Environmental Issues Raised in the Forum Pages of a Newspaper in Singapore

This study explored an under-researched area in environmental public education—the types of letters which appear in the forum pages of newspapers on this topic. The forum page is also an under-researched field in the scholarly communication literature even though it is an integral part of journalism practice. We used a major daily in Singapore for this study and surveyed a year of letters. Less than 3% of the letters focused on the environment. Using content analysis, it is shown that despite this, a spectrum of matters related to the environment were covered in these pages. Key findings are as follows: letter writers use various frames to portray their message, most letters are addressed to the government, most letter writers are male, and letters on the environment appear every month.