Abstract

Media coverage of environmental issues helps the readers to understand the concepts that shape their beliefs and perspectives. Media professionals play a vital role on how the public perceives environmental issues. The media does the diverse framing of reality of environmental issues. The study aims to find how the English and Tamil newspapers in India have covered environmental issues and identify the differences among the newspapers based on region and language. Two English (The Hindu and The Times of India) and two regional language newspapers (the Dina Thanthi and the Dinamani) were selected for the study based on circulation and credibility. The print newspapers published in the calendar years 2014 and 2015 were analyzed to find the framing of environmental issues. The study found that the scientific (28%) and politics (23%) frames were the most prominent in the newspaper coverage. It also found that environment news stories were more of national (41%) and international (38%) than local (20%). The result suggests that the newspapers, especially in Tamil, should devote more space to the newer environmental issues, probably linking them with climate change as well. Sensitive reporting of environmental issues may help people to understand the complexity of the problems better.

Key words: Environment, newspapers, climate change, pollution, framing, journalists.