Magazine coverage of wolves in Germany

The return of the wolf to densely populated Germany is a controversial and emotionally discussed topic, that affects many people directly or indirectly and thus involves many different aspects. Moreover, these aspects may vary... [ view full abstract ]

The return of the wolf to densely populated Germany is a controversial and emotionally discussed topic, that affects many people directly or indirectly and thus involves many different aspects. Moreover, these aspects may vary among stakeholders, such as hunters, shepherds, environmentalists and citizens. Emotionally charged topics such as the welcoming of the wolf in Germany, attacks on livestock by the wolf and fear of citizens to engage in recreational activities in forests where wolves are present, are often taken up in newspapers and magazines. Newspapers and magazines reach a large audience and they can influence human perspectives towards wildlife, but they also represent how people perceive and think about wildlife. Therefore, analysing media articles provides a powerful tool to understand people’s perceptions towards wildlife. In this study, we aim to understand stakeholder’s perceptions towards wolves by analysing media coverage of specific stakeholder magazines in Germany in 2017.

To address this objective, we searched for those articles referring to wolves that were published in five magazines and newspapers representing four different stakeholders – i.e. hunters (Jäger), farmers (Schafzucht), environmentalists (Naturschutz heute and BUNDmagazin) and civil society (Landeszeitung für die Lüneburger Heide). We applied standard content-analysis procedures and coded the content of 249 articles following asocial-ecological research approach. We particularly recorded aspects regarding ecological aspects of wolves and the ecosystem, the importance of wolves for humans by represented values, nature’s contribution to people provided by wolves and their habitat, conflicts caused by wolves, the stakeholders involved, the emotions represented and management measures. We also recorded word length to indicate the importance of the article, and the presence and description of photographs presented by the article in order to get a comprehensive picture of the represented wolf topic.

This study contributes to build understanding of the current, and often contested, perceptions of stakeholders towards the wolf shaped by the media in Germany.