An analysis of Australian news and current affair program coverage of sharks on Facebook

Abstract

As most people will never encounter sharks in the wild, the media's portrayal of these animals is a key contributing factor to public perception of these species. Facebook is a common way for people to engage with news in Australia. Therefore, content and thematic analysis was conducted on a novel dataset comprising of 2,643 Facebook posts made by Australian news and current affairs media outlets during 2016. To allow for an understanding of the general public's reaction to the media coverage, 40,373 public Facebook user's comments were also analyzed. Shark‐related posts were common, with 87% of all the news‐related Facebook pages analyzed having published at least one post related to sharks and only 49 days had no published shark‐related posts. Shark and human interactions were overwhelmingly the most common theme in the Facebook posts with 45.6% falling into this category and none of these posts labelled the interactions using the Australian Shark Attack File categorization. A common theme emerging from the user comments was that the ocean is dangerous (n = 2,493), suggesting that people may perceive the risk of shark attacks to be high. Because human behaviors negatively impact shark populations, social science research, including media analyses, is an important tool for understanding perceptions of sharks and may guide strategies that could support conservation efforts, including suggestions for how the media should report shark and human interactions.

The effectiveness of Shark‐Management‐Alert‐in‐Real‐Time (SMART) drumlines as a tool for catching white sharks, Carcharodon carcharias, off coastal New South Wales, Australia

“…Following traumatic shark bite events, coastal communities adjacent to these incidents often experience heightened negative attitudes towards sharks (Pepin‐Neff & Wynter, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c) and suffer economic loss (Hazin et al, 2008). Additionally, mainstream and social media often sensationalise these rare events, further contributing to negative attitudes towards sharks (Fraser‐Baxter & Medvecky, 2018; Le Busque et al, 2019; McCagh et al, 2015; Simmons & Mehmet, 2018). Affected communities commonly call for government intervention, pressuring authorities to implement strategies that attempt to catch, deter, detect, track or kill those shark species deemed responsible.…”

Jumping the Shark: White Shark Representations in Great White Serial Killer Lives—The Fear and the (Pseudo-)Science

“…274-75). A study of Facebook pages of Australian media-i.e., newspapers, television, and radio-also uncovered a similar emphasis on white sharks in threatening interactions with humans as well as recurrent use of the term "attack" along with mitigation and/or deterrents such as culling (Le Busque et al 2019).…”

Influence of social media on fear of sharks, perceptions of intentionality associated with shark bites, and shark management preferences

“…Additionally, shark related content is prevalent on social media platforms. News outlets in the US and Australia cover hundreds of shark related stories each year, with many of these stories resulting in content and engagements (e.g., comments) for their respective social media accounts (le Busque et al, 2019). For example, Australian news agencies made over 2,600 shark related social media posts in 2016, resulting in over 40,000 engagements.…”