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

Abstract

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.