Content analysis of newspaper coverage of wolf recolonization in France using structural topic modeling
Content analysis of newspaper coverage of wolf recolonization in France using structural topic modeling
复制标题
DOI：
10.1016/j.biocon.2018.01.029
复制
发表时间：
2018-04-01
影响因子：
5.9
通讯作者：
Gimenez, Olivier
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chandelier, Marie;Steuckardt, Agnes;Gimenez, Olivier
在欧洲，大型食肉动物的数量正在恢复，与人类活动的冲突互动越来越多。根据议程设置理论，媒体传播关于这些互动的信息可能有助于形成公众对大型食肉动物的看法。我们对1993-2014年间，自狼自然返回法国东南部以来，平面媒体对法国狼复苏的报道进行了内容分析。为此，我们使用了一种最近开发的统计方法-结构主题建模-允许从大量文本中生成主题，并制定新的假设或评估现有的假设。这种方法正式地包括协变量，以类似于标准回归分析的方式来解释主题流行率和内容的变化。我们对比了地区性(Nice-Matin；N=742)和全国性(Le Monde；N=148)报纸上文章的内容差异，并分析了话题流行率的时间趋势。最具代表性的话题主要与狼恢复的管理问题有关。我们发现，《世界报》以一种通俗的方式代表了管理问题，并以食肉动物物种为中心。相比之下，Nice-Matin上的文章是关于事实问题的，并与以人为中心的观点有关。这种对比框架强调了在狼管理的表现上的差距，公民直接与狼互动并偏爱详细的信息内容，以人的观点为中心，而公民不与狼互动或仅间接与狼互动，后者将以更生态的方式关注较少细节的新闻。我们认为，加强地方和国家利益攸关方与机构之间的沟通，可以为更均衡地报道食肉动物物种与人类活动之间的互动提供媒体内容。这一组合可以缩小区域代表和国家代表之间的差距。
Populations of large carnivores are recovering in Europe and incur increasing conflict interactions with human activities. According to the agenda-setting theory, the media dissemination of information on these interactions is likely to contribute to shaping public perceptions of large carnivores. We conducted a content analysis of printed media coverage of wolf recovery in France over the period 1993-2014, ever since its natural return to southeast France. To do so, we used a recently developed statistical method - structural topic modeling - that allows to generate topics from large amount of texts and formulate new or assess existing hypotheses. This method formally includes covariates to explain variation in topic prevalence and content in a way that is similar to standard regression analyses. We contrasted content variation between articles in a regional (Nice-Matin; N = 742) and a national (Le Monde; N = 148) newspaper and analyzed time trends in topic prevalence. The most represented topics were mainly related to the management issues regarding wolf recovery. We found that Le Monde represented management issues in a generic manner associated with a perspective centred on carnivore species. In contrast, articles in Nice-Matin were about factual issues and associated with a human-centred viewpoint. This contrasted framing emphasizes the gap in representations of wolf management between citizens who directly interact with the wolf and favor detailed information content, centred on human views, and citizens who do not interact or only indirectly with the wolf who will focus on less detailed news, with a more ecological approach. We suggest that increased communication between local and national stakeholders and institutions could provide the context for a more balanced media content of interactions between carnivore species and human activities. This combination could attenuate the gap between regional and national representations.