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Understanding a generation of Indonesian youth to engage them on climate change

2020-08-11T13:46:32+00:00

Our focus group, project manager and research manager in Indonesia. Credit: �� Media Action

Understanding our audiences is integral to all that we do at �� Media Action. As part of our exciting new project Kembali Ke Hutan (Return to the Forest) focusing on the sustainability of Indonesian forests and natural resources, we needed to reach Indonesia’s millennial generation, inspiring them to understand and engage on critical environmental choices for their future.

Young people really are Indonesia’s future: UNFPA predicts 46% of the population will be under age 30 by 2030, with a majority in urban areas. Already the country has over 350 million mobile subscriptions, and 150 million active social media users – most of them on mobile. Inspiring them to engage on climate action requires us to reach them where they are: online.

Our approaches

We used artificial intelligence to analyse online data as well as more traditional methods such as focus groups to develop deeper insights.

Techniques drawing on artificial intelligence helped gather, sort and analyse information from 118 sources across 16 different areas – from lifestyle to local community forums. We used these results to create archetypes of young Indonesians, and then followed this up with a week-long online focus group with 50 urban youth aged 18-25, exploring their online behaviours: their interests, how they engage with important issues – from politics to the environment – and how they behave on social media. We combined this with traditional face-to-face focus groups with urban young people, active members of community-based youth organisations, to gain a thorough understanding of what motivates them to engage with environmental issues.

Who are Indonesia’s young people?

Based on this data, we found urban youth value their social identity, to define their place within Indonesian society and influence their social networks. They are willing to think about and engage with political and social issues through online platforms.

“We represent the people of East Kalimantan when we come to the government and tell them about the issues that have to be addressed.” Aksi Kamisan (Youth Good Governance Group) member aged 18-25, from Samarinda

However, we also learned that frustrating interactions with government in the past among 22-30 year olds, and feelings of distance and apathy in 18-21 year olds, contributed to their perceived disinterest and inability to act.

Based on segmentation from the AI/Semiotics study we established the following ‘groups’ of young people:

‘Regular Consumers’: These young Indonesians lead relatively structured lives with clear routines, and whilst some environmental issues are important to them, they are more focused on doing well academically and obtaining good jobs. Whilst they spend a lot of time on social media, it tends to be for hobbies, travelling, food or entertainment, and a place to connect with others, rather than as a forum for debate or taking action.
‘Loud and Proud Crusaders’: This group considers social media a key forum for taking action on issues relating to climate change. Influencers and well-known names help grab their attention, and they engage with content with a clear link to their daily lives. Most were unfamiliar with the term ‘green growth’, and as a result didn’t know what actions they could take.
‘Quiet Heroes’: They are interested in environmental and social issues, and believe they should lead by example and change themselves first. They start with smaller actions - not littering, joining environmental organisations, encouraging friends to do so too, for instance through information.
‘Aesthetic indulgence’: This youth ‘group’ is all about travel and natural beauty – they act out of concern to protect areas of natural beauty for others to enjoy.
‘Guardians of Future Generations’: Finally, this group is driven by aspirational and positive examples that focus on social issues and the environment, either locally or nationally; they prefer to act through community-based initiatives.

"It’s in my nature, part of my conscience to [be an activist]. It calls to me.” Aksi Kamisan (Youth Good Governance Group) member aged 18-25, from Samarinda

“Resources are limited while the wants of the public are not. The government needs to ensure that [the resources] can be enjoyed by the next generation, that it will not be gone.” APGM (Young Generation Empowerment Alliance) member aged 18-25, Jakarta

Our youth group in Surabaya, East Java Credit: �� Media Action

What’s next

A platform for young people to voice their concerns and opinions, while feeling part of environmental youth communities and groups, seemed the natural way to build their engagement and public discussion. Social media is being used to help this via our Aksikita brand, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

We have used our research findings to inform the content for our national TV programme and digital media. As Instagram is the most popular social media network in Indonesia, we have designed a range of posts to meet the different needs of Indonesian young people, from cartoons to videos, each based around how individuals might be affected and what they can do. This will help engage the 'Quiet Heroes' and 'Regular Consumers' with simple, effective actions they can take.

For instance, the new social media mini-series, Kangen Jalan-jalan (Missing Travel), takes young people stuck at home during the pandemic on a virtual journey to their favourite parts of the country – appealing to those who are proud of their country’s beauty – such as the 'Aesthetic Indulgence' group.

Throughout the series, our Digital Manager and Series Host, Jimmi, is accompanied by young people actively working on climate change, to build audience engagement by contrasting beautiful scenery with the impacts of environmental damage.

We’ve also used comedy and social media influencers to help reach those less engaged in environmental issues, and information that appeals to ‘Quiet Heroes’.

With all of this we aim to gain reach, while using informative and questioning content that provokes discussion among our followers, their family and peers – ultimately increasing Indonesians' understanding and awareness of a range of environmental issues and sustainable development challenges. For Indonesia’s coming-of-age generation, this is about the future of their country’s environment and prosperity.

Ankur Garg is Country Director for �� Media Action in Indonesia, and Anisha Ratan is Digital Research Manager for �� Media Action, based in London.

Return to the Forest is funded by NICFI (Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative). Learn more about the project here.

Kenya flooding: why trusted media is essential in a changing climate

2020-06-16T11:04:13+00:00

As the world grapples with COVID-19, a small rural community in Turkana County, Kenya recently faced another crisis: flash flooding. Local weather producer and �� Media Action mentee, Vivian Achwa, shares her experience of meeting affected communities and seeing first-hand how the climate crisis continues even in the midst of a pandemic.

People in Kanukurudio village assemble around a water pump destroyed by flash flooding

Nothing could have prepared me for what I experienced when I travelled to Kanukurudio, a small village in rural Kenya hit by flash flooding last month. Though I’d seen photos on WhatsApp of the havoc caused, it was only upon speaking to those affected that I truly understood its impacts.

I’m the producer at Radio Maata for a weather and climate programme called Nee Nikosi (‘Our ��’), broadcasting to pastoralists and farmers across the county. Every Wednesday evening, as they return from tending to their land and livestock, I share practical weather information about issues ranging from drought to the current locust invasion that is threatening our food supply.

Setting off before dawn, it took me four hours to reach Kanukurudio from our base in Lodwar. I had hired a four-wheel drive to navigate the rough terrain – crossing flooded rivers and dykes along the way.

Flash flooding caused havoc in several areas of Turkana county

When I arrived, the sense of grief in the community was palpable. There were animal carcasses everywhere, and some of the villagers were already butchering them so they wouldn’t have to go hungry. The village water pump had been destroyed and household utensils and belongings lay strewn on the ground.

Most people in Kanukurudio are pastoralists who depend on their animals for their livelihoods and as a source of food during drought. Coming from a farming community myself, I understand the deep pain of losing animals. Interviewing the members of the community when emotions were raw was tough, and I tried to be as sensitive as possible with my questions.

One interviewee stood out to me the most. Mzee Naree Lomilio is a father of eight who lost 150 goats in the floods. His wife was also swept away, but thankfully survived by holding on to a branch for hours until the villagers found her and pulled her to safety.

“The floods caught many of us off guard. They began like the usual rains but continued pouring heavily, with most of us ending up stranded with our livestock in the field. We usually keep our goats at home in the kraal (enclosure), but they too were washed away,” explained Mzee Naree.

Vivian and her colleague interview villager Mzee Naree about his experience of the flooding

At this point, Mzee Naree began to cry. “This is too much,” he said. “I would rather die than live like this!” His community rallied around him to offer support – summoning the strength to offer him comfort despite contending with their own grief.

“If only there was a way we could have known the floods were coming, we would have been better prepared,” Mzee Naree continued.

According to local authorities, more than 472 people were displaced by the floods – with many people in the area requiring food, water and support to rebuild what they lost.

But another huge challenge facing villages like Kanakurudio is a lack of access to media. No radio stations, including my own, reach the region, severely limiting access to timely and practical weather information which could have helped people like Mzee Naree to prepare.

This is why �� Media Action is providing wind-up and solar-powered radios, with several pre-recorded programmes loaded on to memory cards, to improve community access to, and understanding of, weather and climate information. Understanding threats, and what actions to take to minimise risk, can save lives and livelihoods.

Vivian interviewing members of the community in a safe area

My experience travelling to Kanakurudio was deeply moving, and speaking to affected people helped me learn more about the local community, their farming techniques, and what information they most need – all of which I will apply to my show.

I dream of a time when people like Mzee Naree need not worry about crises such as flooding. But the weather in Turkana is becoming increasingly unpredictable and putting more and more lives at risk. I am determined to continue supporting people like Mzee Naree through my programme – helping them to adapt to a climate that’s changing so quickly around us.

Vivian Achwa is the Producer with Radio Mataa, a local Kenyan radio station partnering with �� Media Action as part of our Weather Wise project. Weather Wise aims to help farmers, fishermen, and pastoralists in East Africa better prepare for weather events through improved climate and weather journalism – find out more here.

In May 2020, we were delighted to announce the launch of a new climate project in the Horn of Africa called DOWN2EARTH, which will build on the success of Weather Wise and our established media partnerships in the region.

“Our forests, our future”: Inspiring climate action in Indonesia

2019-12-09T10:50:40+00:00

Student planting a tree in Sumatra, Indonesia

I’m certainly not the first person to say that media has enormous power – both to reach people far and wide, but also to help us understand, discuss and inspire action on the most important issues facing the world today.

At a time when media is often co-opted and used to spread disinformation, there is a huge need for trusted media to play an educational role in society. And, for me, there’s no bigger problem that media can help us understand than climate change.

For too long, the conversation around climate change has focussed on science, policies and governmental commitments. People’s lived experiences of extreme weather exacerbated by climate change have been missing – especially those who feel the impacts most.

At �� Media Action, we believe that addressing climate change requires action at all levels of society, and that media has the power to bring together ordinary people, civil society, and leaders to discuss sustainable development that benefits everyone.

Our Indonesia project aims to do exactly that.

Indonesia is one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas producers, with the vast majority of emissions stemming from forest destruction and degradation. The Government has pledged to reduce these emissions; having an engaged public that cares about their forests and holds their leaders to account will help ensure these green commitments are fulfilled.

Forest rangers patrolling the rainforests in Sumatra, Indonesia

From our previous work in Bangladesh and Cambodia, we know that media can inform and educate audiences affected by changing weather, inspire individuals and communities to take action to protect their lives and livelihoods, and prompt governments to respond with policies for more sustainable development.

Our challenge in Indonesia is to engage an audience which doesn’t currently feel close to the problem: young people.

Around the world, we’ve seen young people lead the way when it comes to taking action on climate. Youth will make up an estimated 44% of Indonesia’s population by 2030, and there are encouraging signs that they could follow that path too. But our initial research shows us that this largely urban population doesn’t connect with forests or understand how deforestation affects their daily lives. They also don’t know how they can get involved.

Our first task will be to grab their attention – young Indonesians are huge consumers of social media, particularly on mobile. So our project will be ‘digital first’, challenging us to create high-quality, viral content that can cut through a sea of competing information to inform, entertain and inspire young audiences about their environment and the future of their planet.

To do this, we believe a sense of identity is key. Young Indonesians care about what their peers think about them and crave their respect. If we can create a culture of “green kudos” among friendship groups, and make it ‘cool’ to care about the forests, we could spark a generation of young Indonesians who actively engage with their leaders on sustainable development.

Young Indonesians on smartphones in the country's capital, Jakarta

This engagement cannot be tokenistic, which is why we’ll be backing up our digital content with a high-quality TV discussion programme and a challenge-style reality TV show. These will provide young people with the tools to understand how climate-related issues, such as air pollution and water security, affect their lives, and how they can engage with leaders on these issues.

Overall, we know this is a formidable task. But we also know from our charity’s work over the last 20 years that trusted media provide space for constructive public participation and debate – something which is much needed when it comes to climate change.

People need to be at the heart of the response to climate change. By encouraging people to work together, media really can change the world for the better.

Ankur Garg is Country Director for �� Media Action Indonesia.

Our work in Indonesia is funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.

Whatever the weather: Radio helps people adapt to climate change

2019-09-19T12:00:00+00:00

Pastoralist at a water point fetching water for her animals and domestic use, Marsabit County, Kenya.

As world leaders gather at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, Diana Njeru from �� Media Action Kenya explains how climate change is affecting people across East Africa, and how we’re supporting them to adapt through radio.

Here in East Africa, there is no doubt we’ve been experiencing more extreme weather events. In 2019 alone, Cyclone Idai in south-eastern Africa and drought in Northern Kenya have resulted in loss of livestock, damage to crops, and even loss of life.

According to the IPCC, there’s a high probability that we’ll continue to experience higher temperatures, more erratic rainfall, severe droughts in the arid lands, and rising sea levels along our shores. Our communities are not easily able to adapt, so these changes will have devastating impacts – particularly for the rural and urban poor.

These communities, which are often remote and hard to reach, need the knowledge and skills to build their resilience to climate change. That is where radio comes in.

I manage a project called Weather Wise through which we’re partnering with eight local radio stations to provide weather and climate information to farmers, fishermen and pastoralists whose livelihoods are most affected by climate change.

Tradition versus science?

Formative research into our audiences’ knowledge and attitudes about weather and climate information revealed that they rely primarily on indigenous beliefs to predict the weather, but recognise that this is becoming less accurate as the weather becomes less predictable:

“In the old days, if you see the swallows migrating from the East to the West, it was an indication that the rains are about to come, but today, the swallows migrate anyhow, could be somebody disturbed their resting places and they flew off, you cannot use that to make any farming decisions.” – Young farmer from Uganda.

Yet audiences are reluctant to give up traditional methods of forecasting in favour of more scientific approaches, which they say they don’t trust, understand, or feel meets their needs.

“The forecast is general; it does not have the information that we need. We want to hear a forecast talking about the winds that affect the fishermen, to see the forecaster showing us our islands and what is happening in there, not some map that is not specific to us.” – Fisherman, Uganda.

Producer Elias interviews a tomato farmer in Mwanza District, Tanzania, on how climate change is affecting her livelihood

We are training journalists to produce high-quality weather and climate radio content in local languages – including features, magazine programmes and bulletins – that is accurate, timely, relevant and useful for practical decision making.

Bridging divides

But our work goes beyond training. We’re supporting journalists to interview members of their communities and set up radio listener groups, so they can hear what their audiences need and tailor their shows accordingly.

We’re also bringing together scientists and journalists who, historically, have had a hard time understanding one another – with journalists struggling to grasp complicated climate jargon and scientists worrying their information would be misconstrued. Workshops have built new relationships between scientists and radio producers, who’ve undergone training in how to produce weather and climate content with the audience at its heart.

Producers from Bukedde and Star FM in Uganda prepare to interview fishermen during a fishing expedition on Lake Victoria

Although we’ve only scratched the surface, Weather Wise is starting to have an impact. Journalists from our community radio stations, who previously had little or no formal training, now report that they have an improved understanding of climate change and are more confident communicating it to their audiences:

"I have learnt the importance of thinking about the needs of my audience and how to equip them with practical information that they can apply in their day to day lives. As a result, I’m finding my work as a journalist to be more fulfilling now, as many listeners call me telling me how they are learning a lot from my programme and improving their lives." – Journalist, Radio Kwizera, Tanzania

Encouragingly, their listeners are already benefitting, too:

“In one of the programmes, they shared how the rains would fail and the different things we could do as farmers to cope including planting more drought resistant seed varieties. I planted these on my farm that season and was able to get a much better harvest than my neighbours’, most of whom lost all their crop.” – Female farmer, Masaka District, Uganda.

As for me, this has been an eye-opening project so far and I’m learning more about climate change and its impacts on the region’s poorest people every day. Because climate change isn’t just about the weather – it’s about people.

--
Diana Njeru is Project Director for our Weather Wise project in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

Weather Wise is part of the Met Office’s Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) project, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

“Climate change is about people”: TV to encourage action in Cambodia

2019-04-10T09:25:35+00:00

Tonle Sap, Cambodia (Photo: Ridan Sun)

Like many Cambodians, I’m noticing changes in the weather in my country. The temperature is getting hotter, floods and storms are happening more frequently, and our dry season is longer than ever before.

With 75% of the population living in rural areas and relying on farming or fishing to make a living, these weather changes are already having a big impact on people’s lives and livelihoods.

I helped conduct �� Media Action’s newly-published research exploring how people across Cambodia are experiencing these weather changes, and whether or not they’re doing anything about them. The report outlines priority audiences, the challenges they are facing in responding to climate change, and tips for how media professionals can communicate climate issues to them more effectively.

We interviewed 1660 people across five regions of Cambodia, and conducted in-depth community discussions. Most people (85%) who we surveyed felt that the weather changes could be having an effect on their health. When I visited Anlong Raing community in the Tonle Sap region, for instance, many people told me they thought their children had been getting diarrhoea more often, and in some cases more serious diseases like Typhoid.

People also felt that weather changes were affecting their income (81%), and what’s more, we discovered that rather than take simple steps such as changing their farming methods, people were more likely to make big life changes in order to get by - 33% said they had changed their job as a result.

Transforming lives through TV

That’s where our brand new TV documentary series – Don’t Wait For Rain – comes in. Informed by our research, the show aims to improve knowledge of climate risks and encourage Cambodians to make easy and affordable changes to become more resilient to the changing climate.

We filmed in locations across Cambodia to showcase the real weather issues people are facing – from flash flooding in the mountainous area of Kampong Speu province to lower fishing yields in the Tonle Sap.

Filming Don't Wait For Rain in Tonle Sap

Providing role models to encourage action

For me, one of our most interesting findings is that there is often a social barrier to adapting to climate change. In our survey, 37% of respondents said that they weren’t responding to climate change due to being fearful of discussing actions with others, and 35% said that it didn’t fit with their religious beliefs or community culture.

This was an important insight which we reported to the TV production team. We knew that trust would be a key factor when helping people adapt to new techniques, and that audiences would need to see people they could relate to in the show adapting successfully to be encouraged to try it out for themselves.

That’s why in each episode we pair up an ‘impact’ community struggling to cope with the weather with local experts who have overcome climate challenges.

For example, in one episode, audiences see a female farmer called Ming Mao who lives in Central Cambodia. Ming Mao felt helpless when all of her crops were washed away by flood waters, an increasingly common risk in her region. We paired her with a local expert who teaches her how to build a raised vegetable garden to grow food above flood levels. When she’s revisited later in the episode after another flooding, Ming Mao’s new garden has remained completely untouched!

Farmer Ming Mao (middle) who features in Don’t Wait For Rain

A more resilient future

My hope is that Don’t Wait For Rain proves to be a hit with our audiences and helps them to better cope with the weather challenges we’re currently facing, and will face in the future. I also hope that other media organisations will use our research findings to tailor their own communications, helping even more Cambodians to adapt.

At the very least, I believe the show will prompt awareness of these weather changes and lead to families and communities questioning what more they could do to prepare for further unpredictability. But of course, what I really want is for people to take action!

Khuon Chandore is the former Research Manager for �� Media Action Cambodia.

Our factual TV series Don’t Wait For Rain is on air nationally in Cambodia from late February until May 2019. The show is part of our Neighbours Together project, funded by Sida, which also includes outreach activities and social media.

To discover more about how people from other countries in Asia are experiencing climate change, check out our Data Portal where you can find further data from our Climate Asia series.

UN Climate Talks: changing the conversation about climate change

2014-06-09T14:14:23+00:00

When I was invited to speak on a panel at a UN conference on climate change in Bonn, Germany, I wasn't sure what to expect. I envisioned a large, dimly lit amphitheatre filled with diplomats in dark suits, whispering to their colleagues between reading their official, pre-prepared statements out loud.

I was pleasantly surprised. I was there to speak at the 2^nd Dialogue of Article 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). While that may sound terribly formal and bureaucratic, it was anything but.

Article 6 is all about how best to promote public awareness, public participation and public access to information around climate change – in other words, how to communicate climate change effectively.

The Dialogue provides a regular forum for stakeholders – government and global civil society representatives alike – to exchange ideas and experiences regarding the implementation of Article 6.

And a dialogue it was. An informal, personal tone was immediately set by the Chair of our panel, Paul Watkinson, who is co-facilitator of the 2

^nd

Dialogue. He began by encouraging us to have a real conversation – rather than a series of positions – and to avoid jargon. He also asked country representatives to use their first names, not their countries, when speaking.

Above all, he reminded us that Article 6 is really about understanding the effect of communication on people’s lives. The discussion that ensued centred very much on sharing good practice on climate change communication – what’s worked for different governments and NGOs as well as what challenges they've faced and how we could learn from each other.

There were several young panellists who talked about how to mobilise young people to address the challenge of climate change, whether through peer-to-peer meetings of university students across the globe, social media, or through video competitions.

Representatives from the governments of Africa, Asia and Latin America showcased innovative techniques for promoting understanding of climate change such as education programmes aimed at young children that use music, or engaging the private sector to provide incentives for things like rain water harvesting.

I was there to speak about the role of media and communication in facilitating climate change adaptation – how people can lower the risks posed by the consequences of climatic changes - drawing on our new policy briefing From the ground up: Changing the conversation about climate change.

The policy briefing uses data from �� Media Action’s Climate Asia project to underscore how climate change is perceived by those hardest hit by changes in temperature, rainfall and extreme weather and its impact on their daily lives: their income, their health and their livelihoods.

I emphasised how important it is to build an evidence base around these threats to food, water and energy security and suggested how media and communication can be usefully deployed to help communities build resilience to them.

I was really pleased to see how much the central thrust of our findings was echoed in some of the comments made around the room.

Saleemul Huq from the International Institute for Environment and Development pointed out that we don’t need to present the developing world as victims. He referenced some of the major successes the government, media and non-governmental organisations in his native Bangladesh have had in building climate change awareness and adaptation, and the need to disseminate and learn from these solutions.

A representative from Ghana, seated in the audience, talked about how much we can learn from the health sector in terms of marshalling media and communication to climate change adaptation strategies.

A panellist representing the St Lucia government, Crispin D’Auvergne, noted the importance of framing climate change initiatives in a way that address people’s everyday concerns – such as their health or jobs – rather than ‘climate change’ as an abstract, scientific issue.

Reacting to the different speakers around the room, the panel chair Paul Watkinson repeatedly emphasised the need to keep the focus on adaptation and vulnerable populations.

As he noted when wrapping up the session, “This is about people.” I could not agree more.

Related links

�� Media Action policy briefing:From the ground up: Changing the conversation about climate change

Climate Asia data portal – explore the research project’s findings

�� Media Action’s resilience work

Follow �� Media Action on Twitter and Facebook

Go back to �� Media Action

"Loss and damage from climate change": a view from Bangladesh

2012-12-21T11:06:00+00:00

At last week's climate change talks in Doha, it took 36 hours of negotiation between 195 nations to arrive at a plan where rich nations will compensate poor countries for "the loss and damage" inflicted by climate change.

As part of my work conducting research in Bangladesh for �� Media Action’s Climate Asia project, I've seen the reality of such "loss and damage" – and what it means for people’s lives.

I've spoken to a farmer in the south of the country whose land is barren because of increased salinity – the amount of salt in the soil.

His only options to earn money are now to become either a day labourer or rickshaw puller – both of which he feels is a step down the social ladder. He feels like he's failed.

In the village of Mithekhali in another part of southern Bangladesh, I've seen a cow in its dying moments, starving because the salinity of the soil means grass cannot grow. People told me that without their cows, they can't plough their land.

In northern Bangladesh, I spoke to another man who had already been forced to give up his trade – this time as a fishermen - and become a labourer. Several years of drought had seen the rivers he fished dry up and the fish stocks plummet.

What's clear from our research across seven countries in Asia is that people don’t know what climate change is, what it means, or how it happens, but they feel it in their day-to-day lives.

In Bangladesh, we have just finished a nationally representative survey of 3600 people. This has shown that people perceive decreases in agricultural productivity (40%) and are feeling that changes in climate are having an impact on their livelihoods (74%).

Our challenge is now to give some traction to these findings. As part of the Climate Asia project, we're building an online data portal which will help people who are communicating about such topics to audiences like the farmers and fishermen. Using this portal, they will be able to find and generate information about their audiences that is useful in targeting and creating effective communications.

Our plan is to launch the full findings, reports and data portal in September 2013.

Related Links

From the �� Media Action blog:

How do you explain climate change to a taxi driver?

Know your audience

Climate Asia

�� Media Action’s work on resilience and humanitarian response

Go back to �� Media Action

How do you explain climate change to a taxi driver?

2012-12-05T17:32:31+00:00

A Climate Asia community assessment in Indonesia.

"How do you explain climate change to a taxi driver?"

This was our question to a panel of international journalists, as we led the opening session of the second annual climate communications day at the UN climate change talks in Doha.

It wasn't a gimmick. We genuinely want to know.

Our research for �� Media Action’s communications project Climate Asia has introduced us to all kinds of audiences. From the policy maker to the journalist to the driver taking us to our next focus group, each person has a different understanding of climate change and some find this term difficult to link up with their own experiences. In the course of nine months, Climate Asia has involved us talking to more than 30,000 people in seven Asian countries to understand how people experience, understand and are responding to an often changing environment.

"When I talk to people about climate change in Bangladesh, what they really want to talk about is water and sanitation," said Lisa Friedman of Climate Wire. "We should stop making people emblematic of climate change. Our job is to write about specific audiences and the nuances of their needs."

"(The term) 'climate change' is so freaking boring," said another presenter later that day, whose name I will withhold as I know he said this to make a point – and we do get his point – that 'climate' terminology can sometimes get in the way of what we really want to talk about.

As we presented Climate Asia to our audience of journalists, researchers, scientists and communicators, we used the story of Suraiya, a young mother living in a Dhaka slum, whose photograph was used in global report on climate change.

We wanted to turn the tables and stress the importance of thinking about her as an individual with her own unique set of challenges and her own lived experience rather than as a victim or as an illustration. We wanted to stress the importance of taking into account her individual needs, her own perceptions of how she is experiencing the consequences of climate change and the unique things she can tell us about herself: her values, whom she trusts and even how she likes soap operas on TV.

There was a consensus that we need to provide people with access to relevant information on climate change. "Climate information is as important as health information," one panellist stated and the need to communicate more effectively was stressed throughout the day.

But it seems, when it comes to climate change, not a lot of time has gone into thinking about how to present this information to any particular group or target audience.

It was reassuring to hear questions from people who wanted to know more about how they could make the issues surrounding climate change digestible for their audience.

"How do I convince journalists to write about my research?" asked one scientist. "Keep it simple, keep it short, keep it locally relevant" came the succinct response from a journalist.

This echoes what some media professionals have told us in Asia and it shows us that there is a space for Climate Asia research in helping many actors develop communications.

Twitter ccommsday#

Related links

From the �� Media Action blog:

Know your audience: the Climate Asia team's challenge to attendees at the UN climate change conference in Doha

Go back to �� Media Action

Know your audience

2012-11-30T17:32:01+00:00

Fisherman in Bangladesh were interviewed as part of the Climate Asia research project

As the world's media and policymakers descend once again on the annual UN climate change conference, �� Media Action’s Climate Asia project is challenging those covering the event to 'know your audience'. At first sight, it might seem too simplistic a challenge. But let me explain.

Most media outlets know how to cover the big political negotiations about climate change, the natural disasters linked to it and the science behind it. But when it comes to reporting this global issue on a local and day-to-day basis, they are on less firm ground. This is partly down to the will of editors to cover the issue, but also the way the subject is presented. All too often the coverage focuses on just the science or the politics and not on the people most affected.

The reality for many of those affected by a changing environment, in Asia at least, is that the term 'climate change' means very little at all. To quote a charity organisation in Bangladesh to whom we spoke recently: "Most people don’t understand the term 'climate change' or its causes. But they feel its impact."

What's clear is that the efforts by media, governments and NGOs to explain climate change to the audiences most affected by it are clearly not working.

This echoes much of what we are learning from Climate Asia, the most comprehensive body of research in the region to date about people's experiences of their changing environment. More than 30,000 interviews across seven countries have already taken place.

Although it's early days in our analysis, it's already apparent that people's priorities are not about understanding what climate change is or the negotiations around it, important though those are.

Rather, they're more concerned about how they’ll be able to secure enough food, drinking water and power to respond to increasingly erratic weather. It's about daily survival, the effect on incomes, the safety of their houses, the health and future of their families.

With so much at stake, climate change as a 'concept' offers very little to the people most affected by it. In fact, we are increasingly wondering whether it should be used at all in communications that help people to respond to changes in the environment.

Instead, we think a greater focus on the 'lived experiences' of those affected by a changing climate, with information and discussion about the available solutions, would offer a genuine opportunity for the media to tell a more compelling story – and, most importantly, provide the information people need.

That's why we are urging the media and beyond to 'know their audience' and to work with us to think about how to serve them better.

To find out more about some of the early insights from our survey and join in the discussion, follow us on twitter #CComms Day or if you're in Doha, come to the Climate Communications Day, New Approaches, New Audiences on Tuesday 4 December at Northwestern University in Qatar .

Related links

Climate Asia: blogs and case studies

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Cross-cultural questionnaire design: A journey without end

2012-07-31T15:48:17+00:00

�� Media Action's Climate Asia survey visits a family in Indonesia.

I've been working for �� Media Action for eight weeks. In my first week, I started work on the Climate Asia survey which is taking place across seven countries with a combined population of 3.4 billion people.

Before I knew it, these surveys were being piloted in four Asian countries: Bangladesh, Indonesia, India and Pakistan. As information started to feed back to the team in London, I became immersed in detail. Questionnaire design across this many countries is shaped by multiple, and sometimes surprising, cultural differences.

One of the things we want to understand through the Climate Asia project is whether people are likely to change their behaviour to respond to changes in food availability.

One question we asked people is whether they might 'eat less meat' or 'not increase meat consumption'. Confusion around language was immediately noticeable. Our country researcher from Indonesia explained that 'meat' actually only means red meat but not chicken or fish.

And for me, a Chinese woman living in the UK, eating less meat is an action I would take to deal with the increase of food prices or to keep fit. However, for the people in some countries in Asia, it means something different. "Eating and serving meat is considered a sign of upward social mobility," Khadija Zaheer, our researcher in Pakistan, told us. "People cannot afford to eat meat so why would they be thinking of reducing it?"

Asking people to use a scale, from say from 1 to 5, to quantify how they feel about an issue is well understood in many countries. But in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, it took a lot of time to do this, particularly in rural areas. So we simplified the process to a two-step prompt, first asking respondents to choose between 'agree' and 'disagree' and then to choose between 'strongly (dis)agree' and 'slightly (dis)agree'. This way, by simply adapting our approach, we were still able to get people to use the degree of scale we wanted.

Of course nothing is ever simple when it comes to working across seven very different countries. China and Indonesia, for instance, decided they didn’t need this distinction. Why people in one country are happy to make one choice in five, while people in other countries are not is still a mystery to me.

On the other hand some concepts are particularly hard to explain with words so pictures and illustrations have been introduced to explain the concepts and scales. Smiling – or frowning – faces can be used, for example, to capture whether people strongly or slightly agree or disagree.

Show card with smiling and frowning faces.

At the end of our pilot for the survey, nearly 300 pieces of feedback had been recorded. This deeply shaped the questionnaires we used in the formal field work. Suggestions on language, translation, scales, tools, and many more reminded me of how important it is to understand the individual cultural contexts, language, and communication habits in cross-cultural research.

Related links

Climate Asia blog

Elsewhere on �� Media Action: Asia’s largest climate change survey launched

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Weathering change: opinions from the frontline

2012-06-20T11:18:11+00:00

Pakistan Climate Asia communications workshop

Twenty years after the landmark Rio Earth Summit, more than 50,000 people have once again descended on Rio to debate the future of our planet and the people who live on it. Away from the rounds of high-level discussions, �� Media Action is also hard at work on these issues. The recently launched Climate Asia research project aims to put the everyday experiences of Asian people at the heart of responses to some of the world’s greatest human and environmental challenges.

With a survey of over 25,000 people across seven countries, Climate Asia is the first ever region-wide study into the impact of climate change on people’s lives.

In January the Climate Asia team began work on the first phase of this research and communications project. We conducted a series of in-depth interviews and communications workshops in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan and Vietnam focusing on the tricky issue of communicating climate issues. Our work so far has featured more than 300 experts and opinion formers from government, civil society, business, academia and the media.

While the Rio summit will feature the language of the global policy elite – a sea of acronyms and targets – our interviewees have highlighted the importance of using language people understand. One way to do so is to talk about problems people experience every day like food security, water scarcity, unpredictable weather, disease and migration. As one Bangladeshi civil society representative noted many people "don’t understand the term 'climate change', or its causes, but they feel the impact of climate change."

Farmers, fishermen and people whose lives are directly impacted by changes in climate were identified as our key potential audience for communications workshops. But rather than scaring people with stories about extreme impacts, participants emphasised the importance of using the media to communicate positive messages centred on the benefits of taking action to improve lives and livelihoods in the face of changing climates.

When asked for good examples of climate change communications, our respondents tended to provide examples of where climate change was related to other issues, including development, disaster preparedness and biodiversity. Others highlighted the importance of linking climate change to existing public priorities, particularly those related to development. This message may be of relevance to our friends in Rio who are currently struggling to unite diverse environmental and social agendas. The task may be tricky but linking these issues may make them easier to communicate.

The Climate Asia team is now using these findings to inform design and implementation of Asia’s largest ever survey of public understandings of climate change. Ultimately we hope to use all of this information to create new communications tools and messages for audiences across Asia. Our goals may not be on as grand a scale as those of sleep-deprived government officials in Brazil, but they are ambitious and we believe that our work can and should complement theirs.

Rio + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development

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