COS 104-1 - Did you say Biodiversity, Biodiversité or 生物多样性? Canadian, French and Chinese perspectives.

Background/Question/Methods

The global biodiversity crisis has become an important issue in recent years. Yet, the crisis is not equally spread around the globe nor does its representation given the same emphasis in various media. These discrepancies can result from a variety of causes such as cultural perspective, political agenda, local scientific evidence, and targeted audience among others. In this study, the relationships between the coverage of biodiversity in mass media and the actual biodiversity variation were investigated using six national level newspapers, the National Post and the Global Mail in Canada, Libération and Le Monde in France, the People’s Daily and China Daily in China. The biodiversity coverage in the past decade (2010-2019) among these six outlets was assessed (3504 articles) and the number of articles, the scope of each article and the media attitude were analysed.

Results/Conclusions

Our results showed that the coverage of biodiversity was not equally distributed with the French media representing more than half of all articles. The presence of biodiversity increased over time among all sources but the scope was drastically different from an inward approach in the Chinese media to a more global perspective in the Canadian and French media. The positive outlook of the Chinese coverage was also in contrast to a more balance attitude from the others although key issues were relatively similar in all media. With the shape and choices of media coverage playing a key role in the public understanding of the biodiversity crisis, this study represents a useful feedback to the mass media for improving their representation of biodiversity and encouraging the public to protect it worldwide.