The Abandonment of Animal Conservation Ideology in Indonesian Television Programs

Keywords

Environmental Communication, Protected Animals, Environmental Journalism, Mass Media, Case Studies

Abstract

The mass media possesses significant roles and functions amongst a society. Referring to the idea of Denis McQuail, one of the roles of mass media is to be a reflection of the behavior of the people it represents. By looking at the media’s perspective, we would be able to comprehend people's opinions and behaviors. Not only in the general aspects of life, but also within the specific one like environmental issue as discussed in this article. In the context of environmental sustainability, especially related to protected animals, it could be argued that the role of the mass media in Indonesia is still far from their function as a public education facilitators. This research shows the weakness of mainstream mass media in understanding conservation ideology, which makes them easily exposed by harmful information and publishing messages against protected animals preservation within their entertainment programs. Using an intrinsic case study model from Stake, accompanied by environmental journalism, environmental communication and animal conservation theories, this research uses a qualitative approach in exploring the understanding of TV media managers in the case of protected animals conservation. The subjects are Net TV and Trans7 TV who have used protected parrot birds in their entertainment program. The results indicate that these media with their entertainment programs have violated the regulations on protected animals as stated in Government Regulation No. 7/1999 about the utilization and management of protected crops and animals, and also the Act No. 5/1990 about biodiversity and natural resource conservation. It is found that the media in general were only seeking sensation without noticing the regulations. This would create a significant adverse effect on their audience, which potentially lead to behaviors against the conservation.

Copyright

© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Herlina Agustin
AU  - Dadang Rahmat Hidayat
PY  - 2017/11
DA  - 2017/11
TI  - The Abandonment of Animal Conservation Ideology in Indonesian Television Programs
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Transformation in Communications 2017 (IcoTiC 2017)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 31
EP  - 34
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/25902364
ID  - Agustin2017/11
ER  -