Media analysis in a case study of Šumava National Park: A permanent dispute among interest groups (original) (raw)

Forest bioeconomy in the media discourse in Spain

Ambio, 2020

Media can play a key role in shaping public opinion and setting a policy agenda by conveying and influencing public discourse. This article evaluates how the Spanish media has covered the topic of the forest bioeconomy and what kind of discourse it has produced and reproduced around it. For this purpose, we analysed the content of 204 national and regional newspaper articles. The results reveal the scarce penetration of the forest bioeconomy in media and some weaknesses in the narrative production and communicative dimension. The discourse is mainly constructed by governments with a limited presence of multiple stakeholders and an absence of conflict and divergent or alternative views. In addition, the discourse only addresses regional or local problems within the framework of an extended and dominant paradigm of economic growth considering the forest bioeconomy as an opportunity to combat fire, rural abandonment, smallholdings, and poor forest management. We conclude that media is not using its strategic potential and capacity as a public space. To become agents of change, the media should reflect a forest bioeconomy based on successful experiences of innovation and valorization, and adopt a transformative social vision that gives relevance to the interconnection between multiple stakeholders, forest multifunctionality and rural development.

Discourse analysis as an instrument to reveal the pivotal role of the media in local acceptance or rejection of a wildlife management project

Archive for Scientific Geography, 2012

Protected areas rate among the most popular nature conservation measures according to general public opinion in Germany. However, people living close to these sites do not always share this positive view. In fact, the implementation of such measures often leads to conflicts between the local resident population and management staff, which in many cases emanate from the failure to actively involve locals in the decision processes. Communication and participation are now acknowledged as crucial for the acceptance of nature conservation measures and are applied more and more in practice, but these factors do not guarantee the successful cooperation between the protected areas' administration units and their inhabitants. Past experiences and events may have planted mistrust and antipathies now thoroughly embedded in the collective memory, and thus hinder successful results in future decision-making processes. By means of discourse analysis, we examined a bottom-up process initiated in the Bavarian Forest National Park (southern Germany) concerning the future management of its red deer population. This exemplary study reveals the pivotal role the media plays in presenting the public discourse on nature conservation issues in general, and which discursive elements may have led to the final failure of the project in the case study presented.

Framing environmental policy by the local press: Case study from the Dadia Forest Reserve, Greece

Forest Policy and Economics, 2008

This paper critically examines the way environmental policy is framed by the press. Focusing on the Dadia Forest Reserve (Greece), we investigated the article content of a local newspaper across three subsequent periods of ecotourism development and three item topics, namely 'ecotourism', 'forest management' and 'environmental awareness'. Content analysis of newspaper articles was based on a pre-defined coding scheme. Overall, time trends as reflected in the local press implied a change in environmental policy stirring from an expert-led towards a more participatory approach. Gradually, balanced schemes dominated environmental policy, where both environmental and economic considerations were taken into account under a diverse spatiotemporal range. Social consensus seems to have been established during the second period of ecotourism development. Ecotourism as an item topic was less connected to environmentalist motives compared to economic ones; the opposite was revealed for the forest management topic. However, our reconstruction of environmental policy in the local press, showed that environmental and economic motives did hardly intercross. Additionally, the ability of the local press to produce and limit meaning was manifested by the sealing of any production process including the one that apparently produces the ecotourism product. Implications for environmental policy and forest management are discussed.

Framing the tiger — A biodiversity concern in national and international media reporting

International forest and environmental governance processes assume that ideas and concepts surrounding biodiversity at the international level will be made accessible at a national level so that they can be easily adopted by national forest and environmental policy arenas. One prerequisite for a seamless implementation of these ideas and concepts is a common definition of specific problems at different political levels. Different perceptions mirrored by media reporting on problems at different political levels may affect the implementation of policies that must be carried out at a national level, even if decisions concerning this implementation are made at an international level. Using the illustrative case of human-tiger interaction, this article shows how national and international media reporting differ in their framing of a particular problem. Based on a theoretical framework consisting framing and media selection theory, and on initial empirical observations, the article recommends blueprints for future in-depth research on the relationship between media framing and policy at different political levels. This case study is based on quantitative content analysis of reports on tiger-human interaction published between 2005 and 2010 in an international newspaper and a national one from Bangladesh. Our example shows that the selected national newspaper frames the tiger as a threat to the livelihood and well-being of local people, whereas the international newspaper stresses biodiversity and climate-change related aspects of human-tiger conflicts. These results indicate that the framing of an issue in the media can differ considerably at different levels and that this is a fruitful field for future in-depth research.

Conflicts between forestry and nature protection: Case studies of two Nature Parks in Croatia

electronic form only:: …, 2009

The forest related conflicts has not been very often used as a research topic in Croatia. This paper presents results from two case studies conducted in Nature Parks »Kopa~ki rit« and »Velebit«. The aim of the study was to explore conflicts between forestry and nature protection on management level. The main research questions were raised: (a)

Analysis of the perceived condition of forests in the Czech Republic

Journal of Forest Science

A realistic perception of the condition of forests, and the attributes of the forestry sector, by the public constitutes one of the basic prerequisites for successful implementation of forest policy in any country. Although data objectively demonstrate that the condition of Czech forests has improved, opinion polls show a gap between the public perception of the condition of Czech forests and the real status of these forests. The reasons for the discrepancy between reality and the perception of the public, and between the results of different surveys, are analysed. The most significant differences were found in perceptions of damage and threats to forests. The effectiveness of communication about forest policy is discussed, and some ways to create more effective communication are examined.

The formulation of the National Forest Programme in the Czech Republic: A qualitative survey

Forest Policy and Economics, 2017

National Forest Programme (NFP) is a comprehensive social and political framework to achieve an effective sustainable forest management developing a spirit of cooperation among national and sub-national social actors. In this study, the participatory process adopted in the formulation of the second NFP in Czech Republic (NFPII) was analysed considering four aspects: (1) structure of the participatory process; (2) level of participation and social actors involved; (3) role of facilitator; (4) skills and knowledge of participants. The data were collected through in-depth interviews to a sample of stakeholders (44% of total stakeholders involved in the decision-making process). The results of this study show that the participatory process for Czech NFPII was designed considering representativeness, early involvement, independency, influence, transparency, and resource accessibility criterion. The participatory process was structured in two stages: in the first stage the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of the Environment identified 17 experts to involve in the definition of a first draft of NFPII; in the second stage the two Ministries identified and involved 18 organized groups of stakeholders in order to discuss the key issues previously identified by experts. The main weakness of participatory process in the formulation of NFPII in Czech Republic is the low level of participation of citizens and the different level of skills and knowledge among participants.

The perception of an image of the state forest enterprise by general public in chosen region of the Slovak Republic

The perception of an image of the state forest enterprise by general public in chosen region of the Slovak Republic, 2022

This paper deals with the comparison of the general public perception and the opinion of state forest managers on image of the state forest enterprise. The research was organised during the period 2015-2019. One group of respondents involved all managers of 23 sub-enterprises of state forest enterprise Lesy SR. The other group consisted of 384 respondents representing the general public residing in the Banská Bystrica region. Structured questionnaire with one open and 16 closed questions was applied for data collection with a help of electronic means. Collected data were processed with descriptive (particularly frequency analysis) and two-dimensional statistical methods. The results of the image inquiry aimed at three issues: (i) perceptions of the forest management effectiveness of the state versus non-state forest enterprises, (ii) perception of marketing strategy and its tools of the state forest enterprise, and (iii) comparison between public awareness/experience with public relations activities of the state forest enterprise.

Debate about the Šumava National Park in the Czech Chamber of Deputies

Envigogika, 2015

This study focuses on the content of the complete transcripts of parliamentary debates about National Park Šumava (ŠNP) in the Chamber of Deputies between 1990 and 2013. The study shows that politicians have been using the situation in the ŠNP to support their political strategies. During the parliamentary debates they refer to the regional atmosphere while highlighting peripheral character of the region and exclusion of local people from decision-making. They ignore plurality of conditions in the area and role of politics in the construction of the problem. The study also summarizes the legislative proposals relating to ŠNP through examination of evolution of accents and dictions in different bills and description of legislative process. Basic patterns and roles represented in the discussion are analysed, as well as the way they are reflected in the conceptual framing of the topic and accents of legislative proposals. The study concludes that scientific approach, reducing political...