Date of Award

2-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism (MADJ)

First Supervisor/Advisor

David Aduda

Department

Graduate School of Media and Communications

Abstract

The world is dealing with the effects of climate change, and the threats appear more menacing in developing countries like Kenya. The case for dealing with the effects of climate change is made more significant because Kenya’s economy largely depends on natural resources such as agriculture, tourism and energy to support its growing population. These challenges require the concerted efforts of various stakeholders to bring about meaningful solutions. With its power to set and influence agendas, the media is crucial, and so are environmental NGOs working with various communities to develop solutions. In this environment, NGOs and the news media find themselves - as knowledge brokers for climate change education, raising mitigation and adaptation awareness. This study explored how the media cover climate change advocacy by NGOs in Kenya by examining stories from the Daily Nation and The Standard in the first half of 2018 and the last half of 2019, respectively. The theoretical framework of this study was framing. The study used a mixed approach using a quantitative directed content analysis of the print stories and an interview guide for key informant interviews with environmental journalists and communications experts from environmental NGOs. The study had five key words: Climate change, drought, flooding, food security, and global warming. When these key terms were searched, 78 articles in The Standard and 139 articles in The Nation were retrieved. The Results were analysed via SPSS, and the findings were presented as tables to check for patterns and relationships between variables. The study results revealed that the media gave climate change advocacy stories limited prominence by placing most of the stories in medium and low-focus areas. It also discovered that the predominant frames used by the Kenyan print media were uncertainty/risk and conflict, which mainly featured as hard news. This study also concluded that the working relationship between the media and NGOs dealing with climate change in building a sustainable society that has a well- informed and engaged public is still far from effectively taking place and recommended this be improved. At the same time, media houses should also consider the strategic placement of climate change stories on front pages to give significant focus on adaptation and mitigation efforts.

Download

Share

COinS