EcoHealth 20, 18–30, 2023 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-023-01634-x Ó 2023 EcoHealth Alliance Original Contribution Newspaper Coverage and Framing of Bats, and Their Impact on Readership Engagement Adrià López-Baucells ,1 Natalia Revilla-Martı́n ,1,2 Maria Mas ,1 Pedro Alonso-Alonso ,3,4 Ivana Budinski ,1,5 Sara Fraixedas ,6,7,8 and Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares 6,9 1 BiBio – Natural Sciences Museum of Granollers, Avinguda Francesc Macià 51 Baixos, 08402 Granollers, Catalonia, Spain 2 Conservation Biology Group (GBiC), Landscape Dynamics and Biodiversity Program, Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC), Catalonia, Spain 3 CIBIO – Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, Vila do Conde, Distrito do Porto, Portugal 4 Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85745 5 Department of Genetic Research, Institute for Biological Research ‘‘Siniša Stanković’’ – National Institute of Republic of Serbia, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia 6 Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 7 Research Centre for Ecological Change, Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Research Programme, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 8 Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 9 Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain Abstract: The media is a valuable pathway for transforming people’s attitudes towards conservation issues. Understanding how bats are framed in the media is hence essential for bat conservation, particularly con- sidering the recent fearmongering and misinformation about the risks posed by bats. We reviewed bat-related articles published online no later than 2019 (before the recent COVID19 pandemic), in 15 newspapers from the five most populated countries in Western Europe. We examined the extent to which bats were presented as a threat to human health and the assumed general attitudes towards bats that such articles supported. We quantified press coverage on bat conservation values and evaluated whether the country and political stance had any information bias. Finally, we assessed their terminology and, for the first time, modelled the active response from the readership based on the number of online comments. Out of 1095 articles sampled, 17% focused on bats and diseases, 53% on a range of ecological and conservation topics, and 30% only mention bats anecdotally. While most of the ecological articles did not present bats as a threat (97%), most articles focusing on diseases did so (80%). Ecosystem services were mentioned on very few occasions in both types (< 30%), and references to the economic benefits they provide were meagre (< 4%). Disease-related concepts were Adrià López-Baucells and Natalia Revilla-Martı́n have shared first authorship. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-023-01634-x. Published online: May 29, 2023 Correspondence to: Adrià López-Baucells, e-mail: adria.baucells@gmail.com Newspaper Coverage and Framing of Bats 19 recurrent, and those articles that framed bats as a threat were the ones that garnered the highest number of comments. Therefore, we encourage the media to play a more proactive role in reinforcing positive conser- vation messaging by presenting the myriad ways in which bats contribute to safeguarding human well-being and ecosystem functioning. Keywords: Chiroptera, COVID-19, Disease, Risk perception, Science communication, Social media, Virus INTRODUCTION Eklöf and Rydell 2021). Due to their nocturnal and elusive behaviour, bats generally have little contact with humans There is well-established evidence that our current social– (Voigt et al. 2016), and therefore, most of these collective ecological crisis will by no means be addressed by an ill- beliefs on bats come from myths, legends, stories, songs, or informed society (Cash et al. 2003; Novacek 2008). An movies (Kingston 2016; Fernández-Llamazares et al. 2018). increasing body of research has demonstrated that the Misconceptions frequently lead to fear, which results in availability of credible, legitimate, and salient scientific direct bat persecution and deliberate destruction of information substantially affects the way in which people important roosts and colonies, undermining their conser- perceive environmental issues such as climate change or vation (Cardiff et al. 2009). In fact, a review carried out by biodiversity loss, and how they respond to them (Spence O’Shea et al. (2016) analysing multiple mortality events in et al. 2011). The media plays a significant role in dissemi- bats reported that intentional killing is the third major nating scientific research (Allan 2002), to the point that threat affecting bats worldwide, only after wind turbines media coverage has significantly been shown to be a valu- and white-nose syndrome. During the last years after the able pathway for transforming public opinions towards outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the power and environmental issues (Johns and Jacquet 2018). consequences of media messages in relation to bats and The quantity and quality of scientific information diseases have become even more visible, with a generalised disseminated on popular media largely depends on media spread of fear among the general public (Lu et al. 2021). coverage selection. According to framing theory (De Vreese The potential association of bats with zoonotic diseases 2005), any media source presents a topic through its lenses largely galvanises pre-existing negative attitudes towards and lexical style, highlighting certain aspects but omitting these animals (López-Baucells et al. 2018; MacFarlane & others, generating significant biases and subjectivity Rocha 2020). Several virological studies highlight the role (Shiffman et al. 2020). These choices affect how scientific of bats as reservoirs and potential transmitters of zoonotic information is interpreted by society, its emotions and diseases and relate them with virus outbreaks such as the understandings, and the confidence placed on scientific COVID-19 pandemic (Shereen et al. 2020), SARS in 2002 findings and guidance (Dayer et al. 2017). Personalities and (Wang et al. 2006), or Ebola in 2014 (Marı́ Saéz et al. 2015). researchers quoted in the media also represent a major While investigating potential reservoirs of novel zoonoses is factor shaping their credibility (Gibson et al. 2001). of critical importance to prevent future disease outbreaks, It is well understood in the conservation community communication about zoonotic diseases should always that the dissemination of under-contextualised, over-sim- consider the interconnections between human health, plified, inaccurate, and biased information can have sub- wildlife, and environment (MacFarlane and Rocha 2020). stantial impacts on the ways in which unpopular species Sudden virus outbreaks are usually followed by sensation- (e.g. wolves, sharks, or bats) are perceived by the general alist headlines that can enormously impact public opinions public, influencing the effort put towards their conserva- towards wildlife species potentially involved in the emer- tion (Jacobson et al. 2012; Muter et al. 2013; Chandelier gence of the virus. Newspaper articles linking wildlife and et al. 2018). Often misunderstood and generally misrepre- diseases in poorly contextualised terms (e.g. not consider- sented, bats have traditionally been victims of fear, hostility, ing the complex zoonotic disease dynamics, disregarding and cultural prejudice all over the planet (Laverty et al. state-of-the-art scientific evidence on disease reservoirs, 2021; Rocha et al. 2021a). Since time immemorial, in some and over-simplifying zoonotic disease spill-over) could regions, they have been maligned as blood-sucking vam- compromise the success of long-term conservation pro- pires, flying blind mice, or gods of death (Kingston 2016; grams (Davis et al. 2019; Zhao 2020). 20 A. López-Baucells et al. In response to all these conservation threats, the last ability in electronic formats. The selected newspapers were: years have witnessed a concerted societal effort to raise ABC, Bild, El Paı́s, Il Giornale, La Repubblica, Le Figaro, Le awareness of the myriad values that bats hold in our soci- Monde, Le Huffington Post, Metro, Süddeutsche Zeitung, eties and the multiple ecosystem services they provide Tagespiel, The Guardian, The Sun, The Telegraph, and 20 (MacFarlane and Rocha 2020; Rocha et al. 2021b). The vital Minutos. In order to have a politically balanced sample role of bats in pest control is usually flagged as an illus- across countries, we selected for each country one left- trative example in this regard (Boyles et al. 2011), and it is leaning newspaper, one right-leaning and one tabloid/free reflected in several organic agriculture projects where bat newspaper. The political orientation of each newspaper was boxes are employed instead of pesticides (Puig-Montserrat determined based on reports from the scholarly literature et al. 2015). Along these lines, the European Bat Night aims about such newspapers (see Table S1). We decided to keep to raise awareness of the recreational and aesthetic values of a single category for ‘‘free newspapers and tabloids’’ given bats by bringing these elusive animals closer to the public. their generally lower journalistic standards (Johansson Newspaper content analyses have been widely used to 2007). Although the selected countries differ considerably evaluate the impact of media on perceptions and attitudes in newspaper reading culture and market characteristics towards wildlife (Gandiwa et al. 2014; Chandelier et al. (van der Wurff et al. 2008), the spectrum of surveyed 2018). Understanding how journalists and science com- newspapers constitutes a representative sample of the na- municators frame bats is essential to design better com- tional press read in each of these countries and across munication strategies. In this paper, we scanned and Western Europe. evaluated the media press coverage (i.e. newspapers) of bats Digital newspaper search engines were used to identify in Western Europe from 1956 until 2019 (i.e. before the articles concerning bats. We searched for articles that COVID-19 pandemic). We decided to focus on the time contained the keywords ‘‘bat’’ and ‘‘bats’’ in the title or before the COVID-19 pandemic to assess the basal society’s body text of the article. Because our review was carried out response to different framings on bats in the media, across five different countries, keywords were translated to avoiding the biases caused by bats being continuously in their primary national language. To get a comparable da- the spotlight. Our objectives were to (1) examine the extent taset across countries and newspapers, a maximum of 100 to which bats were presented as a threat to human health articles published no later than 2019 (i.e. before the out- and the reported scientific evidence underpinning such break of the COVID-19 pandemic) per newspaper were framings; (2) quantify press coverage on bat conservation selected. We only took the first 100 articles that were found values (e.g. the ecosystem services provided by them); (3) online. Our study should be therefore understood as an assess whether country or media-political stance had any essential knowledge baseline to assess if bat-related com- effect upon the published information; (4) evaluate the munication in the media has changed because of the most salient and common terms associated with bats in the COVID-19 pandemic when bats started to be increasingly articles; and (5) model the active response from the public associated with zoonotic disease risks in the public dis- towards different types of articles based on the number of course (MacFarlane and Rocha 2020). Accordingly, our comments written on the digital versions of such articles. dataset is made open access so that other researchers can reassess the same research questions in the future (available in the Zenodo repository, https://zenodo.org/record/7883 MATERIAL AND METHODS 756), providing a unique setting to quantify the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in media representations of bats. Newspaper Content Analysis Articles with no direct mention of bats or using the Newspaper articles related to bats were compiled and re- word ‘‘bat’’ in fictional contexts (e.g. film reviews about viewed from the online version of 15 newspapers from the Batman, critiques of the performance of the operetta ‘‘The five most populated countries in Western Europe (i.e. Bat’’ by Johann Strauss II) were excluded from our analysis. France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK). The selection In addition, when possible, we retrieved the number of of newspapers was based on: (i) market leadership and high online comments for the selected articles. Our analysis did circulation rates in each of these countries and (ii) avail- not consider the actual content of the online comments Newspaper Coverage and Framing of Bats 21 (i.e. public reactions to the bat-related articles) and only Impact of Different Framings on Active Responses used the total number of comments as a proxy for the from the Readership overall social impact of each article. To understand the societal consequences of the selected To assess the content of each article, we first conducted articles on bat conservation, we modelled the active re- a pilot testing to ensure consistency in the data mining sponse of the public to the published articles by fitting process, based on a sample of 10 newspaper articles. Sec- generalised linear mixed models, using R software version ond, we systematically filled a questionnaire consisting of 4.0.2. (R Core-Team 2019). The ‘‘Number of comments’’ of 28 questions, including a first section about the general each article (where available) on the newspaper website was information of the article (e.g. year of publication, topic, defined as the response variable. Although the number of positive or negative depiction of bats, whether they include online comments might not fully capture an article’s overall scientific citations or quotes from an interviewee, number impact on readers, we believe that it is the most suit- of comments by readers), a second section designed to able proxy available to examine public responses towards understand how bats were framed in relation to diseases, the information presented in an article. As discrete factors, and a last section mainly focused on bat conservation and we considered ‘‘Political orientation’’ (left-leaning, right- ecosystem services (see questionnaire in Table S2). leaning, or tabloid/free newspaper), ‘‘Topic’’ (we only Importantly, all coders were proficient in the language of considered articles about bat ecology/conservation/natural the newspapers that were assigned to them. history and bats and diseases but excluded from the anal- yses the ones where bats were hardly mentioned), Framing of Bats in the Media ‘‘Depiction of bats in the article’’ (threat vs non-threat) and We first classified the articles under the following topics: ‘‘Country’’. ‘‘Year’’ was added as a random factor to ac- (1) bats and diseases, (2) a broader picture of bats, count for the interannual variation in the number of including ecology, conservation, or natural history, and (3) comments published. Out of the 15 newspapers analysed, articles with only anecdotal mentions of bats. To decide the only four of them did not include an online comment framing of the article and the types of assumed attitudes function (i.e. La Repubblica, Le Huffington Post, Metro, and towards bats (positive/negative/neutral), we used infor- Süddeutsche Zeitung). These four specific newspapers cut mation on whether they depicted bats as a threat to human across different media types, countries, and political ori- health and whether they presented bat conservation issues entations, which means that our final sample is balanced in and/or mentioned the ecosystem services that they provide terms of newspaper diversity. Because our dataset showed (see questionnaire in Table S2). Additionally, when a over-dispersion, we used a negative binomial distribution conflict or a conservation issue was presented, we identified with a log link function. The data distribution was also the primary diagnosis (i.e. what is the problem?), and if confirmed using the descdist function in the R ‘‘fitdistrplus’’ they presented a resulting prognostic view (i.e. how should package. To avoid high correlations amongst the predictor the problem be solved?). All these characteristics extracted variables, we used Chi-squared tests for all combinations of from the selected articles were compared between news- categorical variables. Because of this, ‘‘Topic’’ was finally papers, political orientations, and countries using propor- removed from the models as it was strongly correlated with tions and descriptive statistics. ‘‘Depiction of bats in the article’’. We also tested for We used the R software version 4.0.2. (R Core-Team collinearity amongst our predictors with the vif function in 2019) to examine the most salient and common terms the R ‘‘car’’ package. All variables had values of variance associated with bats. We compiled all the terms used in inflation factor below five as generally expected. Then, to articles headlines for every language. To standardise terms, select the best model and the inclusion of the fixed factors, we first removed special characters, capital letters, numbers, we carried out an iterative model selection process using punctuation, common stop words, as well as affixes and the dredge function from R ‘‘MuMIn’’ package, where we suffixes using the ‘‘tm’’ R package. To visualise the data, we compared the full model (i.e. the one including the three used a frequency distribution table illustrated with word- above mentioned covariates and the random effect) against clouds including the most frequent terms (minimum fre- all other model combinations. The most simplified versions quency of six), all built with the ‘‘wordcloud’’ R package. of model structures included only one explanatory variable 22 A. López-Baucells et al. and the random effect. Models were selected based on AICc anecdotical mentions, and only 5% of the disease-related values (AIC corrected for low sample size), considering as ones (Fig. 1). Of all articles, only 8% mentioned conser- valid all models with DAICc < 2 (Burnham and Anderson vation measures to improve bat conservation (e.g. reducing 2004). The effect of each factor (estimate) was plotted using hunting pressure, using bat boxes, or raising their popu- the allEffects function in the R ‘‘effects’’ package. larity among the general public). From these, other initia- tives to mitigate human–bat conflicts, such as reducing pesticides or disengaging wind turbine blades during cer- RESULTS tain wind conditions to reduce bat mortality, were also reported (see questions in Table S2). All these results were We gathered a total of 1095 articles that included infor- relatively evenly distributed across countries and newspa- mation about bats published from 1956 until 2019 (see pers and did not vary significantly according to the political Table S1). Out of all the articles reviewed, 17% of the orientation of the newspaper (see Table 1; Tables S3–S5). articles focused on bats and diseases, with a prominent Bats were described either negatively as e.g. ‘‘terrify- focus on virus-borne ones, 53% focused on a broader range ing’’, ‘‘germ taxis’’, or ‘‘carriers of deadly viruses’’, or of topics (e.g. ecology, natural history, conservation, or positively framed as ‘‘protected’’, ‘‘excellent pest con- human–bat-related conflicts), and 30% of the articles trollers’’, or ‘‘beneficial for humans’’. However, we found mentioned bats anecdotally (Fig. 1). While most of the that, considering the headlines of all reviewed articles, the articles in the second group (i.e. ecologically-focused to- most repeated concepts and words were related to virology, pics) did not present bats as a threat to human health (97% outbreaks, or diseases in all languages (e.g. virus, Ebola, of the articles reviewed from this group), most of the dis- threat, rabies or disease, among others) (Table 2 and ease-focused articles did so (80%) (Fig. 1). Ecosystem ser- Fig. 2). vices were rarely mentioned in both types of articles (in The best-fit model included the number of comments 26% of the ecology and conservation-focused articles, and as the response variable, ‘‘Depiction of bats in the article’’, only in 9% of the disease related articles) and rarely ‘‘Political orientation’’ and ‘‘Country’’ as predictor vari- quantified in terms of economic benefits (4% and 1%, ables, and ‘‘Year’’ as the random factor. The public was respectively) (Fig. 1). Our results show that * 50% of the significantly more engaged with articles that depicted bats articles quoted bat experts, either ecologists (55%), envi- as a threat to human health, having twice as many com- ronmental officers and naturalists (33%) or, in lower ments on average than those that did not (Table 3; Fig. 3). proportions, virologists or epidemiologists (12%). In terms of the political orientation, the articles from left- Regarding the articles about bats and diseases, the leaning newspapers were the ones with more comments Nipah virus was the most cited (224 articles in total), fol- online (231 articles, 3767 comments), followed by the lowed by Ebola (66) and rabies (61). However, many other right-leaning newspapers (396 articles, 546 comments) and viruses were also mentioned in the articles reviewed, such tabloids (253 articles, 216 comments) (Fig. 3). Although as other coronaviruses, Hendra, MERS, Marburg, or SARS. less pronounced, some significant differences were also While articles mentioning Nipah and rabies were relatively found amongst countries, being the Spanish, British, and common throughout the study period (e.g. first articles French newspapers the ones with more public engagement mentioning Nipah and rabies date back to 1969 and 1981, (Fig. S1). respectively), reports about other viruses (e.g. Ebola, Marburg, SARS, Hendra) emerged only after 2007 in our dataset. Most of these articles (79%) reported cases of DISCUSSION humans infected by the viruses mentioned above, and 48% of these specified the number of fatal cases. Among these, This study assessed how 15 newspapers across five Western only 56% explained the transmission paths, and 38% the European countries framed bats based on a pool of 1095 symptoms and consequences of such diseases (see questions articles published between 1956 and 2019. Understanding in the second block from Table S2). how the media portrays these animals to their readership, Only 26% of all the articles sampled mentioned the how people respond to these portrayals, and what kinds of conservation issues threatening bats worldwide. This cor- articles are found to be more engaging to the general public responds to 42% of the ecology-focused articles, 21% of the is fundamental for bat conservation efforts to be successful. Newspaper Coverage and Framing of Bats 23 Figure 1. Top: Proportion of newspaper articles (N = 1095) from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK classified according to whether: (1) bats and diseases were primarily targeted (e.g. outbreak articles, disease studies); (2) bats appeared in a broader picture (e.g. conservation, ecology, natural history, socio-cultural topics); and (3) bats were only anecdotally mentioned without being the main topic of the articles. The average number of comments for each category is also shown in parentheses. Bottom: Proportion of articles that: (1) identified bats as a threat or not; (2) explained conservation issues that bats are facing; (3) mentioned the ecosystem services they provide; (4) specified their economic impact; and (5) promoted positive, negative or neutral attitudes. This information is essential to build robust strategies for look like (e.g. McElwee et al. 2020), our dataset provides an efficient science communication, especially in the recent essential quantitative baseline to assess if societal attitudes context of a global pandemic that has put bats under and behaviours towards bat conservation will come back to increasing public scrutiny. With much societal and policy the levels attained before the onset of the COVID-19 discussion on what the ‘‘new normal’’ might eventually pandemic. While some studies have documented media 24 A. López-Baucells et al. Table 1. Proportion of different article topics and types of assumed attitudes towards bats for each political orientation. Bats and diseases Ecology and conservation Occasional mentions Positive Negative Neutral (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) Left-leaning 16.1 46.1 37.7 55.1 18.1 25.4 newspapers Right-leaning 14.4 59.1 26.5 45.7 18.2 35.4 newspapers Tabloids 20.1 55.4 24.5 43.9 32.3 22.7 Table 2. Top nine most salient (observed with the highest frequency) words found in the article’s headlines in each country. France Germany Italy Spain UK Term Freq Term Freq Term Freq Term Freq Term Freq Chauve-souris (bat) 76 Fledermaus (bat) 173 Pipistrello (bat) 48 Murciélago (bat) 175 Bat 162 Rage (rabies) 17 Spur (track) 10 Ebola (ebola) 25 ébola (ebola) 28 Find 21 Coronavirus 10 Tollwut (rabies) 9 Zanzare 16 Especie (species) 24 Virus 21 (coronavirus) (mosquitoes) Nouveau (new) 10 Schutz (protection) 7 Animale (animal) 13 Nuevo (new) 15 Rabies 18 Cas (case) 8 stoppen (stop) 7 Virus (virus) 11 Animal (animal) 14 Death 17 Virus (virus) 8 Nacht (night) 6 Rischio (risk) 10 Virus (virus) 13 Ebola 17 Éolienne (wind Turbine) 8 Tier (animal) 6 Salvare (to save) 7 Refugio (roost) 11 Kill 16 France (France) 8 Gefähr (danger) 5 Specie (species) 7 Estudio (study) 11 Outbreak 13 Ebola (ebola) 7 Windrad (windmill) 5 Epidemia 7 Amenaza (threat) 10 New 12 (epidemia) Special characters, capital letters, numbers, punctuation, common stop words, affixes and suffixes were removed to standardise terms. representations of bats during the COVID-19 pandemic negative attitudes towards this taxonomic group (López- (Zhao 2020; Cerri et al. 2022; Nanni et al. 2022), most of Baucells et al. 2018; MacFarlane and Rocha 2020). How- the evidence is still anecdotal, with few studies examining ever, across all the reviewed articles, terminology evocative trends over time (but see Carandell 2023). We have, of diseases, outbreaks and viruses was prominently used, therefore, made the database underpinning this study usually with negative connotations towards bats. In terms publicly available in an open-access format for further re- of public engagement, we found that, on average, those assessments using a before–after experimental design articles framing bats as a threat to human health were twice (available in the Zenodo repository, https://zenodo.org/rec more engaging to the public than those not presenting bats ord/7883756). as dangerous animals. Further research could help to cross- According to our results, approximately half of all the check the reliability of our proxy for public engagement articles focused on bat ecology, conservation, or natural (e.g. based on interviews, content analysis and/or experi- history, while only 17% focused on virology and epi- mental design). demiology. This pattern was evenly distributed across Our results suggest that a handful of articles framing countries and newspapers. The relatively low proportion of bats as a threat to human health, recurrently using disease- disease-related articles stands in stark contrast to an related and fear-inducing terminology, might have a emerging body of literature arguing that disease-related broader reach and might catch the attention of the general speculation in the media is a pervasive problem fuelling readership more efficiently than dozens of articles focused Newspaper Coverage and Framing of Bats 25 Figure 2. Wordclouds with the most salient words used in the titles of the reviewed articles (words with a frequency of appearance  6) for each country (A: France, B: Germany, C: Italy, D: Spain and E: UK). Table 3. Results of the best-fit negative binomial generalised linear mixed model explaining readership engagement. Selected model: glmer.nb (Number of comments * Depiction of bats in the article + Political orientation + Country + (1|Year)) AIC BIC logLik Deviance df.resid 1590.7 1631.9 -785.3 1570.7 447 Scaled residuals: Min 1Q Median 3Q Max -0.4293 -0.4083 -0.3597 -0.1728 7.5924 Random effects: Groups name Variance Std.Dev Year (Intercept) 1.911 1.382 Number of obs: 457 groups: Year 29 Fixed effects Estimate SE z value Pr( >|z|) (Intercept) 1.41 0.733 1.925 0.054 Framing of the article: threat vs non-threat 1.209 0.306 3.950 < 0.0001 Political orientation: right-leaning vs left-leaning -1.618 0.414 -3.911 < 0.0001 Political orientation: tabloid vs left-leaning -1.335 0.399 -3.344 0.0008 Country: Germany vs France -1.162 0.486 -2.391 0.0168 Country: Italy vs France -1.329 0.449 -2.959 0.003 Country: Spain vs France -0.138 0.740 -0.187 0.852 Country: UK vs France -0.087 0.531 -0.163 0.870 Significant results with p < 0.01 are bolded. on natural history and bat conservation (Shapiro et al. Framing Bats in the News 2021a). We discuss the relevance and implications of these In general, bats were not presented as a threat to public findings in the following sections. health in those articles specifically focused on bat ecology, 26 A. López-Baucells et al. Figure 3. Effects of the fixed predictors (‘‘Depiction of bats in the article’’ and ‘‘Political orientation’’) on the active response and engagement by the readership in terms of public comments. conservation, and natural history, with more than half of reservoirs can jeopardise bat conservation worldwide. Al- the attitudes supported by these articles being positive. though bats have been consistently referred to as reservoirs However, only less than half of these articles mentioned the of several viruses and deadly diseases, the complex inter- conservation problems that bats face or the ecosystem connections between bats, viruses and disease outbreaks are services that they provide. Also, almost none of the articles still not fully understood (Moratelli and Calisher 2015). In presented their positive economic contributions in relation fact, the capacity of bats to transmit viruses or diseases to pest control, seed dispersal or pollination (Boyles et al. compared to similar taxa and their role as virus reservoirs is 2011; Kunz et al. 2011). Our results suggest that the con- still highly debated (Streicker and Gilbert 2020). Zoonotic servation threats that bats face might not efficiently reach infections often occur when human beings get in direct the general public in Western Europe. Providing some contact with a pathogen reservoir (e.g. bushmeat; Marı́ Saéz quantitative estimates of the economic benefits accrued by et al. 2015; Anti et al. 2015). This has rarely been reported bats could help to promote bat conservation efforts in the in bats (i.e. insofar, only four zoonotic viruses have suc- media. However, to do so, it is paramount to frame and cessfully been traced back to direct bat-human transmis- describe such conservation issues in a didactic and sion worldwide; Smith et al. 2013, Moratelli and Calisher appealing way (Hoffmaster et al. 2016). Some notable ex- 2015) especially in Europe, where close human–bat con- amples could be the economic benefits of guano harvesting tacts are minimal. in Madagascar (Rocha et al. 2021a), pest insect suppression In general, all the results about the topics of the articles in Spain (Puig-Montserrat et al. 2015) or the pollination of and their framing were relatively similar between countries the tequila plant in South America (Trejo-Salazar et al. and newspapers, suggesting that these kinds of journalistic 2016). Highlighting examples in this vein could motivate routines and framing approaches are relatively common people to protect bats from human activities that threaten across most written media in Western Europe. However, their populations and habitats (López-Hoffman et al. these patterns might change either regionally or geo- 2010). graphically. For instance, many Asia–Pacific cultures fea- On the other hand, disease-related articles showed an ture far more positive associations with bats than most opposite trend, most of them presenting bats as a threat to Western societies, probably linked to the influences of human health, largely overlooking their ecosystem services, Christianity on the latter (Forth 2021; Low et al. 2021). and generally not highlighting any conservation issue. Even Disdain and fear of bats are largely embroiled in the though research on zoonotic diseases is crucial, biased Christian doctrine, where bats symbolise the Devil (see framings pointing bats only as potentially harmful virus Eklöf and Rydell 2021 for further details). Newspaper Coverage and Framing of Bats 27 Jargon and Lexical System in Bat-Related Articles concern. Interestingly, only one case of rabies had been recorded in the state of New York in the previous 15 years. Our study shows that disease- and virus-related terminol- While interviewees mentioned both positive and negative ogy is prominent in newspaper articles about bats, often effects of coyote presence in their area (e.g. feral cat and with negative connotations and fear-inducing associations rodent control and ecosystem balance as positive), many (Shapiro et al. 2021a). As discussed in several studies agreed that media coverage tended to have a negative bias, (MacFarlane & Rocha 2020; Shapiro et al. 2021a), the influencing the communities’ opinions. This example recurrence of conceptual associations between bats and highlights the extent to which disease-related speculation zoonotic infections contributes to the creation of mental shapes public attitudes towards wildlife. Positive percep- shortcuts guided by irrational processes that frame bats as tions of wildlife are essential for wildlife conservation, but ‘‘bad creatures’’ (Slovic et al. 2007). The rapid diffusion of they can rapidly erode by amplified risk and fear percep- digitised information usually reinforces negative framings, tions. Preventing the spread of misleading and speculative with short and often uncontrasted messages that can easily information magnifying the association of wildlife zoonotic go viral (López-Baucells et al. 2018). However, articles fo- risks is of utmost importance (Buttke et al. 2015). When cused on ecology, conservation, and natural history topics negative associations between wildlife and zoonoses are tended to use less frequently such repetitive terminology, as deeply rooted in collective social imaginaries, simply they cover a broader spectrum of topics. communicating facts may not be enough to face previous negative associations, and a careful communication strategy Articles’ Engagement and Public Response is necessary. As exposed in MacFarlane & Rocha 2020, to oppose misinformation, refutations should avoid repeating To our best knowledge, this is the first study showing that myths. Instead of emphasising the risks of zoonosis, pre- articles framing bats as a threat to human health attract a vention messages should present practices that minimise higher number of reader comments than those framing bats risks of exposure while reinforcing positive ideas, such as in neutral or positive terms. Wildlife perceptions are the ecosystem services provided by wildlife. Along the same shaped by culture and personal experiences. In a world lines, giving visibility to positive bat–human interrelation- where people are becoming increasingly disconnected from ships should be prioritised over negative or aggressive be- nature (Fernández-Llamazares et al. 2020), perceptions on haviours towards bats (Low et al. 2021, Shapiro et al. wildlife are largely shaped by mass media and their com- 2021b). munication of wildlife-related risks (Riley et al. 2003). While wildlife specialists can have a broader perspective of the risk and can evaluate it under professional judgement Implications and Recommendations for Conserva- (Decker et al. 2012), public perception of risk is highly tion influenced by factors such as community history and cul- To counteract the ubiquitous negative perceptions that ture, the closeness of the hazard and risk communication persist in the general public (Pennisi et al. 2004; Kingston (Decker et al. 2011). Zoonotic diseases are a matter of 2016), it is essential to highlight the vital roles of bats in increasing interest to the general public, as their outbreaks safeguarding global public interests (e.g. ecosystem in- are becoming increasingly common in the last decades tegrity, human well-being). Moreover, the media can also (Jones et al. 2008), often with global socio-economic im- take a more active role in amplifying existing information pacts, as exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Human as well as the best practices guidelines about human–bat health-related news significantly impacts the public, and coexistence in order to make bats more accessible to the the association of wildlife with a disease can result in social public (e.g. Brittingham et al. 2000; Bruckermann et al. amplification of risks, most likely affecting public attitudes 2022). There are already several initiatives and resources towards certain wildlife species. Fear of disease can decrease that can pave the way for improving bat–human interac- the values that society places on wildlife and its ecosystem tions in both rural and urban areas (e.g. Racey et al. 2013; services. For example, Hudenko et al. (2008) found that, Sutherland et al. 2018). However, just a handful of articles when asked about coyotes, suburban residents of Westch- with negative framings towards bats can easily jeopardise ester Country (New York, US) reported that disease the influence of many articles with positive framings. transmission could potentially become an issue of major Therefore, an international strategy to communicate bat- 28 A. López-Baucells et al. related discoveries and events accurately is required to Buttke DE, Decker DJ, Wild MA (2015) The role of one health in wildlife conservation: a challenge and opportunity. Journal of avoid misinformation and biased perceptions. Scientists Wildlife Diseases 51:1–8 and international conservation groups can provide guid- Carandell Baruzzi M (2023) ‘Ugly and smelly or useful insect ance, but only the interdisciplinary work between jour- hunters?’ Perceptions of and attitudes towards bats in the turn nalists, scientists and policy and decision makers at of the twentieth-century public sphere in Barcelona. Public Understanding of Science, 32(1):103–120 multiple scales will ensure effective conservation strategies Cardiff SG, Ratrimomanarivo FH, Rembert G, Goodman SM (Kingston 2016), accounting for different local contexts (2009) Hunting, disturbance and roost persistence of bats in (Kamins et al. 2015). The magnitude of the world’s social– caves at Ankarana, northern Madagascar. African Journal of Ecology 47:640–649 ecological crisis calls for innovative ways to connect global Cash DW, Clark WC, Alcock F, Dickson NM, Eckley N, Guston audiences to conservation challenges (Novacek 2008; DH, Jäger J, Mitchell RB (2003) Knowledge systems for sus- Balmford 2017). We believe that the mass media in general, tainable development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100:8086–8091 and journalists in particular, should be considered key Cerri J, Mori E, Ancillotto L, Russo D, Bertolino S (2022) COVID- partners in the arduous endeavour of educating people to 19, media coverage of bats and related Web searches: a turning take informed conservation action. In the current context point for bat conservation? Mammal Review 52:16–25 of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to tell positive stories Chandelier M, Steuckardt A, Mathevet R, Diwersy S, Gimenez O (2018) Content analysis of newspaper coverage of wolf recolo- about bats, their myriad values, and all the ecosystem ser- nization in France using structural topic modeling. Biological vices they provide has perhaps never been more critical. Conservation 220:254–261 Davis KJ, Chadès I, Rhodes JR, Bode M (2019) General rules for environmental management to prioritise social ecological sys- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS tems research based on a value of information approach. Journal of Applied Ecology 56:2079–2090 Dayer A, Williams AN, Cosbar EA, Racey M (2017) Blaming AFLL and SF acknowledge financial support from the threatened species: media portrayal of human-wildlife conflict. Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS). SF Oryx 53:265–272 was also funded by the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation. Decker DJ, Siemer WF, Evensen DTN, Stedman RC, McComas KA, Wild MA, Castle KT, Leong KM (2012) Public perceptions NR acknowledges financial support from the Secretariat for of wildlife-associated disease: risk communication matters. Universities and Research of the Government of Catalonia Human-Wildlife Interactions 6:112–122 and the European Social Fund. Decker DJ, Siemer WF, Wild MA, Castle KT, Wong D, Leong KM, Evensen DTN (2011) Communicating about zoonotic disease: Strategic considerations for wildlife professionals. Wildlife Society Bulletin 35:112–119 De Vreese CH (2005) News framing: theory and typology. Infor- REFERENCES mation Design Journal & Document Design 13:51–62 Eklöf J, Rydell J (2021) Attitudes towards bats in swedish history. Allan S (2002) Media, risk and science, : Open University Press Journal of Ethnobiology 41:35–52 Anti P, Owusu M, Agbenyega O, Annan A, Badu EK, Nkrumah Fernández-Llamazares Á, Fraixedas S, Brias-Guinart A, Terraube J EE, et al. 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