Early assessment of a new media model for promoting marine conservation awareness in Malaysia

Marine conservation is one of the areas that need attention in pursuit of a sustainable planet. Human activities have led to the current dire state of the marine ecosystem. To arrest this, many initiatives have been carried out to inculcate marine awareness using various media, approaches, and target audiences. The emergence of new media provides the opportunity to disseminate awareness on marine conservation to a wider audience. However, the efficacy of this medium in the local context has yet to be determined. Hence, this paper presents the early assessment of the effectiveness of a new media model for promoting marine conservation awareness in Malaysia. Data from nine semistructured interviews with marine experts, media practitioners and media influencers are presented. The results emphasized the importance of developing a long-term communications strategy that advocates for a new media model to promote awareness of marine environmental impacts and conservation issues. The findings suggest that the new media has great potential to promote marine conservation awareness with higher impacts than conventional media. Nevertheless, further research is needed to explore the long-term effectiveness of the new media model and its potential to bring about positive behavioral changes among the target audience.