Risk in daily newspaper coverage of red tide blooms in Southwest Florida

Abstract

This study investigated newspaper coverage of Florida red tide blooms in four metropolitan areas of Southwest Florida during a 25-year period, 1987–2012. We focused on how journalists framed red tide stories with respect to environmental risk, health risk, and economic risk. We determined risk to be a key factor in this news coverage, being an aspect of coverage of red tide itself in terms of environmental risk, tourism risk, and public health risk. The study found that red tide news coverage is most often framed as an environmental story.