5).

Table 5: Coverage of international, local and bi-lateral environmental issues Dainik Prothom Alo (December 2009)

5.4 Key actors to influence agenda Key actors who in different capacities influence the media coverage have been identified through interviews and as source of information in news reports, features and opinion columns. They are representatives of the government and NGOs, scientists, policymakers, economists, international organization, bi-lateral development partners and civil society organizations. In the context of Bangladesh, editorials in The Daily Star identified UNFAO, UNDP and IUCN as the key role

players in the environmental discussions. They have influenced the media to help initiate discussions and eventually set the agenda compensation and international funding for the Bangladesh as a climate victim country. An editorial in the Dainik Prothom Alo called for setting up a ministry on environment. This daily mentioned a few internationally known Bangladeshi environment experts and organizations, like UNFCC and World Bank which seem to have influenced its agenda. News reports also suggest that agendas set by the international organizations, like UN have worked as reference for setting at national level. 6. Conclusion December 2009 was a significant time to observe environmental and climate change agendas brought in forefront by the news media in general and newspapers in particular. Newspapers provided special attention to global climate change issues, impacts and debates, which were particularly relevant to Bangladesh. It is clearly evident that they set specific agendas on combating changes, conferences and seminars, impact of changes, issues of compensation and local and regional environmental issues. Both Bengali and English dailies attempted to link the regional environmental issues with the global climate change. In addition, news reports and commentaries helped readers identify key stakeholders who in various capacities and at different stages influence the setting process. It was implied that print media in Bangladesh is powerful enough to interpret environmental issues and influence policies, which among other issues set national agenda to raise voices and lobby for international climate change funds for Bangladesh. This proactive nature of Bangladesh newspapers on environmental issues is indicative of the shifting role of news media from developmentalist approach to advocacy-oriented advocacy journalism.

Reference 1. Aila toll leaps to 121, Economic loss understood to be huge; thousands still marooned, The Daily Star, May 27, 2009. 2. Automobile Green Cars, The Daily Star, December 4, 2009. 3. Bangladesh Needs Urgent Help, The Daily Star, December 12, 2009. 4. Hansen, A. (Ed). (1993) The Mass Media and Environmental Issues. Leicester: Leicester University Press. 5. Ghanem, S. et al. (2009) 21st Century Communication: A Reference Handbook, Agenda Setting and framing, SAGE Publications Inc. 6. Gunter, B. (2000) Media Research methods, London, Thousand Oaks, SAGE Publications Inc. 7. Munir, Q. and Khan, H. (2008) Policy Reforms in response to climate change and Capacity of Local Institutions: Bangladesh Perspective, IUCN Bangladesh. 8. Human Development Report (2007) in its background paper on Risks, Vulnerability and Adaptation in Bangladesh, UNDP. 9. Wilson, K.M. (1995) Mass Media as Sources of Global Warming Knowledge. Mass Communication Review, 22, 75-89.