Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 34 Document Number: D10674
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6 pages., via Scientific American website., Demand for seafood is increasing across the globe, and the United States is no exception. Aquaculture, or aquatic farming, is increasingly meeting this demand and now supplies just over 50 percent of all seafood globally. In fact, it has been one of the world’s fastest growing food sectors for years.
30 pages, via online journal, Environmental journalists, as gatekeepers, often become arbiters of risk and benefit information. This study explores how their routine news value judgments may influence reporting on marine aquaculture, a growing domestic industry with complex social and ecological impacts. We interviewed New England newspaper journalists using Q methodology, a qualitative dominant mixed-method approach to study shared subjectivity in small samples. Results revealed four distinct reporting perspectives—“state structuralist,” “neighborhood preservationist,” “industrial futurist,” and “local proceduralist”—stemming from the news value and objectivity routines journalists used in news selection. Findings suggest implications for public understanding of, and positionality toward, natural resource use and development.
