22 Pages, Online Public Access, Restoration of oyster habitats is a critical solution to halt the decline of one of the world’s most threatened resources. News coverage about environmental topics, like oyster restoration, is important to local communities that are directly impacted. However, little research has assessed how restoration topics are framed by journalists, nor how environmental disasters may affect framing of news stories for the public. This study employed a longitudinal framing analysis, using the quantity of coverage and social responsibility theories, to examine how coverage of the restoration of oyster ecosystems shifted before, during, and after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The frames and sources of 763 newspaper articles were assessed, including 18 local newspapers from five U.S. Gulf Coast states and three high-circulation national newspapers. Logistic regression analyses revealed that the occurrence of an environmental catastrophe shifted media focus from environmental frames before the spill to community and economic frames during and after the spill. Stories were dominated by environmental frames (49%) and primarily relied on quotes from resource managers (50%) over all other groups. Local resource users were quoted less than 5% of the time in local articles. Findings provide a foundation for natural resource managers and communication specialists to understand how information about natural resources changes during disasters and reveals the perspectives that are most and least commonly used to frame and define stories about coastal resources and important gaps in coverage.
Online via publication website., The purpose of this study was to determine how education and communication professionals involved in climate-change communication are framing their discussions about climate change with agricultural producers. Researchers used semi-structured telephone interviews to gather information. Findings touched on communications factors such as audience analysis, appropriate terminology, localization of information, framing messages, and information sources.
20 pages., Via online journal., Consumers are concerned about the risks related to genetically modified (GM) food, and there is a need for agricultural communicators and educators to address those concerns. The purpose of this study was to explore Florida residents’ latitudes of acceptance, rejection, and noncommitment toward GM food messages. The findings from this study can be used to guide communication and education campaigns for GM food. An online survey was distributed to a non-probability sample of 500 Florida residents to fulfill the purpose of the study. The messages that most aligned with the respondents’ views toward GM food discussed how potential risks related to human health had not been adequately investigated and that GM food may be riskier to consume compared to traditional food. The messages that most opposed the respondents’ views were that GM food was safe for consumption and that it caused cancer in humans. People whose views most aligned with the message that GM food caused cancer in humans had the largest latitude of rejection, likely due to their extreme attitude, confirmation bias, and ego-involvement. The largest percentage of respondents accepted messages that aligned with their position but expressed noncommitment to messages that opposed their views. This lack of rejection and indication of alignment with messages related to potential risk and uncertainty indicated Florida consumers were unsure about the effects of GM food. Communicators and educators should acknowledge these concerns when delivering information about GM food to enhance the effectiveness of communication with consumers.
28 pages, This study investigates how the emotional tone of food safety risk communication messages predicts message virality on social media. Through a professional Internet content tracking service, we gathered news articles written about the 2018 romaine lettuce recall published online between October 30th and November 29th, 2018. We retrieved the number of times each article was shared on Twitter and Pinterest, and the number of engagements (shares, likes, and comments) for each article on Facebook and Reddit. We randomly selected 10% of the articles (n = 377) and characterized the emotional tone of each article using machine learning, including emotional characteristics such as discrete emotions, emotional valence, arousal, and dominance. Conveying negative valence, low arousal, and high dominance, as well as anger and sadness emotions were associated with greater virality of articles on social media. Implications of these findings for risk communication in the age of social media are discussed.
19 pages, via online journal, Dairy farms pose many hazards to farmers and their employees, including the risk of injury caused by handling animals. On many farms, there is a lack of consistent information and training related to farm safety topics, including stockmanship, or safe animal handling. The purpose of this qualitative research was to explore effective communication strategies that support the application of stockmanship practices and more broadly support health and safety measures and the adoption of new behaviors by farmers and their employees. Research was conducted in three stages via in-depth farm tours and in-person interviews, a qualitative survey, and follow-up phone interviews with dairy farmers. Findings identified four values and moral norms important to dairy farmers and four barriers to implementation of farm safety practices. The research also revealed publications and in-person meetings as key channels of communication and on-farm consultants as important influencers. From the research findings, three major recommendations emerged. These include using a train the trainer educational model, engaging with professionals and encouraging farmer-to-farmer communication, and leveraging digital resources.
This study assesses the communication challenges and opportunities involved in the outbreak of an unknown disease, the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv) that severely threatened the United States pork industry in 2013 and 2014. Interviews with 13 individuals directly involved in developing and distributing risk and crisis messages during the outbreak identified four generalizable implications. They featured (1) the advantage of maintaining flexibility in crisis communication planning, (2)the value of audience analysis and message adaptation, (3)the importance of understanding not only what to do, but also why the recommended actions are essential, and (4) the utility of risk/crisis communication and education both prior to and during a crisis event.
