B. P. Kaltenborn, Jenny F. Kaltenborn, B. Baczyńska, Just Kornfeldt, G. Hovelsrud
{"title":"Media Coverage of Environmental and Social Change in Northern Norway’s Coastal Regions: Main Themes in National and International News","authors":"B. P. Kaltenborn, Jenny F. Kaltenborn, B. Baczyńska, Just Kornfeldt, G. Hovelsrud","doi":"10.14430/ARCTIC72474","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Media are important agents in the shaping of northern images. Media coverage influences public perceptions and policy governing resource and societal development. But popular media often provide incomplete and skewed representations compared to the documentation provided by scientific literature and the range of activities and interests present in a region. We conducted a topic analysis of media coverage of environmental and social change in the Helgeland, Lofoten, and Vesterålen regions in northern Norway and Svalbard in the high Arctic during approximately 2014 to 2018. Our findings show that popular media collectively contribute to an image of expanding economic development based on natural resource exploitation. However, this narrative is incomplete in terms of the societal dynamics linked to natural resource development as documented in the scientific literature and somewhat biased towards climate change, oil and gas exploitation, tourism, and marine harvesting. Emergency preparedness issues and economic transitions are under-communicated, and we conclude that the popular media narrative only partly represents an alternative to the government policy discourse on northern issues.","PeriodicalId":55464,"journal":{"name":"Arctic","volume":"74 1","pages":"152-166"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2021-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Arctic","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.14430/ARCTIC72474","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Media are important agents in the shaping of northern images. Media coverage influences public perceptions and policy governing resource and societal development. But popular media often provide incomplete and skewed representations compared to the documentation provided by scientific literature and the range of activities and interests present in a region. We conducted a topic analysis of media coverage of environmental and social change in the Helgeland, Lofoten, and Vesterålen regions in northern Norway and Svalbard in the high Arctic during approximately 2014 to 2018. Our findings show that popular media collectively contribute to an image of expanding economic development based on natural resource exploitation. However, this narrative is incomplete in terms of the societal dynamics linked to natural resource development as documented in the scientific literature and somewhat biased towards climate change, oil and gas exploitation, tourism, and marine harvesting. Emergency preparedness issues and economic transitions are under-communicated, and we conclude that the popular media narrative only partly represents an alternative to the government policy discourse on northern issues.
期刊介绍:
Arctic is a peer-reviewed, primary research journal that publishes the results of scientific research
from all areas of Arctic scholarship. Original scholarly papers in the physical, social, and biological
sciences, humanities, engineering, and technology are included, as are book reviews,
commentaries, letters to the editor, and profiles of significant people, places, or events of northern
interest