Can Facebook be an Effective Tool in Disseminating Environmental Messages to Society? A Case Study of 12 Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (ENGO) in Malaysia

Abstract

Environmental issues are not new in Malaysia. These issues are always associated with society because of there is lack of civic mindedness among certain quarters of the Malaysian society. Therefore, it is very important to enhance society awareness and understanding towards the importance of preserving and conserving the environment. In this era of globalisation, Facebook that triggers worldwide phenomenon is considered as the most popular communication medium and widely used by Malaysians. As of November 2012, the number of Malaysians who use Facebook was 13,461,860. Considering the huge number of Facebook users in Malaysia, it is very important for ENGOs to use Facebook as a delivery medium of information in disseminating environmental messages to the society. With regard to this study, it was conducted to investigate the role of Facebook in helping ENGO to disseminate environmental messages to society, to identify the effectiveness of two way communication between ENGOs and society through Facebook and to gauge the effectiveness of Facebook in delivering environmental messages to society. This study employed face-to-face indepth interviews in order to get the insight from 12 ENGOs’. The data was analysed using thematic analysis. The findings of this study indicate that, the effectiveness of Facebook in disseminating environmental messages to society relies on several factors such as the target audiences identified by ENGOs, ENGOs’ objectives and purposes as well as the number of people that ‘like’ ENGOs’ Facebook pages .