Reassuring or Risky: The Presentation of Seafood Safety in the Aftermath of the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill was enormously newsworthy; coverage interlaced discussions of health, economic, and environmental impacts and risks. We analyzed 315 news articles that considered Gulf seafood safety from the year following the spill. We explored reporting trends, risk presentation...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of public health (1971) 2013-07, Vol.103 (7), p.1198-1206
Main Authors: GREINER, Amelia L, LAGASSE, Lisa P, NEFF, Roni A, LOVE, David C, CHASE, Rachel, SOKOL, Natasha, CLEGG SMITH, Katherine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Communication
Communications Media - standards
Communications Media - statistics & numerical data
Consumption
Environmental impact
Fisheries
Food contamination & poisoning
Food Safety
Framing Health Matters
General aspects
Gulf of Mexico
Health Communication - standards
Health Education
Health risk assessment
Health risks
Humans
Journalists
Media
Media coverage
Medical sciences
Miscellaneous
News media
Nutrition/Food
Oil spills
Other Environment
Petroleum
Petroleum Pollution - adverse effects
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
Prevention
Public health
Public Health Practice
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Risk assessment
Risk Factors
Seafood
Seafood - adverse effects
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill was enormously newsworthy; coverage interlaced discussions of health, economic, and environmental impacts and risks. We analyzed 315 news articles that considered Gulf seafood safety from the year following the spill. We explored reporting trends, risk presentation, message source, stakeholder perspectives on safety, and framing of safety messages. Approximately one third of articles presented risk associated with seafood consumption as a standalone issue, rather than in conjunction with environmental or economic risks. Government sources were most frequent and their messages were largely framed as reassuring as to seafood safety. Discussions of prevention were limited to short-term, secondary prevention approaches. These data demonstrate a need for risk communication in news coverage of food safety that addresses the larger risk context, primary prevention, and structural causes of risk.
ISSN:0090-0036
1541-0048
DOI:10.2105/AJPH.2012.301093