Asian Journal of Media and Communication

Preferring Reactivity over Proactivity: Exploring the Nature of Bangladeshi Print Media in Covering Environmental News

Sanjoy Basak Partha , Meherun Nahar — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Despite the continuous efforts made in recent years to improve environmental qualities, pollution still poses a serious threat to human health and harms the planet. Emphasizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Bangladesh is highly determined to achieve all its goals in due time. In this context, given Bangladesh’s current environmental situation, traditional media have a crucial role to play, especially in developing environmental awareness. This study investigates how Bangladeshi print media cover environmental issues and whether they practice proactive or reactive reporting to raise public awareness. There are two phases in this study, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. An analysis of the coverage and treatment of environmental news for one year, January to December 2022, in four major Bangladeshi newspapers, two each in Bengali and English, was accomplished in the first phase using content analysis. The second phase involved in-depth interviews with six senior environment-beat reporters. The study found that Bangladeshi mainstream newspapers are still far away from practicing proactive environmental reporting, as only one-fourth of the news reports are found to be proactive. The study also suggested some recommendations for the editorial body & policymakers.

Comparison of News Literacy, Media Consumption, and Trust Between Indonesia and Malaysia

Matthew Facciani, Ika Karlina Idris, Tim Weninger — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

News literacy and trust are essential factors to consider in how individuals navigate their media environments. However, studies on news literacy and trust have focused primarily on Western and English-speaking populations. The current study evaluates and compares news literacy, media consumption, and trust among Indonesian and Malaysian samples. Our data was collected in July 2021 via a telephone survey. We did not find any significant differences in self-reported news literacy between countries, but we found that participants lower in age, college education, and living in an urban area score higher on news literacy across both populations. We also found that our Malaysian participants reported spending more time on social media, but Indonesian participants spent more time watching television. We did not find any significant differences between countries for trust in institutional media, but Indonesian participants reported higher trust in online media. These findings highlight the importance of considering cultural differences in designing and evaluating media literacy interventions.

Another Covid Causality: Global Journalism

Ershad Komal Khan — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This study investigates the profound impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global media landscape and its consequential effects on journalism. Utilizing the secondary data analysis method, this study explores how the pandemic affected journalists worldwide. The study argues that the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated media commercialization globally due to the ensuing global recession. Simultaneously, there was a noticeable push by politicians to exert greater influence over the media, seeking to conceal their misdeeds and shortcomings, as well as to propagate their narratives through the press. This encompassed discussions about the coronavirus’s origin, transmission, and containment efforts, often as a means to gain advantages over domestic and international political adversaries. Many outlets, faced with fiscal and political adversity, unwittingly became conduits for such political propaganda, a consequence both of their struggle for survival and their lack of preparedness to navigate a crisis of such magnitude. Consequently, a surge of disinformation and misinformation regarding the virus’s origin and mitigation permeated media outlets, resulting in a crisis of credibility. The aftermath reveals a disheartening decline in public trust in mass media that significantly impeded vaccination initiatives.

The Effect of Using Data Journalism on Journalists Working in Jordanian News Websites

Ahmad Alzubi — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last several years, the concept of data journalism has garnered a significant attention from academics as an innovative journalistic practice. This study investigates the effects of the use of data journalism on journalists working in Jordanian news websites. The study applied quantitative method in collecting data from a sample of one hundred journalists employed by Jordanian news websites. This study finds that the use of data journalism has significant and advantageous effects on the journalists’ performance, especially through the enhancement of the accuracy and dependability of their reporting, the improvement of their narrative aptitude, and the refinement of their skill in providing data analysis. This study also identifies some challenges that journalists should deal while engaging in the practice of data journalism, including the lack of adequate training and competency in data analysis, restricted supply and accessibility of data, and technical infrastructure of news websites.

[Retracted] The Societal Consequences of the News Framing Regarding the Terrorist Attack in the Holy Artisan Café, Dhaka, Bangladesh on 1 July 2016

Fatema Islam — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article analyzes the societal consequences of the news framing of the terrorist attack in the Holy Artisan Café of Bangladesh on 1st July 2016, which killed seventeen foreigners, three Bangladeshis, and two Bangladeshi police officers. Combining quantitative and qualitative research methods, this study investigated 134 news articles regarding the attack on the two prominent newspapers of Bangladesh: The Daily Star and The Prothom Alo, dated from 1 July 2016 to 1 July 2017. From a quantitative comparative framing analysis of these two newspapers, this study found that: 88.81% coverage were generically news articles, the major source (41.04%) of the news was Bangladesh Police, only 11.94% articles interpreted the reasons and political consequences of the terrorist attack, 88.16% news were descriptive, and the contextual framework of 63.43% news were episodic. The qualitative analysis found that the news coverage of the two newspapers regarding the attack had far-reaching societal consequences impacting public perceptions, government policies, security measures, and social dynamics.

[This article has been retracted by the editors due to redundant publication without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor--based on COPE Standard]