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. Furthermore, the results of the public survey indicate that most Thai respondents have received climate change information through the media; however, media exposure does not influence their understandings, awareness and environmental behaviour, casting doubt over the interpretation of climate change information from the media’s reporting. The study concludes by recommending that there is a need for a good mechanism for improving the cooperation between the government and journalists in terms of climate change information which is tailored to the needs, existing knowledge and values of particular public