Source: luimenta.blogspot.com
The media plays an important role in shaping people’s attitude and believe (Gerben A., Karlan D., Bergan D., 2007)
In reporting the forest fires, the media in Singapore has largely focused on the haze that affected Singaporeans. Much of the blame in the media is directed towards the Indonesian government.
Here is an excerpt from an Channel News Asia article written in 21 October 2010:
The NEA also said Environment Minister Yaacob Ibrahim had on Thursday expressed “deep concern” about the haze to his Indonesian counterpart Gusti Muhammad Hatta.
“Minister expressed his deep concern that the haze situation would further deteriorate if Indonesia does not put in place immediate and enhanced measures to curb the hotspot situation in Sumatra,” it read.
He urged Indonesia to allocate the necessary resources, and implement timely and effective measures to solve the haze situation.
The same article went on to make an irresponsible sweeping statement:
Haze caused by the fires in Indonesia builds up during the dry season when farmers clear their land by burning.
This sentence would conjure up a mental image of poor Indonesian farmers burning their land, while in fact, most of the haze was caused by burning of peat/swamp forests to make way for oil palm plantation. And this is done by the huge companies.
link:http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1088509/1/.html
It is very difficult to find any effort by the media to try to link the consumption of palm oil and in no way has the media try to apportion some responsibility to Singaporeans.
Here’s the interesting part:
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Singapore’s domestic consumption of palm oil in the year 2010 and 2011 amounted to 1,020,000 Metric Tonne (MT). According to the same source, Indonesia’s domestic consumption in those 2 years amounted to 13,796,000. So if you do the math and divide those numbers with the population of the countries (5,076,000 and 240,000,000) respectively, you will find that the average Singaporean have consumed 0.2 MT of palm oil in the 2 years while their Indonesian counterpart have consumed 0.06 MT.
Like Singapore, Indonesia has seen very little attempt to educate the people as consumers about the link between their consumption behavior and forest fires. However, the dynamic of the media in Indonesia is slightly different than Singapore. There are some news agencies which covers all Indonesian cities. There are also some which cater to the local population in certain areas.
Especially in bigger cities away from the fires hotspots like Jakarta, Bandung or Surabaya, the media are dominated with issues considered more pressing to the population such as corruption, extremism, governmental misconduct and rising prices. Naturally the little coverage about the forest fires do not get much attention.