Media Coverage of Ocean Issues: A Content Analysis of Newspaper Articles on Marine, Coastal, and Ocean Management from 1990 – 2010

Previous studies demonstrate that news media influence agenda-setting on policy issues for the general public, and that content analysis of newsprint is a useful approach to determining public perspectives on policy issues.  However, little attention had been paid to public perception of ecosystem-based management until Bengston’s (2001) news media analysis, which demonstrated that the issue attention cycle for primarily land-based ecosystem management had leveled out in the late 1990s.  Media coverage of ocean issues continued to change in the 20 years since Bengston’s research began.  We used content analysis of newspaper articles to characterize the evolution and portrayal of print media coverage of ocean themes and management from August 1, 1990 – August 1, 2010.  We selected articles from newspapers with the highest circulation within the United States.  We used the NewsBank Access World News database (http://infoweb.newsbank.com, 2011) to search for articles with one or all of the terms from each of 2 categories, ocean, marine, and/or coastal and management and/or policy, and with a publication date between August 1, 1990 and August 1, 2010.  Two coders analyzed a subsample of the 5737 articles yielded by the search.  We characterized articles in terms of technical terminology and article content in the categories of environment, human dimensions, fishing, economics, and marine policy.  Results from the content analysis suggest that the types of ocean, marine, and coastal management themes covered by the media changed between 1990 and 2010. Newspaper portrayal of stakeholder representation and use of technical language shifted over time.  Media coverage of ocean ecosystem management in 2010 can be compared to the issue attention cycle relevant for land-based ecosystem management in the mid-1990’s (Bengston, 2001).  Overall, the quantity of newspaper articles published about ocean themes and management issues appears to be related to release of national-level ocean policies and passage of federal ocean legislation. These results provide insight into the continually developing role that print media plays in providing information to the public about ocean management issues.