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The Influence of the Media on the Development of Publics Environmental Consciousness: Case Study of Lithuanian Press

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The Influence of the Media on the Development of Publics Environmental Consciousness: Case Study of Lithuanian Press Lund University Masters Programme in Environmental Science (LUMES) The Influence of the Media on the Development of Publics Environmental Consciousness: Case study of Lithuanian Press Masters Thesis 2000 By Ausra Maceviciute Supervisor For correspondence: Åsa Thelander, MA Lund University, Ausra Maceviciute, Dainu 39-12 Media and Communication Studies 5400 Siauliai, Lithuania Address: Box 114, S-22100 Lund, Sweden [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] Phone: +37 (0) 1 454149 Phone: +46 46 222 00 00, +46 46 222 88 56 +37 (0) 736788549 Fax: +46 +46 222 47 94 1 Acknowledgements First, I would like to express sincere appreciation to Åsa Thelander from Sociology department, Media and Communication Studies at Lund University for her assistance in the preparation of this work. Thank you for taking your time and for always being ready to exchange ideas. Many thanks also to Renata Matkeviciene and Iveta Jakimaviciene from Mass Communication Departament at Vilnius University and Dzeinara Kaunaite at Klaipeda University for helping me to collect the data. I am very grateful to Elena, who provided me encouragement, guidance, information and support. I thank my friends for encouragement, moral support and friendship during lumes time. I am also grateful to my friend Silvija, who helped me with questionnaires. Summary Mass media plays a crucial role as a source of information, in encouraging knowledge and concern about environmental problems. Presumably, the more informed the public is about environmental problems the more likely they will be to support politicians and policies committed to environmental protection. Therefore it is crucial to investigate mass media contributions to the formation of public environmental consciousness. By developing a model I tried to understand and evaluate the relation between the media, public agenda, and possible influence on policy agenda. The main focus of the study is to analyse environmental problems related to the Baltic Sea in the context of general environmental problems in press, particularly national “Lietuvos Rytas” and regional “Vakaru Ekspresas” dailies. In order to assess environmental coverage in press and public opinion, and to investigate media correspondence with experts and public agenda, content analysis and questionnaires were used as appropriate methods for case study. It was found that environmental issues related to the Baltic Sea have high coverage in both dailies. Global environmental issues are absent from both dailies, therefore the press plays only a limited role in creating public concern about global environmental issues. When comparing expert agenda and media agenda, one finds that there is a gap between media and experts’ agenda, regarding environmental problems related to the Baltic Sea. According to defined types of environmental problems and their dependence on mass media, the press tends to cover environmental issues, which are not dependent on mass media. However, those environmental problems that are difficult to experience are covered insufficiently, or some of them like dumping issue even are absent in national dailies. Conformably, as a result of insufficient reporting on media, was noted lack of knowledge among respondents that show that people are not familiar with such issues as TBT and dumping. Nevertheless, it was found that students are an environmental conscious group of the society. Press in the context of mass media plays a crucial role in providing students with environmental information and in forming students environmental consciousness. Table of Contents 1 Introduction.................................................................................................................................. 3 1.1 Objectives............................................................................................................................................ 3 1.2 Scope & Limitations ........................................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Hypothesises ....................................................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Material and methodology .................................................................................................................. 5 1.5 Paper Outline....................................................................................................................................... 6 2 Baltic Sea Crisis (Experts agenda).............................................................................................. 7 2.1 Eutrophication..................................................................................................................................... 7 2.2 Trade, pollution and dumping ............................................................................................................. 7 2.3 Oil spills .............................................................................................................................................. 8 2.4 TBT ..................................................................................................................................................... 8 3 Public agenda and news media representations of environmental issues ................................. 8 3.1 Causes for different media message interpretation ............................................................................. 9 3.2 Contribution of mass media to the public opinion formation.............................................................. 9 3.3 Circuit of communication.................................................................................................................. 10 3.4 Environmental perception (receptivity) ............................................................................................ 10 3.5 Agenda-Setting.................................................................................................................................. 11 3.5.1 Description of Agenda-Setting Components ............................................................................. 12 3.5.2 Real World Indicators correlation with media agenda............................................................... 12 3.5.3 Public relation with media agenda............................................................................................. 12 3.5.4 Scientific information in agenda setting process ....................................................................... 12 3.5.5 “Issue-attention” cycle............................................................................................................... 13 3.6 News production process .................................................................................................................. 13 3.6.1 Sources play a central role in building media agenda................................................................ 14 3.6.2 Characteristics of environmental news items............................................................................. 14 3.7 Mass media as a source of environmental information..................................................................... 15 3.7.1 Legal background....................................................................................................................... 15 3.7.2 Description of Mass Media Systems as information systems.................................................... 15 3.7.3 Environmental issues on mass media in Lithuania .................................................................... 15 3.7.4 Media Usage .............................................................................................................................. 16 3.7.5 “Lietuvos Rytas” and “Vakaru Ekspresas”................................................................................ 16 4 Methods and procedures of case study...................................................................................... 17 4.1 Content analysis (Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis) ................................................................ 17 4.2 Definition of Environmental Problems ............................................................................................. 18 4.3 Statistical Output of Questionnaires.................................................................................................. 19 5 Environmental coverage in newspapers.................................................................................... 19 5.1 Organisational factors of daily “Lietuvos Rytas”.............................................................................. 19 5.2 Environmental Coverage in “Lietuvos Rytas” .................................................................................. 19 5.3 Organisational factors of regional newspaper “Vakaru Ekspresas”.................................................. 21 5.4 Coverage of Environmental Issues in Regional Daily “Vakaru Ekspresas” ..................................... 21 5.5 Categories of environmental issues related to the Baltic Sea............................................................ 22 5.6 Coverage of Baltic Sea Environmental issue in both national and regional newspapers.................. 23 5.7 Qualitative Analysis of Environmental Coverage in Newspapers .................................................... 23 5.7.1 Agenda ......................................................................................................................................
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