Three Key Dimensions of Climate Change from Opinion News in a Malaysian Newspaper

Abstract

ABSTRACT Previous studies have pointed to a notable increase in public interest on climate change using the survey method. These studies documented public opinion on climate change using survey method to derive data and establish findings. The current study is based on public opinion in Malaysia regarding climate change and the data was gleaned from the nation’s opinion news. It adopts a corpus linguistics approach together with a sentiment analysis to identify public sentiments and categorized them into three key dimensions. The theory of Spiral of Silence underpins the study. Results show negative sentiments predominated and mostly in the salience dimension thereby, suggesting that the public perceives climate change as a serious issue, necessitating firm and concrete action from the government.