Oyster Coverage: Chiastic News as a Reflection of Local Expertise and Economic Concerns

Abstract

The media, it is argued, are agents of legitimation - for themselves as well as others. Issues and social actors become recognized as important when they appear within the limelight of the news, and reporters are relied upon to correctly choose among the myriads of issues and actors vying for their attention. What happens, though, when an economically important cultural icon becomes a health threat? This is the situation facing news organizations in Southern Louisiana where oysters are both loved and loathed as food. We study newspaper presentations of oysters in Southern Louisiana over a ten-year period to investigate the ways in which this issue was approached. In many of the instances when negative articles appeared, positive statements could be found in the same issue of the newspaper, creating what we refer to as chiastic - defined as two parallel lines moving in opposite directions - media presentations. The presence of this type of news reporting is discussed in terms of the economic and cultural importance of the oyster, the economics of newspapers, and the stance of news organizations as cultural authorities.

The Cynical Public: Claims about Science in the Discourse on Hydrofracking

“…7.1 The simultaneous coverage of hydraulic fracturing as a boon and a bane is consistent with previous research on chiastic coverage (e.g., Ten Eyck and Deseran 2004), but the unexpected large segment of neutrality somewhat complicates this interpetation. It may be possible that it is too early in the debate for opinions and media coverage to be more polarized, and follow-up research can test this possibility.…”

“…Our main focus lies in the exploration of what role there is for science in such public debates. The issue of unconventional shale gas development is shrouded in uncertainty, thus rendering cost-benefit estimates very difficult, and has resulted in what Ten Eyck and Deseran (2004) refer to as chiastic media coverage—two parallel lines of media coverage moving in opposing directions. With regard to shale gas development, one such line touts economic gains and energy independence that it may bring, while the other warns of impending environmental catastrophe and threats to human health.…”

Amplification without the event: the rise of the flexitarian

“…It was particularly notable that many reporters were actively defending meat-eating. Our research has not been designed to evaluate the overall balance of opinion and we do no more here than accept the chiastic nature of the media (Eyck and Deseran 2004). Indeed, with articles for and against any and all risk characterisations, drawing on entirely different worldviews (Wynne 1996), enjoying different degrees of prominence within and between newspapers and being articulated with different degrees of force within heterogenous contexts, any undertaking to meaningfully gauge the overall weight of opinion in newspapers would be daunting to say the least.…”

“…Again, we reaffirm our assertion that 'events' do not precede information flow but are themselves part of the nexus of meaning, continually subject to interpretation and inescapably dependent on information flow in order to have meaning. Furthermore, the compound concept that is 'the media' rarely promotes unidirectional messages but is chiastic in nature (Eyck and Deseran 2004) often presenting contradictory messages. Media outlets differ in their worldviews but even within the same newspaper, one might find a recipe including meat or an advertisement for a meat product in close proximity to an article reporting a risk associated with meat-eating.…”

The quality of food risk management in Europe: Perspectives and priorities

“…In a subsequent paper, the authors examine what they refer to as chiastic media presentations (two parallel lines moving in opposite directions), whereby positive and negative statements regarding food risks appear in the same issue of a newspaper (Ten Eyck and Deseran, 2004). Meanwhile, Ten Eyck and Williment (2004) looked at media coverage of three different food technologies (milk pasteurisation, food irradiation and biotechnology) to establish how journalistic practices have evolved over time.…”