Media Coverage of Climate Change in Southeast Asia's Largest Muslim‐Majority Country

Indonesia's media landscape is characterized by a hybrid system that merges democratic freedoms with enduring structural constraints (Darwis and Muqsith 2025). After the fall of Suharto's authoritarian regime in 1998, the nation experienced significant media liberalization, producing one of Southeast Asia's most dynamic yet commercially oriented press systems (Masduki 2017). Although the Press Law (No. 40/1999) formally guarantees editorial independence, concentrated ownership and political affiliations continue to shape coverage priorities. A small number of conglomerates control the sector, frequently aligning media agendas with the interests of business and political elites (Tapsell 2017; Nugroho et al. 2012). Nevertheless, Indonesia's media remain comparatively free within the region, supported by a pluralistic environment fostered by competitive journalism and active civil society oversight. In this context, Kompas and Tempo are among Indonesia's most influential national media organizations, each reflecting distinct editorial traditions and audience orientations. Kompas, established in 1965 and owned by the Kompas Gramedia Group, is the largest daily newspaper in Indonesia, with a nationwide circulation exceeding 500,000 copies and one of the highest online readerships (Anis 2022). Traditionally moderate and centrist, Kompas maintains connections to mainstream Catholic intellectual circles while asserting independence from party politics (Masduki 2021). Its editorial approach prioritizes stability, development, and public education, framing climate change primarily as a technocratic and policy-driven issue. In contrast, Tempo was established in 1971 during the early New Order period as a magazine dedicated to investigative journalism and government accountability. Although it was banned twice, in 1982 and 1994 under Suharto, Tempo re-emerged after democratization as a prominent advocate for transparency and anti-corruption (Sen and Hill 2010). Owned by Tempo Inti Media, its circulation is smaller, at approximately 100,000 copies, but its influence is enhanced by its credibility among policymakers, academics, and the urban middle class (Tri Widuri and Nur Hidayat 2023). Tempo's left-leaning, reformist orientation and commitment to press freedom inform its framing of climate change as an issue of governance and moral responsibility. Collectively, these outlets exemplify the diversity and tensions present in Indonesia's post-Reformasi media system, which balances freedom, commercial imperatives, and political interests. This makes them suitable case studies for analyzing how national media construct public narratives on climate change. This essay examines how Kompas and Tempo reported on climate change in the 6 months following COP28 (November 2023–April 2024). A total of 114 articles were analyzed—104 from Kompas and 10 from Tempo—collected using keywords such as “climate change,” “global warming,” “emissions,” and “COP28.” The study employed a mixed-method content analysis that integrated thematic framing, rhetorical strategies, and a readability assessment (Muzykant and Muqsith 2020; Legal Aid Institute for the Press LBH 2022). Thematic frames were identified inductively from the coverage, while rhetorical analysis followed Stoddart et al. (2016), drawing on Entman's (1993) model of framing. This framework assessed how media outlets defined problems, diagnosed causes, made moral judgments, and presented reasons for and against mitigating climate change, as well as suggested remedies related to climate change. The first significant finding concerns the stark disparity in coverage volume. As shown in Figure 1, Kompas accounted for over 90% of the analyzed articles, while Tempo contributed fewer than 10%. This distribution suggests that Kompas positioned climate change as a recurring topic, integrating it into its broader public information agenda. By contrast, Tempo treated climate issues more selectively and episodically, privileging investigative depth and political context over routine reporting. From an agenda-setting perspective, Kompas acted as an agenda driver, sustaining climate change as a visible public issue, whereas Tempo served as a critical but less consistent voice. This imbalance raises concerns regarding the plurality of climate narratives in Indonesia, as Kompas dominates the discourse, potentially constraining the diversity of perspectives through a single editorial style. Thematic framing provides additional insights. As illustrated in Figure 2, Kompas primarily framed climate change through environmental (30.7%) and public policy (19.3%) lenses, presenting the issue simultaneously as an ecological threat and a government-managed matter. Other frames included food security (10.5%), the economy (9.6%), and disaster-related narratives (8.8%), reflecting recognition of climate change's tangible effects on development and livelihoods. Tempo, however, relied more heavily on political and legal frames, portraying climate change as an issue of governance and institutional accountability. Notably, both outlets neglected health, energy, education, and socio-cultural impacts, each constituting less than 10 percent of coverage. This narrow framing represents a missed opportunity: while global debates increasingly link climate change to equity, justice, and cultural resilience, Indonesian media treat it primarily as an environmental hazard or a political contest by sidelining these broader perspectives (Muqsith et al. 2019). Kompas and Tempo risk reinforcing the perception of climate change as abstract and distant from everyday life. Beyond thematic choices, rhetorical framing reveals how climate issues were communicated. Figure 3 shows that Kompas emphasized problem definition, often explaining climate change in descriptive and educational terms. This aligns with its role as a public informant, making climate change appear as a technical challenge that citizens must understand. Tempo, by contrast, leaned more on moral evaluation and attribution of responsibility, critiquing political actors and institutions for inadequate responses. This rhetorical contrast highlights how Kompas frames climate change as a challenge to be understood and managed, whereas Tempo frames it as a failure of governance that requires accountability. In this way, the two outlets differ in what they highlight and how they construct climate narratives: Kompas serves as an explainer, while Tempo acts as a judge. A distinctive contribution of this study lies in its readability analysis, a dimension rarely examined in climate communication research. As shown in Figure 4, Kompas overwhelmingly produced “easy” articles, with 81 percent categorized at the simplest readability level and the remaining 19 percent at “medium.” By contrast, Tempo exhibited a more complex profile: only 30 percent of its articles were “easy,” while 60 percent were “medium” and 10 percent “hard.” This divergence reflects differing editorial missions. Kompas employs simple sentence structures, minimal jargon, and explanatory language to reach a mass audience, positioning itself as a popular educator. Tempo, by contrast, utilizes more complex narratives, technical terminology, and analytical depth, catering to elites such as policymakers, academics, and politically engaged readers. These findings highlight the editorial contrast between Kompas, as an educator fostering broad engagement, and Tempo, as a watchdog addressing narrower but more critical audiences. They also raise questions of inclusivity: in a context where climate literacy remains low, highly technical reporting risks failing to reach those most directly affected by climate change. These findings highlight the contrasting roles of Indonesia's leading newspapers. Kompas dominates coverage and makes climate change broadly accessible, yet its reliance on environmental and policy frames risks portraying the issue in technocratic and top-down terms. Tempo offers critical scrutiny and political framing, but its limited volume and linguistic complexity constrain its reach. Both outlets share structural weaknesses: they underrepresent solutions, rarely amplify grassroots perspectives, and overwhelmingly frame climate change through the voices of elites and institutions. While Kompas informs and Tempo critiques, neither consistently empowers or mobilizes ordinary Indonesians to engage with climate action. From the perspective of framing theory (Entman 1993), this study reveals that Kompas primarily employs environmental and policy/legal frames, portraying climate change as a technocratic challenge, whereas Tempo emphasizes political and moral frames that highlight institutional failures and the ethical urgency of the issue. These divergent approaches matter: Kompas seeks to educate, whereas Tempo aims to provoke. Nevertheless, both outlets rarely incorporate education-, justice-, or culture-oriented frames, limiting the depth of Indonesian climate communication. Narrow framing risks reducing climate change to an environmental hazard or political contest, overlooking its broader structural and human dimensions. Expanding coverage to include perspectives such as intergenerational justice, equity, and cultural resilience would foster a more inclusive dialogue and align Indonesian reporting with global trends in constructive climate journalism. The implications are significant. In a context of low climate literacy and widespread misinformation, the press has the opportunity and responsibility to shape awareness and engagement. Moving beyond elite-driven narratives requires inclusive storytelling highlighting local communities, indigenous knowledge, and everyday adaptation practices (Tayibnapis et al. 2022). Solution-oriented journalism—showcasing responses alongside risks—could strike a balance between urgency and hope, motivating civic participation. The contrast between Kompas and Tempo underscores the value of diverse approaches and the need for evolution: Kompas could strengthen causal explanations and diversify its framing, while Tempo could simplify its language and report more consistently to broaden accessibility. In conclusion, post-COP28 climate coverage in Indonesia was uneven in volume and style. Kompas dominated the news agenda, framing climate change as an environmental and policy issue in accessible language, while Tempo offered less frequent but more critical political and moral framing. These orientations position Kompas as a public educator and Tempo as a watchdog. However, both outlets missed opportunities to broaden framing, amplify marginalized voices, and highlight solutions. For Indonesian climate journalism to play a transformative role, it must combine accessibility with depth, inclusivity with urgency, and problem identification with actionable solutions—only then can the media contribute to building a climate-literate public capable of engaging with one of the defining challenges of our era. This article is a research article from the National Veteran Development University Jakarta (UPNVJ) in 2023, Indonesia, with the Internal Research Grant Scheme.