219
newsworthy. In today’s media society, with its many communication channels and
platforms, it is a challenge to reach out with messages. While agenda-setting theory
mainly focuses on issues that are reported, framing in the context of media studies
is about how issues are presented.
Previous studies of how news media frame environmental risks in relation to the
Baltic Sea show that eutrophication together with overfi shing receives the most
media attention. This situation could be explained at least partly by the fact that the
media focuses on stories that the consumer can identify with best (Jönsson 2011 ).
The issue of hazardous chemicals on the other hand receives relatively little attention in the news media and is not on top of the public agenda. According to interviewees, chemical risks are framed in the media in a very narrow health-centred
way related to eating contaminated fi sh (Udovyk et al. 2010 ).
Clearly, the conditions to achieve cultural resonance – the ‘success’ of the ‘problem’ – relate to possibilities of visualising the problem and reaching out to the
media. The diffi culty of visualising chemical pollution and the lack of media reporting were issues that interviewees mentioned (Udovyk et al. 2010 ). There was also
less reporting on oil spills during the studied period (Jönsson 2011 ). Yet, oil spills
can be easily visualised by the media and framed as an ‘immediate threat’ or ‘pending danger’. However, in the case of oil spills, what is generally disseminated to the
public is mostly just one side of the coin. Big accidents are always reported, whereas
the more common (routinised) intentional oil spills are not (Hassler et al. 2010 ).
This is because the media prioritises the most acute and spectacular issues, consequently resulting in the marginalisation of small catastrophes that are seen as ‘normal’ and not ‘newsworthy’ (cf. Anderson 1997 ; Hannigan 2006 ; Hansen 2010 ;
Shoemaker and Reese 1996 ). Few other risk issues give rise to such intense reactions as when birds or seals are portrayed as caught in black oil, fi ghting for their
lives. This often comes with pictures of voluntary workers removing oil from
beaches and seashores. This type of catastrophe or big event framing , together with
the visualisation component, can affect the kinds of societal responses that are
expected of the public (cf. Hassler et al. 2010 ). In contrast, intentional oil spills,
similar to IAS, are not issues of high priority in framing and campaigning activities
of environmental NGOs, which is partly because NGOs too are constrained by
‘media logic’.
Of our selected fi ve cases, the issue of IAS appears to receive the lowest degree
of media and public attention, in particular in the post-Soviet countries (Jönsson
2011 ; Lemke et al. 2010 ). IAS, in comparison to the other issues, is still new in the
public’s imagination in BSR (cf. Hansen 2010 ). Neither are environmental NGOs in
general engaged in framing efforts targeted towards pushing the issue of alien species onto the public agenda nor are they mobilising support for a more developed
risk policy. They do not appear to consider it a prioritised problem (Lemke et al.
2010 ). All in all this will affect policy outcomes. ‘Since public awareness is related
to political involvement and support, low awareness associated with IAS is treated
by policy-makers as a public consent to neglect the issue especially in the context of
non-ratifi ed legal acts’. (Lemke et al. 2010 : 55). There is accordingly no signifi cant
9 Risk Communication and the Role of the Public: Towards Inclusive Environmental…
newsworthy. In today’s media society, with its many communication channels and
platforms, it is a challenge to reach out with messages. While agenda-setting theory
mainly focuses on issues that are reported, framing in the context of media studies
is about how issues are presented.
Previous studies of how news media frame environmental risks in relation to the
Baltic Sea show that eutrophication together with overfi shing receives the most
media attention. This situation could be explained at least partly by the fact that the
media focuses on stories that the consumer can identify with best (Jönsson 2011 ).
The issue of hazardous chemicals on the other hand receives relatively little attention in the news media and is not on top of the public agenda. According to interviewees, chemical risks are framed in the media in a very narrow health-centred
way related to eating contaminated fi sh (Udovyk et al. 2010 ).
Clearly, the conditions to achieve cultural resonance – the ‘success’ of the ‘problem’ – relate to possibilities of visualising the problem and reaching out to the
media. The diffi culty of visualising chemical pollution and the lack of media reporting were issues that interviewees mentioned (Udovyk et al. 2010 ). There was also
less reporting on oil spills during the studied period (Jönsson 2011 ). Yet, oil spills
can be easily visualised by the media and framed as an ‘immediate threat’ or ‘pending danger’. However, in the case of oil spills, what is generally disseminated to the
public is mostly just one side of the coin. Big accidents are always reported, whereas
the more common (routinised) intentional oil spills are not (Hassler et al. 2010 ).
This is because the media prioritises the most acute and spectacular issues, consequently resulting in the marginalisation of small catastrophes that are seen as ‘normal’ and not ‘newsworthy’ (cf. Anderson 1997 ; Hannigan 2006 ; Hansen 2010 ;
Shoemaker and Reese 1996 ). Few other risk issues give rise to such intense reactions as when birds or seals are portrayed as caught in black oil, fi ghting for their
lives. This often comes with pictures of voluntary workers removing oil from
beaches and seashores. This type of catastrophe or big event framing , together with
the visualisation component, can affect the kinds of societal responses that are
expected of the public (cf. Hassler et al. 2010 ). In contrast, intentional oil spills,
similar to IAS, are not issues of high priority in framing and campaigning activities
of environmental NGOs, which is partly because NGOs too are constrained by
‘media logic’.
Of our selected fi ve cases, the issue of IAS appears to receive the lowest degree
of media and public attention, in particular in the post-Soviet countries (Jönsson
2011 ; Lemke et al. 2010 ). IAS, in comparison to the other issues, is still new in the
public’s imagination in BSR (cf. Hansen 2010 ). Neither are environmental NGOs in
general engaged in framing efforts targeted towards pushing the issue of alien species onto the public agenda nor are they mobilising support for a more developed
risk policy. They do not appear to consider it a prioritised problem (Lemke et al.
2010 ). All in all this will affect policy outcomes. ‘Since public awareness is related
to political involvement and support, low awareness associated with IAS is treated
by policy-makers as a public consent to neglect the issue especially in the context of
non-ratifi ed legal acts’. (Lemke et al. 2010 : 55). There is accordingly no signifi cant
9 Risk Communication and the Role of the Public: Towards Inclusive Environmental…