Framing as cues: Engaging audiences on Environmental Issues where it Matters

Communicating environmental and climate action has become even more strategic in recent times, with media platforms striving to connect the dots for audiences in ways that spur them towards meaningful and sustainable lifestyles. This is because the media’s role as a broker is not just about the message, but about the cues the media embeds in the message to highlight salient areas they need audiences to focus on.  Framing is an essential tool in media brokering given that audiences engage with media content with preconceived ideas from their prior engagement and experiences of the world. Guided by the framing theory, this study assessed three environmental programmes (Environment Matters (EM) on Nigerian Television Authority, and Earth File(EF) and Eco Africa(EA) on Channels Television, for three categories of frames embedded in the assessed episodes, and audience evaluation of the frames. The environmental programmes were purposively selected based on evidence of consistent airing of these programmes for two years, and as at the time of the study.  Three types of frames (goal, location and cause) were evaluated, with the most important goal frame being promotion for EA (56.6%), and status quo for EF (70.8%) and EM (40.5%). EA highlighted both regional and international stories (82%) compared to EM (40.5%) and EF (40.9%) that focused on international stories only. Humans were identified as the major cause of environmental issues by EM (72.9%), EF (80.3%) and EA (90.5%). In some instances, the FGD audiences disagreed with the type of frame used in telling the environmental stories, hinting at a negative reaction from audiences as opposed to the intended positive behavioural change towards the environment.  The study recommended a continuous and regular assessment of audience reactions to environmental programme content to ensure the use of cues that align with what audiences are used to, and or frames which can replace the frames audiences are used to with better ones.

Keywords: Media, Television, Environment, Framing, Audiences