The OneOcean team has been working on a weekly media analysis – the OneOcean Response Room briefing – that looks at the intersections between COVID-19 and environment content, the environment and ocean content, and ocean and COVID-19 content on both legacy and social media.
During the COVID-19 situation, it is important to understand the kind of conversations that are taking place, what is resonating with people and why, to ensure that our communication is as impactful as possible and – at the very least – does no harm in this sensitive time.
The briefing provides recommendations and example materials which reflect the findings from our analysis. Find to follow a summary of the top-line findings of this week’s briefing, covering 18-24 May, 2020.
The full OneOcean Response Room weekly briefing and supporting analysis is available to Flotilla members. If your organisation is interested in receiving this briefing, is not a member and interested in joining, please email travis@oceanprotect.org
Summary of findings
This week, coverage at the environment, COVID-19 and ocean intersections on legacy media was relatively high in volume, but broad and somewhat scattered in topic. There was a continuation of previous themes covered regularly in this briefing, for example economic recovery and environmental protection, and a re-emergence of strands that had previously appeared to have come to a close, such as the positive impact of lockdown on nature. Discussions on environmental protection within economic recovery were still present, however there was no notable evidence of the ‘people versus planet’ framing strengthening.
With an apparent absence of ‘new news’, think-piece formats were particularly popular this week. We also saw scientists and expert voices featured widely in discussions, across multiple strands of coverage. Climate change was a strong theme at the COVID-19 / environment intersection.
On social media, climate change carried across as a theme from legacy media coverage, with some focus on CO2 levels during lockdown. There appeared to be less content around ‘missing nature’ and natural environments this week, but with animal content still performing well.