Tracking Chinese newspaper coverage of elephant ivory through topic modeling

Area of Science:

• Conservation Science
• Media Studies
• Public Opinion Research

Background:

• Mass media significantly influences public awareness of illegal wildlife trade and its conservation impact.
• Analyzing media framing of elephant ivory in China provides insights into public opinion dynamics related to wildlife policies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze media framing of elephant ivory in Chinese newspapers from 2000-2021.
• To determine the effects of wildlife policies, specifically CITES ivory trade approval and the domestic ivory ban, on public opinion.

Main Methods:

• Utilized latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling on 6394 Chinese newspaper articles.
• Identified 8 topics related to elephant ivory, categorized into 3 frames: arts and culture, crimes, and conservation.
• Examined shifts in media salience before and after key policy events.

Main Results:

• Ivory crime topics were consistently prevalent over two decades.
• Media salience of ivory arts and culture topics significantly shifted after the 2008 CITES approval and 2016 domestic ban.
• Public opinion became more negative after ivory importation approval and less negative after the domestic ban announcement.

Conclusions:

• Media framing and public opinion on elephant ivory are complex and influenced by policy changes.
• Topic modeling is a valuable tool for assessing media representations of wildlife issues.
• Conservationists should monitor media narratives and collaborate with media practitioners for effective communication.