Newspaper Coverage and Framing of Bats, and Their Impact on Readership Engagement.

ABSTRACT: The media is a valuable pathway for transforming people's attitudes towards conservation issues. Understanding how bats are framed in the media is hence essential for bat conservation, particularly considering the recent fearmongering and misinformation about the risks posed by bats. We reviewed bat-related articles published online no later than 2019 (before the recent COVID19 pandemic), in 15 newspapers from the five most populated countries in Western Europe. We examined the extent to which bats were presented as a threat to human health and the assumed general attitudes towards bats that such articles supported. We quantified press coverage on bat conservation values and evaluated whether the country and political stance had any information bias. Finally, we assessed their terminology

SUBMITTER: Lopez-Baucells A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10225754 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature