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ISSN (Online): 2394-2932

Volume-3 | Issue-1 | June-2016 Paper Id: 030848 Page No: 94-100

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ROLE OF NEWSPAPERS IN SELECTING ENVIRONMENTAL

NEWS – A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

by

Prof. (Dr.) Tapati Basu | Professor, Department of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Calcutta |

[email protected]

&

Tushar Kanti Ghara | Joint Director of Public Instruction, Government of West Bengal | [email protected]

&

Arup Guchait | Communicating Author | Research Scholar, University of Calcutta and

Public Relation Officer, West Bengal Pollution Control Board (Department of Environment, Government of West

Bengal) | [email protected]

ABSTRACT

Media has an enormous role in communicating information in various kind.

Particularly, the print media is serving society strongly with their evolution in

various fields including technological aspects. Within the steep competition each

media wants to hold their own audience with continuous innovative items.

Environment is such a contemporary subject which has a fair demand. In this

study, the status of the dailies has been scrutinized while in selecting

environmental news during 2005 to 2010. A number of variables of the

published news have been considered like – number of news published during

the period, major classification of environmental news, number of comments, no

of editorials, number of hard news, number of letters, type of pictures published

attached to the news, average size of picture(s), average number of words in the

news, etc.. Correlation and cluster analysis have been used to find the role of

newspapers considered under study.

Keywords : Newspapers, Environmental News, correlation, cluster analysis

INTRODUCTION

Modern society has invented such a miraculous process with the help of wonderful devices to transmit messages

even to the remotest corner of the world with thrilling speed. This process is known as mass communication and the

media through which messages are sent as mass media.

Newspaper is one of the early communication instruments of the society. Newspaper is one of the major

components of a modern society. Newspapers of a modern society always try to communicate the current news of

across the world. The current trend of the major dailies is to employ journalists and photo-journalists to cover all the

possible events/programmes from all over the places. The major newspapers also subscribed news/photographs from

news-agencies of different countries.




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The readers get knowledge of their interest or of any subject happening in and around the globe. The readers go

through news, editorials, opinions, columns, reviews, features, photographs etc. to know the incidents in detail.

In this research, it is considered a total of four English and five Bengali popular dailies which have fare volume of

circulation, readership and tradition. The Times of India, The Telegraph, Hindustan Times, The Statesman, Ananda

Bazar Patrika, Bartaman, Ganashakti, Aajkal and Sambad Pratidin have been analysed seriously. What type of

newspapers English or Bengali gives more impact on environmental issues by news in number and more

photographs in volume, etc.?

Methodology Nine prominent newspapers of five long years (edition of 1

st January, 2005 to 31

st December, 2010) have been

monitored critically. In the category of prominent dailies, following publications published from Kolkata have been

studied:-1. The Telegraph (English), 2. The Statesman (English), 3. The Times of India (English), 4. Hindustan

Times (English), 5. Anandabazar Patrika (Bengali vernacular), 6. Bartaman (Bengali vernacular), 7. Aajakal

(Bengali vernacular), 8. Sambad Pratidin (Bengali vernacular) and 9. Ganashakti (Bengali vernacular).These are the

most populated and widely circulated newspapers during 2005 and 2010 in Kolkata. One glimpses of average

qualifying circulation of those newspapers are mentioned below:-

SR. NO. NEWSPAPER JANUARY - JUNE 2010 JULY - DECEMBER 2010

1. The Telegraph 4,73,690 4,81,755

2. The Statesman 1,72,195 Not accepted by ABC

3. The Times of India 3,93,587 4,06,133

4. Hindustan Times 60,000 60,000

5. Anandabazar Patrika 11,73,751 11,85,779

6. Bartaman 4,85,449 4,88,425

7. Aajakal 1,81,431 1,81,353

8. Sambad Pratidin 3,06,644 3,06,337

9. Ganashakti 1,51,822 1,57,502

Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations(ABC), excepting the data of Hindustan Times

To find the status of media coverage and the current trends in local print media coverage of environmental news in

local leading print media, the news items published in aforesaid nine different prominent dailies were collected

which a broad spectrum of environmental science categories may be covered for long 72 months during 1st January,

2005 to 31st December, 2010. No promotional feature has been considered.

This was a very sturdy task to organize all the information, which has significant position in this research. All the

available paper clippings on environment related news published in previously mentioned newspapers for long 72

months during 1st January, 2005 to 31

st December, 2010 have been organized month-wise and date-wise so that the

convenient information can be marked out easily. All the information has been analyzed using database designed on

MS Access platform.




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In this study, the variables considered are Average number of news published(X1); major environmental news

category – number of news published on environmental initiatives/awareness taken(X2), environmental

pollution(X3), environmental protection/remedial measures(X4), general environment(X5); number of comments

published on environmental news(X6); number of editorials published on environmental news(X7), number of

features published(X8); number of types of news – general news(X9), hard news(X10), letters(X11); number of

photographs/photographic news published in black & white(natural) (X12), black & white(symbolic) (X13),

collage(colour) (X14), colour(natural) (X15), colour(symbolic) (X16); number of environmental news published in

the section – international(X17), national(X18), local(X19); average size of the photograph(in cm2) (X20); average

number of word in the published news(X21).

Analysis

Month-wise total available 20,697 news published in nine different newspapers in Bengali and English languages

during January, 2005 to December, 2010 have been shown in the Table – 1 and Chart – 1. A total of 11,194 number

of news published in four English dailies and a total of 9,503 number of news published in five Bengali news.

Table -1 : Data as extracted from the database on X1 to X10

Newspaper X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 X8 X9 X10

The Statesman 7 8 6 9 5 6 5 1 9 7

Hindustan Times 3 2 4 4 3 2 4 3 2 3

The Times of India 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 2 1 1

The Telegraph 4 4 3 3 2 3 3 4 4 5

Anandabazar Patrika 2 3 1 2 4 4 1 7 3 2

Ganasakti 8 6 8 7 9 8 8 5 5 9

Bartaman 5 7 5 5 7 9 7 8 7 4

Sambad Pratidin 6 5 7 6 6 5 6 6 8 6

Aajkal 9 9 9 8 8 7 9 9 6 8

Table -2 : Data as extracted from the database on X11 to X21

Newspaper X11 X12 X13 X14 X15 X16 X17 X18 X19 X20 X21

The Statesman 5 4 3 4 6 5 3 9 4 3 1

Hindustan Times 9 7 2 3 2 1 2 5 1 1 2

The Times of India 8 1 1 1 3 2 1 1 2 4 3

The Telegraph 1 9 4 2 1 3 4 3 3 2 4

Anandabazar Patrika 2 3 5 5 4 4 5 2 5 6 5

Ganasakti 7 2 7 8 8 7 7 7 9 5 6

Bartaman 6 8 9 9 9 9 9 4 6 9 7

Sambad Pratidin 4 5 6 6 5 6 6 6 7 8 8

Aajkal 3 6 8 7 7 8 8 8 8 7 9




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Correlation matrix of selected variables with p-values are being placed

X1 X5 X6 X11 X17 X18 X19 X20 X21

X1 1.000 0.850 0.767 -0.167 0.633 0.900 0.767 0.317 0.483 p - value 0.000 0.004 0.016 0.668 0.067 0.001 0.016 0.406 0.187

X5 1.000 0.917 -0.033 0.850 0.683 0.917 0.617 0.667 p - value 0.000 0.001 0.932 0.004 0.042 0.001 0.077 0.050

X6 1.000 -0.117 0.883 0.583 0.817 0.650 0.567 p - value 0.000 0.765 0.002 0.099 0.007 0.058 0.112

X11 1.000 0.317 0.017 0.267 0.217 0.350 p - value 0.000 0.406 0.966 0.488 0.576 0.356

X17 1.000 0.333 0.850 0.800 0.850 p - value 0.000 0.381 0.004 0.010 0.004

X18 1.000 0.500 0.067 0.150 p - value 0.000 0.170 0.865 0.700

X19 1.000 0.717 0.800 p - value 0.000 0.030 0.010

X20 1.000 0.833 p - value 0.000 0.005

X21 1.000

p - value 0.000

Figure – 1 : Cluster Analysis (taking Euclidian distance as measure) result for all variables

Anandab

azar

Pat

rika

The T

elegr

aph

The T

imes

of Indi

a

Hind

usta

n Tim

es

Bartam

an

Sam

bad P

ratid

in

Aajka

l

Ganas

akti

The Stat

esm

an

0.00

33.33

66.67

100.00

Observations

Sim

ilari

ty

DendrogramComplete Linkage, Euclidean Distance




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Observations

1. English news prominently dominated the most of the years (excepting 2010) as a whole during January,

2005 to December, 2010.

2. Bengali news published slightly more in number in 2010 than English news.

3. The 2009 is the only year in which the total number of published news crossed 4,000 marks (4,723).

1. The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Telegraph and Ananda Bazar Patrika forms a group and all

others in separate group/cluster.

2. Moreover, The Statesman dominates all others.

Conclusion

From the above study, this may be concluded that The Statesman is most positive to publish environmental news

photographs than Bengali dailies. Particularly an environmental issues can attract local print media more mainly the

English dailies. Mainly The Statesman has showed their extra ordinary courage in carrying more and more numbers

of environmental news and photographs, which might be related to their national character. Moreover, this may be

find out the strength and infrastructure as well as their awareness of the local media for covering environmental

news and photographs.

Newspapers Number of News

Aajkal 1399

Anandabazar Patrika 2897

Bartaman 1910

Ganasakti 1495

Hindustan Times 2733

Sambad Pratidin 1809

The Statesman 1735

The Telegraph 2732

The Times of India 3987

Grand Total 20697

0

1000

2000

3000

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Nu

mb

er

of

Ne

ws

Years Chart - 3

Bengali

English




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Row Labels Sum of FIG_SIZE

Aajkal 29885

AnandabazarPatria 84547

Bartaman 25309

Ganasakti 56203

Hindustan Times 168004

SambadPratidin 37214

The Statesman 88017

The Telegraph 142173

The Times of India 163887

Grand Total 795239

Table - 6

0 500

1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000

1399

2897

1910 1495

2733

1809 1735

2732

3987

Nu

mb

er

of

Ne

ws

Newspapers Chart - 4

0

100000

200000

Vo

lum

e o

f th

e P

ho

togr

aph

s

Newspapers Chart - 6




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