From social benefits to social risk: the role of media reporting about gas drilling and 'manmade' earthquakes in The Netherlands

This paper explores what news media report about facts and perceptions and opinions of the public about technological activities and the related benefits and risks for society. Earthquake risk associated with the economic... [ view full abstract ]

This paper explores what news media report about facts and perceptions and opinions of the public about technological activities and the related benefits and risks for society. Earthquake risk associated with the economic benefits of gas drilling in the Netherlands provides a useful case to study. The aim of this longitudinal study is to conduct a descriptive analysis media discourse in the period 1990-2016. By using Supervised Machine Learning (SML) we provide a detailed insight of the changing themes of media reporting over 25 years. This paper shows that there is a disproportional relation between the increase of risk and media attention. The results show that not the physical hazard itself, but a change in media discourse (themes) helps to explain the change in media attention. In addition it is shown that inequal distribution of benefits and risk of technological activities in the population serves as a fruitful conflict theme for journalists. This conclusion is based on content analysis of 2265 articles from five different newspapers.