Mobile knowledge and the media: The movement of scientific information in the context of environmental controversy

Abstract

This paper examines the role of the news media in transnational flows of knowledge. Its focus is on salmon aquaculture, an industry operating in Europe, Canada, and elsewhere. To examine the movement of knowledge from Europe to Canada, a sample of 323 news stories mentioning European aquaculture was drawn from 1261 stories about aquaculture published in Canadian newspapers between 1982 and 2007. Their analysis demonstrates the role of the media in selectively moving and shaping scientific knowledge. This role has been influenced by numerous factors, including journalistic norms, source strategies, and the assertion of trust, relevance and scientific credibility. This analysis corrects the common assumption in the internet era that information flows freely: new technology has not obviated the role of social factors. The media’s role in the movement of knowledge also has implications for the geography of science, and for the status of science as a situated practice.

Keywords

globalization of science and technology media and science media representations movement of knowledge science communication scientific controversies

1. Science, controversy, and the media

This article examines the role of the news media in the movement of environmental knowledge, in the assertion of claims regarding the relevance and credibility of this knowledge, and in the construction of science as a situated practice. Its point of departure is awareness of the media as a principal means by which policy-relevant issues and information come to the attention of decision makers, interest groups, and the general public (Corbett and Durfee, 2004; Major and Atwood, 2004; Antilla, 2005; Carvalho, 2007). This encompasses the media’s important role in disseminating scientific information in the context of environmental controversies, one result of which is that the public tends to understand the science that relates to these controversies “less through direct experience or past education than through the filter of journalistic language and imagery” (Nelkin, 1995: 2). Many factors influence the scale and character of media coverage of science and environmental controversies, including current events, competing economic priorities, newsworthiness, and perceptions of the credibility and trustworthiness of sources. The professional culture of journalism and its attendant conventions and norms are also important, including the assurance of balance through presentation of opposing views, and attention to the everyday culture of media audiences (Peters, 1995).

Media coverage of science can also be examined in terms of how information is framed. Frames – that is, interpretative schemes that imply particular approaches to problems, their causal relationships, and potential solutions – are an essential tool for understanding how the media define an issue (Scheufele, 1999, 2000; Nisbet et al., 2003; Antilla, 2005; Scheufele and Lewenstein, 2005; Corbett, 2006; Carvalho, 2007; Scheufele and Tewksbury, 2007; Matthes and Kohring, 2008). Framing an issue involves not just presenting, but explaining information: why it is important, who might be responsible, and what might be done about it. For journalists, frames are a means of presenting and interpreting information efficiently; for audiences, they are similarly important in understanding new information and relating it to already accepted knowledge. For example, the media have framed biotechnology as, alternatively, a means of achieving food security or economic growth through science, as a matter demanding political and ethical reflection, or as a Pandora’s Box of uncertain hazards and corporate control over agriculture (Nisbet and Lewenstein, 2002).

How the media frame information is also relevant to understanding the presentation of science. As researchers have noted, the media do not present merely scientific knowledge, but also ideas regarding the practice of science (Gregory and Miller, 1998: 90). This reflects not only curiosity about what scientists do, but concerns regarding science in its social context: skepticism regarding the relations between science and political or economic interests; demands for guidance in evaluating the credibility and trustworthiness of science and scientists, or in understanding the meaning of controversies between scientists; and a lack of clarity regarding scientific uncertainties such as those encountered in relation to climate change (Zehr, 2000; Mooney, 2005; Carvalho, 2007; Weingart, 2007; McGarity and Wagner, 2008; Michaels, 2008). One consequence has been the emergence of an image of science as less a pathway to objective truth, than a social institution akin to that described by historians and sociologists of science, in which scientific practice and knowledge are shaped by the diverse values, interests, and ideologies of its practitioners, patrons, and audiences – in short, a view of knowledge as a contingent phenomenon.

Scholars have also described how contemporary science is constructed in many sites beyond laboratories and scientific journals. In particular, when science has consequences for actors beyond the scientific community – as in environmental controversies, for example – scientists do not act independently in specifying aspects of their practice such as choice of methods or the weighing of uncertainties (Irwin and Wynne, 1996; Fischer, 2004). Instead, these are negotiated through social relationships between scientists, policy actors, interest groups, and the general public. The media, in turn, play an important role in mediating and framing these negotiations, and thus, do not merely report on science as social and contingent, but contribute to constructing this identity (Allan, 2002).

While scholars have contributed a great deal to understanding agenda setting, framing, and the social construction of science in the context of controversy, other important aspects of contemporary science–media relations have received less attention. One such aspect is the representation of science as a situated practice.

2. Situated science and the media

In recent years there has been increasing interest in understanding science as a situated practice – that is, as a phenomenon that does not exist independently of space, but can be located, and has a geography. Two aspects have been especially important. One is the significance of local sites of knowledge production, encompassing the influence of political and social contexts, institutions, disciplines, and local environments (Shapin, 1998; Barnes, 2004; Kohler, 2006). A second has been how local knowledge gains the capacity to “travel” beyond the site of its production, so that it may be considered of general, even universal, authority. As several scholars have explained, this authority must be asserted, not just assumed. Study of the movement of knowledge, and of the contested and ambiguous boundaries between global and local knowledge, has encompassed political and economic structures, such as the relations between colonies and centers of empire, and the role of international conservation organizations in local environments (Kirsch, 2000; Livingstone, 2003; Jasanoff and Martello, 2004; Powell, 2007; Anderson and Adams, 2008).

The political and economic implications of science as a situated practice have also attracted attention, motivated by awareness that accompanying the status of sites as centers of knowledge production is the potential for extension of these centers’ social and conceptual control over local places. The relations between science and control have been critically examined in a variety of contexts: environmental justice and the geographies of race, poverty, and hazards; imposition of local conceptions of nature (such as that of wilderness) that become defined as universal; and redefinition of global issues such as climate change in terms of a specific authoritative local perspective (Guha, 1997; Jamieson, 2001; Lewis, 2007). In a less critical vein, science policy analysts have applied ideas of situated science to economic innovation, examining the geography of scientific practice and application, with notions of research clusters (often defined in terms of an economic sector rather than a scientific discipline) displacing assumptions of an homogeneous landscape of scientific activity (Niosi, 2005).

The concepts of situated science and its constructed capacity to be mobile imply a research agenda, with several questions specific to understanding science and the media. One is the role of the media in mediating the relations between science and place, through their portrayals of the links between knowledge and local circumstances. A second relates to the movement of knowledge through the media: through displacement of individuals or texts, the formation of networks, or by other means. A third question relates to the contestation in the context of controversy of the capacity of knowledge to be mobile, expressed in terms of the role of the media in shaping perceptions of the credibility of knowledge beyond the context of its formation, and of the potential for conflict between mobile knowledge and local conditions and forms of knowledge.

The implications for the news media of globalization, including the role of communication technologies, have been an active area of research (Campbell, 2004; Flew, 2007). These studies have drawn to some extent on the work of globalization scholars such as Arjun Appadurai and Saskia Sassen, who have emphasized the deterritorialization of proximity, undermining the notion of clearly defined spatial hierarchies such as local, national, and global. Instead, multiple, often overlapping spatialities, defined in terms of the flows of, for example, capital, information, or people, together define the diverse and sometimes unexpected proximities that link geographically disparate sites. This perspective acknowledges the importance of global flows, while respecting the local circumstances that shape how these are expressed and experienced (Appadurai, 1996; Sassen, 2000).

However, and not withstanding these studies of the implications of globalization, there have been few studies of the media in terms of situated science, the mobility of information, and multiple spatialities. Indeed, with the exception of the role of geographic proximity in evaluations of newsworthiness (that is, the effort to find local angles in national or international stories, and the tendency to weigh the importance of events in terms of their proximity), media studies have tended to neglect geographical dimensions of scientific knowledge and practice (Priest, 2001; Görke and Ruhrmann, 2003; Sachsman et al., 2004). Yet, given the role of the media in constructing scientific knowledge and practice, it can be hypothesized that the media also contribute to the formation of science as a situated practice, and to the assertion of its capacity to be mobile, with this capacity linked to evaluations of trustworthiness and credibility. Opportunities for evaluating this hypothesis are provided by scientific activities and related controversies that are themselves situated in specific places, with the relevance and credibility of evidence from elsewhere a matter of debate. These conditions are fulfilled by recent controversies relating to salmon aquaculture: an industry and associated scientific activity that are located in specific places, and yet also form international networks of knowledge and practice.

3. Geographies of salmon aquaculture

Salmon aquaculture – the raising of salmon in enclosed net-pens, also known as salmon farming – has emerged in recent years as a significant coastal industry. First established in Norway in the early 1970s, it is now also practiced in Chile, Scotland, Ireland, and British Columbia, Canada (the focus of this study), with smaller initiatives under way in New Brunswick, Maine, and Washington State. Since 1999 global production of farmed salmon has exceeded that of the conventional salmon fishery (Eagle et al., 2004). In British Columbia the industry has grown rapidly since the late 1980s (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Events in the history of British Columbia (BC) aquaculture, Canadian media coverage, and European aquaculture

Year	Events in British Columbia	Canadian media coverage of European aquaculture	Events in Europe
1975	early 1970s: small-scale aquaculture initiatives begin in BC		1975–1979: observation of Gyrodactylus parasite in Norwegian rivers
1980	1984: annual BC farmed salmon production 107 tonnes		early 1980s: Gyrodactylus control efforts in Norway
	mid-1980s: conflicts in BC between aquaculture and other marine activities; concerns regarding disease transfer, waste discharges, impacts on marine mammals	mid-1980s: economic dimensions dominate coverage	mid-1980s: start of substantial European (mainly Norwegian) investment in BC aquaculture
	late 1980s: BC aquaculture industry adopts Atlantic salmon as primary species, displacing Pacific salmon	late 1980s: disease dominates coverage of environmental aspects
	1988: annual BC farmed salmon production 6600 tonnes
1990	1988–1992: BC aquaculture industry crisis and consolidation	early 1990s: little coverage of environmental aspects	late 1980s–early 1990s: sea lice infestations found in sea trout in Ireland, Scotland, Norway
	1991: annual BC farmed salmon production 24,000 tonnes
	mid-1990s: evidence of colonization of BC environment by escaped Atlantic salmon		mid-1990s: European scientists identify farms as source of sea lice affecting sea trout
	1995: moratorium on new salmon farm sites in BC	late 1990s: disease and Atlantic salmon dominate coverage of environmental aspects
	1997: BC Salmon Aquaculture Review released
2000	2000: evidence of contaminants in farmed salmon
	2001: first evidence of transfer of sea lice from farms to wild salmon in BC
	2002: annual BC farmed salmon production 84,000 tonnes	2002–2007: sea lice dominates coverage of environmental aspects
	2002: end of moratorium on new farm sites
2007	2002–2007: continued research in BC on salmon–sea lice relations

The industry has also generated considerable controversy. In British Columbia the provincial government and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans have devoted political, economic, and intellectual capital to encouraging its growth; industry associations and aquaculture companies themselves actively promote it. Salmon aquaculture has also generated considerable opposition among environmental groups, salmon fishers, and in many coastal communities (Schreiber, 2003; Hume et al., 2004; Naylor and Burke, 2005; Robson, 2006). Their concerns stem from a variety of environmental issues: the release of contaminants, the ecological impacts of escaped salmon, and the role of farms in encouraging the spread of sea lice – a parasite that affects both farmed and wild salmon (Gardner and Peterson, 2003; Naylor et al., 2003; Hites et al., 2004; Weir and Grant, 2005). Critics have also raised more general concerns regarding the industry’s social and cultural implications – concerns linked to the iconic status of salmon in coastal identity (Schreiber, 2002).

The spatial dimensions of this industry are complex and continue to evolve. International investment and ownership have become increasingly significant. While the industry in British Columbia was in part initiated by fishers and other local actors, currently four multinational corporations, most headquartered in Norway, own 80 percent of the roughly 100 farms in the province. These corporations also endeavor to present themselves as “local” businesses. Complex spatial dimensions are also exemplified by the role of the global salmon market in determining the local viability of aquaculture, even as it demands a standardized product that eschews local variation. Farmed salmon also compete in the marketplace with a “wild” salmon fishery that identifies itself closely with place. International flows of biological material: breeding stock of Atlantic salmon (now the dominant species raised in British Columbia, but characterized by many as an exotic invasive species), fish feed (much of which is derived from fish caught elsewhere in the world), and the product itself, add their own complexities to these spatial dimensions.

Another international dimension of salmon aquaculture has been a scientific research effort pursuing both technical innovations and a better understanding of the industry’s environmental and health implications. Through this effort, scientific knowledge of aquaculture has acquired its own geography. For example, aspects of the environmental implications of aquaculture about which a firm consensus has been achieved in Europe, such as the implications of sea lice, have been simultaneously the focus of active research and controversy in Canada (Mills, 2003; Krkosek et al., 2007). These and other aspects of the geography of aquaculture knowledge have created conditions in which the relevance and credibility of information from elsewhere could be contested.

Overall, therefore, questions of place, space, and the movement of knowledge have been endemic in salmon aquaculture, with science heavily implicated in these questions. It can be hypothesized, given the public’s lack of direct experience with aquaculture outside the local region, that the media would play an important role in framing these questions and in defining the relevance and credibility of information from elsewhere. This is particularly likely in British Columbia, where aquaculture (and accompanying controversies) have received ample media coverage, with contested scientific information regarding the environmental implications of aquaculture forming a major element of this coverage. Various parties have sought to ensure that this coverage presents the industry in ways consistent with their own values and interests. These efforts have interacted with other factors that shape media coverage, including external events, the political and ideological environment, media views regarding the newsworthiness of an issue and its framing, and perceptions of the geography of the industry and of its knowledge base.

4. Scope of the study

This analysis will focus on several research questions. Together they address aspects of the communication of scientific and other types of information by the media in the context of salmon aquaculture controversies in British Columbia. One is the role of the media in the movement of information – in this case, from European sites of salmon aquaculture to Canada. This implies two subsidiary areas of inquiry: the evaluation and representation by the media of the relevance of European information to local aquaculture issues in Canada; and the means and formats by which information is conveyed by the media from Europe to Canada. A second aspect is the relation between this movement of information and the role of the media in defining and framing the public agenda regarding aquaculture. A third is the role of the media in the construction of the situated nature of aquaculture science and the geographic dimensions of aquaculture.

The study begins with a quantitative analysis designed to identify temporal patterns in mentions of European salmon aquaculture by the Canadian media. This analysis examines both scientific and other forms of information, and so provides necessary context for examining the movement of scientific information from Europe to Canada. The hypothesis is that coverage in the Canadian media of European salmon aquaculture corresponds, at least in part, to its perceived relevance to the development of the domestic aquaculture industry and associated controversies. Accordingly, the following question is posed:

Research Question 1: How do temporal patterns in Canadian media attention to European salmon aquaculture relate to the domestic development of the aquaculture industry and related controversies? This question will be examined in relation to the timeline summarizing salient aspects of the history of salmon aquaculture in British Columbia (Table 1).

It is also of interest to consider not just what, but how knowledge travels between Europe and Canada – that is, the mechanisms by which information is transferred between these locations. Much has been made of the role of the internet in global communications. However, effective communication is not just a matter of technology, but depends on social factors such as evaluations of relevance, credibility, and trust. This implies the continuing importance of mediators, such as the media. The following questions address this argument:

Research Question 2: By what means do the media transport information relating to salmon aquaculture between Europe and Canada?

Research Question 3: How can this transport of information be understood in terms of media conventions regarding the formation of relationships of trust and credibility?

Having considered how European knowledge is conveyed to Canadian audiences, we shift our attention to the framing of this knowledge in relation to the local context. Accordingly, an additional research question concerns the themes and frames employed by the media to explain and justify links between aquaculture in Europe and in British Columbia:

Research Question 4: How have the media framed for Canadian audiences their coverage of the environmental dimensions of European aquaculture?

Through attention to these research questions, it will be demonstrated that the movement of scientific knowledge is not simply the inevitable consequence of global networks of communication, but an actively constructed phenomenon, shaped by media practices and conventions, and by the interests that seek to use this knowledge in pursuit of their goals. In this way the media contribute to the construction of science as a situated practice, taking place at local sites of knowledge production, communication, and application.

5. Methods

These research questions will be examined through quantitative and qualitative analysis of texts from Canadian newspapers from 1982 to 2007. Data collection and analysis were conducted in several stages. First, a collection of media articles on salmon aquaculture was assembled using several Canadian databases of newspapers and magazines. Databases were searched for records created between 1982 and 2007. The choice of 1982 as the start point was in response to two considerations: coverage provided by these databases (Canadian Newsstand, 1977+; Alt-Press Watch, 1970+; CBCA Current Events, 1982+), and knowledge of the history of the industry. Articles had to contain the search term “salmon,” and at least one of “science,” “aquaculture,” or “salmon farming.” This generated a collection of 2429 media texts. These were then logged in Zotero, an online citation and bibliographic tool that operates within the Firefox internet browser (www.zotero.org). Zotero captured citation/bibliographic information and the full text of each article. The database thus became available for full-text searching and cross-referencing. Finally, all texts logged in Zotero were reviewed manually, and texts lacking mention of aquaculture were removed. This generated a database of 1261 texts, which became the basis for analysis.

In the second stage, a subset of this database was constructed, composed of all media texts that contained a mention of salmon aquaculture in Europe. The database was searched using the search terms “Europe,” “Norway,” “Scotland,” or “Ireland.” These search results were then screened to remove duplicate stories and those of media other than newspapers. This generated a subset of 323 texts that included some mention of European aquaculture.

In the third stage of data collection and analysis, the primary unit of analysis was the individual text. Each text was carefully examined to identify inductively specific discursive strategies and language relating to the following aspects: mentions of knowledge, experience and opinions regarding links or parallels between salmon aquaculture in Europe and in British Columbia; the assertion or denial of the relevance and/or credibility of these mentions; and the means by which information was communicated between Europe and Canada (including citation of scientific literature, direct testimony of individuals, or other means). Identifying these aspects, and thus addressing how problems, their causal relations, and their implications are defined, provided a basis for identifying elements of the frames employed in interpreting this information, and thus for operationalizing the concept of media framing (Matthes and Kohring, 2008). Data from these analyses were tabulated to serve as a basis for both qualitative and quantitative conclusions. Finally, these data were examined in relation to the broader context of the aquaculture issue: the evolution of the industry, the events and controversies that have constituted its history, and the economic, environmental, social and cultural priorities that have shaped its development.

6. Results and discussion

Patterns in Canadian coverage of European aquaculture

The first research question addressed temporal patterns in Canadian media attention to European salmon aquaculture, and their relation to the development of aquaculture and related controversies. This was examined, in part, through quantitative analysis. Figure 1 indicates mentions, by year, of European aquaculture in the Canadian media, in terms of both numbers of articles and as a percentage of all articles that mention aquaculture. These data provide a basis for three observations: attention to European aquaculture has been episodic; over time this attention has increased in terms of absolute number of articles; it has, however, decreased relative to total media attention to aquaculture. These observations are consistent with patterns of coverage commonly seen in the media, in which attention to an issue is rarely distributed equally across time, but instead is influenced by a variety of shifting factors, including external events, the actions of news sources, and media evaluations of newsworthiness (Nisbet and Lewenstein, 2002).

Figure 1.

European aquaculture in Canadian news media

It can be also hypothesized that these patterns of attention to European salmon aquaculture reflect local factors, including episodes of heightened interest or concern in Canada regarding aquaculture, the efforts of actors to place the issue on the public agenda, and the decreased importance of European information as a result of greater availability of locally generated scientific results. More generally, these patterns may be the consequence of shifts in how aquaculture has been defined: as primarily an administrative or managerial issue under the purview of regulatory agencies; or as a political issue that involves a wider range of actors – as occurs when the capacity or authority of administrative agencies has been placed in doubt (Paehlke and Torgerson, 2005).

Figure 2 provides some insight into these patterns. It indicates the evolving frequency of mentions in the Canadian media of economic and environmental dimensions of European aquaculture. Until the early 1990s the economic dimensions of the European industry generally dominated coverage; by the late 1990s, the environmental dimensions had begun to receive more attention. Examining this shift in relation to the history of the industry in British Columbia (see timeline, Table 1), it can be seen how it corresponds, first, to the growth of the industry during the 1980s, in part as a result of European investment; and subsequently, to controversies regarding its potential environmental impacts and conflicts with other coastal resource users that had begun to emerge by the late 1980s (Keller and Leslie, 1996). These shifts in media attention have also paralleled the redefinition of aquaculture itself as not merely an administrative, but a political matter, with a wider range of interests seeking to place these environmental impacts and conflicts on the public agenda (Robson, 2006).

Figure 2.

Mentions of economic and/or environmental dimensions of European aquaculture in Canadian news media

The hypothesis that there are links between the history of aquaculture in Canada and mentions in the Canadian media of European aquaculture can also be examined in terms of patterns in discussion of specific environmental aspects of the European industry. Three such aspects have been most prominent: the occurrence of infectious diseases, such as furunculosis, in farmed salmon; the potential genetic or ecological impacts of Atlantic salmon in the Pacific coast environment; and the presence of sea lice on farmed salmon, with the potential for their transfer to wild salmon. As Figure 3 indicates, mention of disease in the 1980s and 1990s, and of Atlantic salmon (particularly in the late 1990s), was displaced after 2002 by numerous mentions of sea lice in coverage of European aquaculture (note that mentions of specific issues in Figure 3 may together exceed total articles because many articles mention more than one issue). When these patterns are examined in relation to the timeline (Table 1), three observations can be made. First, coverage of European aquaculture in the Canadian media can be related to shifts in the prevalence of some concerns in British Columbia: from disease in the mid-1990s, to a preoccupation in the late 1990s with the consequences of escaped Atlantic salmon; and then a strong focus on the implications of sea lice (Gross, 1998; Krkosek et al., 2007). Second, some environmental issues of concern in British Columbia were not evident in this coverage, particularly local environmental impacts (such as organic waste near aquaculture facilities, and impacts on marine mammals). Finally, this coverage has tended to follow, rather than precede, local attention to issues. In other words, European information has been considered newsworthy only after analogous concerns had emerged in Canada. As the media data and the timeline together suggest, this pattern was especially evident with respect to sea lice from salmon farms parasitizing wild salmon: while European scientists had by the early 1990s identified this as a concern, their conclusions only began to appear in the Canadian media once it had become a local issue in British Columbia (Table 1). Overall, these observations corroborate the hypothesis that the newsworthiness of European information, and thus, its movement through the media, has been influenced by domestic concerns.

Figure 3.

Mentions of specific environmental concerns in references to European aquaculture in Canadian news media

How information travels, and the construction of trust and credibility

The second and third research questions consider the means by which the media transport information from Europe to Canada, and how this transport can be understood in terms of norms and conventions regarding trust and credibility. As noted above, the existence of a global networked society does not preclude the continuing importance of the human dimensions of information, including evaluations of credibility and trust.

Several strategies for moving information are evident. One of these – often seen in media coverage of science – is the citation of scientific reports. Particularly with respect to prominent international journals such as Science or Nature, citation of these reports readily accomplishes the assertion of the global relevance and authority of information. However, this strategy has only recently become evident in media coverage of aquaculture. For example, documentation in 2005 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of the transfer of sea lice from farmed to wild salmon received substantial coverage, as did a study of this topic reported in Science in 2007 (Krkosek et al., 2005, 2007).

In contrast, various strategies employed by actors involved in aquaculture controversies have proven to be a more consistent generator of media coverage than have original research reports (on the importance of sources in generating news coverage see Soloski, 1989; Berkowitz, 1992; Nisbet et al., 2003). Visits by Canadians to Europe, enabling direct experience with European environmental conditions and contact with European informants, have been especially prominent. This strategy has been evident in media coverage that assumed a supportive stance towards aquaculture. Particularly in its early years, discussion of the industry’s promising future was often framed in the context of visits to farms in Norway (see, e.g., Jack Danylchuk, “Support in B.C.: Tide turns for salmon farmers,” Financial Post, March 9, 1985). It has also been evident in coverage of environmental problems experienced in Europe, as seen, for example, in coverage of a visit to Norway by members of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union – a group generally opposed to salmon aquaculture (Mark Hume, “Atlantic salmon escaping pens to imperil wild fish,” The Vancouver Sun, September 2, 1993).

The role of these source-generated strategies, and particularly visits to Europe, in transporting information between Europe and Canada reflects several aspects relevant to both controversies and their coverage by the media. First, visits to Europe have been employed as a way of focusing attention on the issue: in other words, they have been constructed as media “events.” This exemplifies a persistent feature of media reporting of science: events being constructed so as to present a body of knowledge as newsworthy (Molotch and Lester, 1974; Mazur and Lee, 1993; Corbett and Durfee, 2004). These visits also play a role in asserting the credibility of information from distant locations. They do so by fulfilling the function of “witnessing”: conveying knowledge that can only be obtained through first-hand experience, and through gaining the trust of informants at the site (on witnessing and scientific authority, see Shapin, 1994). This witnessing and trust building permits the journalist to speak for local informants, and to link their information with his or her own knowledge of conditions back in Canada.

Second, this construction of visits to Europe as media events has been tied to efforts to personalize the issue – that is, to present information about aquaculture in terms of the thoughts or actions of individuals. Imparting a human face to information is a common feature of Canadian coverage of European aquaculture. It is evident, for example, in narratives of visits by journalists to regions of aquaculture activity within Europe; in discussions with prominent European fisheries experts, such as Patrick Gargan, a senior scientist with Ireland’s Central Fisheries Board; and in coverage of Canadians protesting at the Norwegian headquarters of aquaculture companies active in British Columbia. Such efforts to personalize information – by, for example, interviewing or profiling the work of individual scientists – are a common feature of science journalism generally (Bennett, 2002; Boykoff and Boykoff, 2007). Overall, these constructed events and efforts to personalize the issue exemplify how the mechanisms of information transfer are shaped by media conventions that rely on face-to-face information sharing to build trust and credibility.

A third aspect of these source-generated strategies of media coverage is that they exemplify the significant role of non-official actors in instigating the movement of information. These actors have included environmentalists, salmon farmers, fishermen and Aboriginal representatives. As other scholars have noted, coverage of science typically favors official sources, including government, industry, and scientists; however, this pattern of sourcing can be expected to shift in times of political contestation, with an accompanying greater possibility of expanding the public agenda (Nisbet et al., 2003: 47). This role of other social actors, including environmental interests, in communicating information from elsewhere is also a reflection of the more general observation that when the legitimacy of authoritative sources is undermined, other social actors are better able to assume the authority of expertise in the media (Jasanoff, 1997). This case study extends this observation, by identifying the importance of non-official sources in expanding the geographic area from which information that is considered relevant can be drawn.

The importance of non-official sources also relates to the implications in this context of two potentially conflicting journalistic norms and practices: the assertion of objectivity, and the selection of sources that conform to the political stance of the journalist or his/her employer. On the one hand, the importance placed on objectivity typically encourages journalists to seek balance by obtaining opposing views (Nisbet and Lewenstein, 2002; Boykoff and Boykoff, 2007). In the case of information from elsewhere (for example, reports on the consequences of aquaculture in Norway that are presented in the Canadian media), this norm has expressed itself through presentation of opposing views regarding the relevance and credibility of that information. Those who contest claims made on the basis of knowledge from elsewhere often do so by casting doubt on this knowledge, arguing that it has been obtained in conditions unlike (in environmental, regulatory, or other terms) those found in British Columbia. However, the movement of information from Europe to Canada also frequently exhibits the phenomenon of the “opportune witness” (Hagen, 1993): that is, a preference for sources that are consistent with the stance – either in favor, or wary of salmon aquaculture – of the journalist or newspaper. In media coverage of aquaculture the use of opportune witnesses has been most evident in efforts to personalize the issue, and also in efforts to construct stories.

Another strategy for conveying information regarding aquaculture has been the construction of stories. The most effective such stories both have been compelling and contain a larger message. One such story, repeated many times, and invoked in the service of opposing arguments, was derived from efforts in the 1980s to control outbreaks of the Gyrodactylus parasite in Norwegian rivers by eliminating their salmon hosts (Johnsen and Jensen, 1991). Those opposed to aquaculture in Canada have often asserted that in Norway, by one account, “millions of salmon have been destroyed and entire rivers have been ‘sterilized’ in an attempt to prevent the spread of [Infectious Salmon Anemia] and other diseases” (Kevin Burke, “Escaped Atlantic Salmon are ecology nightmare,” Victoria Times-Colonist, March 29, 1999). In contrast, those seeking to defend aquaculture have employed this narrative to make a very different point. For example, Marcel Gijssen, writing immediately after Burke, condemned what he described as the “… false claims that salmon farms have caused rivers to be ‘sterilized’ because of salmon-farming-related diseases. The fact is that the only rivers that have been sterilized were those in Norway damaged by horrendous wild-stock-enhancement practices” (“Hype on salmon farms,” Victoria Times-Colonist, April 10, 1999). For partisans of either view, this narrative provided an effective means of rendering comprehensible otherwise complex arguments regarding the ecological implications of aquaculture, while adhering to media conventions regarding the heuristic value of drama and storytelling. As studies of risk communication have indicated, such devices, serving as cognitive shortcuts, can influence how audiences think about the risks and benefits of particular technologies (Allan, 2002; Nisbet et al., 2003).

These communication strategies: visits, personalization, reliance on non-official actors, and storytelling have sometimes been combined within a single media text to assert the relevance and credibility of information from elsewhere. A complex and compelling example is provided by accounts of the work of Alexandra Morton, an independent researcher and the most prominent opponent of salmon aquaculture in British Columbia. As reported by environmental journalist Mark Hume, a neighbor and owner of a fishing lodge had in 2001 been the first to alert Morton to the potential consequences of sea lice for salmon (Mark Hume, “Biologist’s research hooks DFO – but is it too late?,” The Globe and Mail, April 4, 2005). Some of the guests at the lodge were from Scotland, and, by Hume’s account, were shocked to see salmon farms in British Columbia, asking: “Do you have the sea lice scourge yet?” Noting dead salmon fry, these guests also suggested that British Columbia was experiencing the same impacts of sea lice on salmon as had been seen in devastated wild trout and salmon stocks in Scotland and Norway. Biologists in Alaska and Norway, Hume noted, corroborated this conclusion, implicating salmon farms as a cause of the sea lice Morton was finding on wild salmon. Hume’s account thus combined aspects of a visit (but, reversing the more common pattern, of Europeans to British Columbia), personalization (including the use of supportive opportune witnesses), and storytelling, to reinforce the relevance of the European experience to Canadian concerns, and the credibility of those asserting this relevance.

The roles played by these communication strategies demonstrate that the transfer of knowledge needs to be understood in terms of the conventions that govern how the media present information. These conventions address the assertion of relevance, credibility, and trust, resulting in the use of strategies of visits (and their construction as newsworthy events), personalization, reliance on non-official actors, and storytelling. In contrast, direct reporting of scientific literature has been a less significant, and relatively recent, development. These strategies reflect the outcome of negotiations between sources and journalists during the constructing of news dramas, with these negotiations shaped by the at times divergent requirements of the professional cultures of scientists and of journalists (Peters, 1995), and by the specific context of the transfer of information between sites of knowledge production and consumption.

Agendas and frames in coverage of European aquaculture

As was suggested above, the representation by the media of information from elsewhere is also shaped by conventions regarding agenda setting and the use of frames as devices to construct meaning. This has been made amply evident in the course of salmon aquaculture controversies. To address the fourth research question – concerning how the media framed for Canadian audiences their coverage of the environmental dimensions of European aquaculture – the focus of analysis shifts to the themes and frames deployed in discussions of aquaculture. These assert, first, the relevance of European aquaculture to the Canadian context; and second, supportive or critical perspectives on the industry, its prospects, and its consequences, thereby serving to either support or challenge government policies towards the industry.

A careful reading of the 323 articles that included some mention of European aquaculture provided the basis for deriving inductively four sets of themes employed to assert the relevance of this information to Canadian readers (see Table 2). Themes relating to the economic and environmental dimensions of the industry are especially important. Themes relating to material and informational ties between European and Canadian salmon farming have a lesser but still significant presence. As the table also indicates (and as will be discussed below), these themes can also serve to organize diverse frames that have been applied to aquaculture information.

Table 2.

Themes justifying relevance of European aquaculture to Canadian audiences

Economic themes:

Success of European aquaculture indicating potential of aquaculture in Canada

Competitive position of Canadian farmed salmon in the international marketplace

Flows of international investment in aquaculture between Europe and Canada

Environmental themes:

Environmental problems in European salmon farms as indicators of potential problems in Canadian farms

Ecological similarities between European and Canadian marine environments and aquaculture

Concerns regarding the presence of Atlantic salmon in BC waters

Status of farmed salmon as a global environmental issue

Material themes:

Deliberate transfer of Atlantic salmon eggs from Europe to British Columbia

Inadvertent movement of fish diseases from Europe to British Columbia

Information themes:

Flows of technical innovation and advice between Europe and British Columbia

These themes provide the basis for arguments as to why Canadian readers should care about salmon aquaculture in Europe. This may be, for example, because of the economic ties between Canadian salmon farms and their Norwegian owners; or because European and Canadian salmon farms are situated within similar marine environments; or because of the technical advice that flows back and forth between Canada and Europe. Collectively, these themes, combining finance, information, and materials, epitomize the hybrid character of environmental flows – a phenomenon of increasing interest to social scientists (Spaargaren et al., 2006). They also demonstrate how the flow of scientific information cannot be understood in isolation from other flows, such as economic investment, or the movement of biological materials.

The international dimension has played a prominent role in the framing of scientific information regarding the environmental aspects of aquaculture. One such frame has depicted European experience with aquaculture as a cautionary lesson for British Columbia. For example, an October 1, 1994 article in the Victoria Times-Colonist explained that “There have been huge problems with fish farms in countries such as Norway, Ireland and Chile. In many cases, the same international companies are now operating in Canada with few controls” (Judith Lavoie, “Environmentalists fear more salmon farms after moratorium ends”). Presenting a similar perspective, but reinforced by personal and on-site testimony, a December 20, 2007 article by Stephen Hume, a prominent journalist for the Vancouver Sun, reported on a recent visit to Ireland by quoting an Irish biologist: “Norway had some of the best rivers in the world for the production of massive salmon – they are just gone … Why couldn’t we learn from that? Why can’t you learn from us?” (Stephen Hume, “B.C. wild salmon in danger of extinction”). As with economic frames, this environmental frame could also be employed to urge a policy response. An August 12, 2004 article in the National Post exhibited this approach: “Governments can’t plead ignorance: Years ago, a Canadian delegation traveled to Norway, Scotland and Ireland and returned with a report on the devastation caused by the open net fish farms” (Bill Cranmer, “Fish farms are damaging B.C. waters”).

A second environmental frame that has served to reinforce this expression of concern emphasizes scientists’ arguments regarding the status of “wild” (that is, non-farmed) salmon as an essential and intrinsic element of coastal economies, cultures, and ecosystems. Using evidence of the place of salmon in coastal ecosystems (including their role in transporting nutrients from the ocean to coastal forests) and the historic significance of salmon to coastal indigenous cultures and the fishing economy, some writers have emphasized the consequences of damaging wild salmon stocks by citing evidence from Europe that aquaculture may damage these stocks.

Interestingly, the media record presents few instances of drawing on international experience to contest scientific claims of environmental hazards posed by aquaculture. Instead, those supportive of the industry have more often framed their presentations in terms of the economic dimensions of salmon aquaculture, including the opportunities and pressures implied by a global market for fish and for investment. For example, Norway’s importance as a model of industry development and a source of investment is evident in an article from an early phase of rapid growth in the industry. In a March 9, 1985 article in the Financial Post, it was noted that the “most apparent reason for the change in heart [towards salmon farming] is the overwhelming success of salmon farms in Norway and Scotland” (Jack Danylchuk, “Support in B.C.: Tide turns for salmon farmers”). Thus, the international dimension fulfilled an essential role in this positive framing of the industry as an economic opportunity for British Columbia.

However, the international dimension of aquaculture could also be enlisted to support a more negative view of the industry’s economic prospects. For example, a September 4, 1989 article noted that “Farmed salmon prices have been depressed worldwide this summer … [due to] rapid production increases in farmed salmon, especially in Norway” (John Schreiner, “Salmon farmers say federal report is too optimistic,” Financial Post). This negative framing was also sometimes employed in efforts to advocate domestic policy, including more supportive regulatory or subsidy programs, by presenting these as necessary to maintain a competitive industry.

Overall, it can be argued that the international dimensions of aquaculture have served as a resource in suggesting and reinforcing specific frames that have been applied to information regarding aquaculture. Through these frames this information is presented not only efficiently, but in ways implying particular conclusions, including potential policy agendas. They have also implied a loosening of the ties between knowledge and local geography – that is, a deterritorializing of proximity.

7. Conclusions

Studies of the news media and science have generally left unexamined the geographical dimensions of scientific knowledge, and the nature of science as a situated practice. This paper has sought to redress this neglect. It has done so by demonstrating, first, that the media have played a substantial role in communicating information between the locations in which salmon aquaculture is practiced. But just as the media do not present a comprehensive and objective portrayal of events and other phenomena (reflecting the selectivity and shaping of information inherent in framing, the exercise of journalistic conventions, and other factors), neither do they simply convey information from one site to another. Instead, as this paper has argued, the movement of knowledge is an actively constructed phenomenon, shaped by efforts to assert the relevance of information, by journalistic conventions that relate to the selection and presentation of information, by the strategies employed by sources of information, and by aspects of the local context, including the development of the industry and related controversies. The constructed nature of flows of information is also evident in how information is transported: predominately through direct contact (effected by personal visits), and presented in the form of stories or other devices that respect media conventions. The role of several themes and associated frames in asserting the local relevance of information from elsewhere provides further demonstration of this constructed nature of information flows.

These conclusions provide a corrective to the common assumption in an era of instantaneous electronic communication that information flows freely and unmediated across oceans and continents. During the time period examined, the role of the internet in determining what information would be communicated, and how, has been secondary to that played by social mechanisms of information movement. Similarly, the image of a common global pool of scientific knowledge, contributed to by researchers at a multitude of sites, and drawn upon by an even more diffuse and widely distributed array of users, obscures the importance of these mechanisms. Instead, the media play a role in constructing science as a situated practice, by helping to define the character of, and interactions between, local sites of knowledge production and application. Through the media, diverse interests seek to define the relations between local scientific observations and those made elsewhere in ways that are consistent with how these interests position themselves within local debates and controversies. This conclusion can provide the basis for a richer understanding of the relations between the media and the geography of knowledge, that extends beyond the common (but simplistic) assumption that the importance of information is weighted merely in relation to its proximity to the audience.

The spatial dimensions of aquaculture – from local environments to transnational flows of knowledge and investment – make this industry particularly suited to the study of the media and the situated nature of scientific knowledge. Aquaculture also presents an opportunity to consider the practical implications of these conclusions for managing the industry and protecting salmon populations. While decisions should obviously be based on the best scientific knowledge, the media’s role in shaping the movement of information can result in potentially useful knowledge from elsewhere not always being immediately available. A clear example is the decade-long delay between European scientists’ identification, in the early 1990s, of a link between sea lice and salmon farms, and this information becoming widely known in British Columbia.

These conclusions also imply opportunities for further study. One aspect that would repay attention is the strategies of information transfer evident in communication and advocacy by participants in controversies (as seen, for example, on the web sites of industry, environmental organizations, and other interest groups involved in aquaculture). The construction of geographies of knowledge by scientists themselves, as evidenced by their citation strategies, also merits further study. Also promising, particularly in terms of opportunities for interdisciplinary study, are questions regarding the role of the media and of representations of situated science in the context of the dynamic and fluid identities of particular places and spaces – a matter of increasing interest to critical geographers (Harvey, 1993). Finally, comparison between the flows of knowledge relating to aquaculture, and an industry that is less tied to local environmental and social contexts, would illuminate the importance of these contexts to the movement of knowledge.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (410-2007-0520). I thank Will Knight for his research assistance, and the anonymous reviewers and editor for their thoughtful comments and advice.

Author Biography

Stephen Bocking is Professor of environmental history and policy, and Chair of the Environmental and Resource Science/Studies Program, Trent University. His research interests include the interface between science and environmental policy, and the history of environmental science. Current projects include a study of the transnational science and politics of salmon aquaculture, as well as studies of the science and politics of biodiversity conservation, and of the history of Arctic environmental research. His publications include Ecologists and Environmental Politics: A History of Contemporary Ecology (Yale University Press, 1997), and Nature’s Experts: Science, Politics, and the Environment (Rutgers University Press, 2004).

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