Representing the Greater Flamingo in Southern France: A semantic analysis of newspaper articles showing change over time

Conservation planning is increasingly dependent on communications strategies to promote and support changes in practice and land-use. Identifying the way the news media represent issues results in better focus and more effective communications for conservation science. News media reporting plays a dual role in public debates providing a forum for public discourse and integrating discussion occurring in other forums. Semantic mapping of the textual content of 108 newspaper articles shows change in representation of the Greater Flamingos in Southern France over a seven year period. This form of automated content analysis results in replicable and valid inferences that link media representation to social and environmental context. The changes in the way events were reported over time provided knowledge and insights into the representation of flamingos shifting from locally important values to emphasize regional and national values over time. This type of analysis is valuable to focus conservation planning and management providing a means to anticipate journalist representation of local issues at different socio-geographic scales. Clear identification of representation contributes to more effective communication promoting coastal conservation management.