Media Analysis: A Comparison of Regional and National News Media Coverage of Aquaculture

Project Description

Scientific and technological advances over the past three decades have made American aquaculture production increasingly environmentally sustainable and economically viable: a source of local jobs and affordable food. Yet, a legacy of environmental and human health concerns, and current controversy surrounding siting operations and the use of genetically modified species, suggest that perceived risks of aquaculture may loom large.

A news media content analysis can provide a critical first step toward gauging representations of aquaculture in the public sphere. Project personnel first examined US news media coverage of aquaculture over a 10-year period (2005-2015). To account for differences in aquaculture development and practices, comparisons of coverage in four regional news outlets (Portland Press Herald, Boston Globe, The Advocate, Los Angeles Times) and four national newspapers (USA Today, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal) were made for discussion of aquaculture risks, benefits, scientific issues, political/legal issues, and environmental sustainability, examining both prominence and co-occurrence of these themes over time.

To better understand the conversation about aquaculture in Maine, project personnel compared coverage in regional Maine newspapers, such as the Bangor Daily News and the Sun Journal (Lewiston, ME), and coded these articles for additional information, such as which sources – whether government agencies, individual citizens, scientists, etc. – are quoted. Project personnel pursued two additional, complementary sub-projects: (1) a study of Maine/New England journalists who cover the topic of aquaculture, involving in-depth interviews and a q-sort activity to ascertain key motivations for and perceptions of reporting on aquaculture; and (2) a spatial-temporal analysis of the Maine news media content analysis results using ArcGIS and other spatial mapping software to showcase possible differences in media coverage by space and time with respect to SEANET’s regional bays.

Results and Accomplishments

In support of the goal to document mass media trends to understand perceptions of aquaculture and science, project personnel have completed (or will complete) the following activities in 2017-2018:

• Completed 15 in-depth interviews with Maine and greater New England journalists who cover aquaculture. The interviewees also completed survey questions and took part in a q-sort activity to better capture their perceptions of information critical to reporting on aquaculture. (The q-sort activity utilized direct content from the completed Maine-based news media content analysis.) Interview and q-sort data are currently being analyzed, and will be submitted to the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) in Washington, D.C., and to the journal Science Communication.
• Extended the Maine-based news media content analysis to consider spatial and temporal representations of the data. Working with Bowdoin undergraduate, Hugh Cipparone, and faculty member, Eileen Maxwell, project personnel created maps to show how media coverage of aquaculture has changed over space and time in the main bays considered in the SEANET project. This project will be presented at the annual International Symposium on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM) (Snowbird, Utah), and is under review to be presented at the IAMCR conference – Environment, Science, and Risk Communication Working Group (Eugene, Oregon).

Summary of Data Being Collected

Data	Type	Quantity	Location
Newspaper articles	Regional and national US news publications	> 500 articles to date	Publications represent Maine, Massachusetts, Louisiana and California