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 10 – 21 June, 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
Economic recovery continues to dominate coverage at the ocean, COVID-19 and environment intersection in the past two weeks, with new data highlighting a shift to a more pessimistic and negative tone in legacy media around the extent to which economic recovery can incorporate planetary protection. This change in tone appears to be based on indicators of government reticence to enforce environmental protection, evidence of returns to pre-lockdown levels of pollution, and a variety of analyses exploring how the public have responded to the pandemic to date.
There was some sense that this pessimism spilled over into social media, with a strong thread of discussions that linked the multiple crises that are currently facing the world, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, and social and racial inequality.
However, legacy media indicates public appetite for change remains strong. There continues to be a high volume of letters in local outlets from citizens advocating for better environmental protection in the future, as well as a range of higher profile voices (such as the Australian CEO of Unilever, Ban Ki-moon and Prince Harry) getting coverage in outlets more generally.
The volume of ocean-specific coverage in legacy media was particularly low over the past two weeks.