Abstract
Media narratives in environmental communication often broadcast scientific and complex information from the perspective of professional experts, and while focusing on emotions, fear and worry are being among the most frequently studied. However, the effectiveness of these strategies in raising public awareness has been questioned. Animals are recognized as one of the critical indicators of the ecological environment, therefore defining the most effective strategies that will draw public's attention to wildlife conservation is an important issue. Actions aimed at increasing the public's interest and dissemination of related content are the key elements of environmental communication. Based on that, we focus our empirical research on the event known as the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan, which gained global popularity in 2021. Choosing Twitter to collect our data, we used text mining methods to investigate 1230 tweets, exploring the mechanism of empathetic narrative in wildlife protection. The study has found that the themes such as warm feelings, diverse subjects, and scientific presentation can help to attract attention, enhance participation, and stimulate sympathetic responses. However, it is also necessary to pay attention to the lack of public participation in environmental issues, being a consequence of audience's preference for entertaining content, among others. Instead of focusing on negative emotions or scientific language, we aim to provide a new perspective on environmental communication narratives in the era of social media by emphasizing the role of warm emotions in triggering audience's interaction.
Export citation and abstract BibTeX RIS
Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
1. Introduction
McGarigal et al (2016) writes about 'multi-scale habitat selection modelling' that relates to interaction between environment and animals, and their ability to assess natural conditions. The fact that animals perceive environmental characteristics on multiple scales, such as time and space, is recognized as one of the critical indicators of the ecological environment. Animals with their economic, ecological and cultural functions play an important role in human life. However, according to the Living Planet Report published in 2020 and prepared by World Wildlife Fund (WWF), since 1970, the population of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles has declined by an average of 68% (WWF 2020). Wildlife protection has long been the focus of environmental communication. A series of programs listed criteria for assessing wildlife conservation potential (Margules and Usher 1981) and created a set of principles of wildlife governance (Decker et al 2016), but the lack of mobilization and solid public support are one of the biggest challenges in protecting endangered species (Courchamp et al 2018). The question of how to make the public interested and engaged in wildlife protection has become a critical issue in environmental communication.
Environmental communication research has evolved from traditional media (e.g., Lester and Cottle 2009, Pan et al 2021). Nowadays, it also involves social media (e.g., Walker and Malson 2020, Boyer et al 2021, Heidbreder et al 2021), elucidating the broader social, political, and cultural implications of environmental communication. Therefore, social media has initiated a new wave of wildlife conservation, with studies focusing on investigating the degree of attention of different species on social media (Kidd et al 2018), and analyzing social media news agenda on wildlife-related issues (Wang, Chen, and Shi et al 2021). However, the research on the role of social media content and its quality in raising public awareness of wildlife conservation still requires to be supplemented (Wu et al 2018).
Various media, such as newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and especially the Internet, have led to an information glut. It is hard to imagine how we can possibly devote enough attention to all the information in our society. That is, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention (Davenport and Beck 2001, Tufekci 2013). In the era of information explosion, where attention is regarded as the most precious resource, successful media narratives can attract and influence follow-up behaviors. That is why drawing attention to the issue of wildlife protection has become the topic of our times.
There has been a lack of climate-related public discourse on social media in China for a long time (Liu and Wallace 2023). However, the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan has sparked public interest in the topic, flooding social media platforms, particularly Twitter and Youtube, with content full of clips of elephants' various antics (AP News 2021). The paper examines the content on Twitter during the peak of the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan in 2021, offering valuable insights into users' involvement in environmental issues on social media. The analysis explores the narrative themes, subjects, and presentation methods employed in environmental communication regarding wildlife conservation, aiming to identify elements that can evoke or amplify the empathetic response.
2. Literature review
2.1. Environmental communication, social media, and narratives
The environment has long been a primary public and political concern. The increasingly mature environmental communication research has evolved from a relatively narrow 'environmental topic' to eventually become a part of the more extensive media communication field linked to science, health, risk, and the environment (Hansen 2011). Looking at social media from the perspective of environmental communication allows us to distinguish three essential functions. First of all, it gives more attention to environmental topics. Rogstad (2016) found that both the social media platform Twitter and the mainstream media concentrated on the same topics, with the only difference being that Twitter paid more attention to environmental issues, which are overwhelmingly ignored by the mainstream media. Discussions on social media platforms referring to environmental communication can also turn local topics into global ones (Autry and Kelly 2012), as illustrated by the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan event. Furthermore, the rise of social media has broadened the sources and platforms used for environmental communication (Joosse and Brydges 2018), including creating a public space for individuals to communicate, as well as providing governments and organizations with tools to understand public opinion, and publicizing policies. As the last function of social media, we can list conducting public supervision. The interest that social media pay to environmental topics has become a potent force capable of influencing the immediate responses of governments (Nghiem et al 2012).
The narrative has long transcended the storytelling concept and evolved into how people comprehend social life (Somers 1994). Narratives can choose various viewpoints to organize the plot, and the story does not happen in the real world but is constructed in people's minds (Bruner 1987). The application of the narrative to the field of environmental communication is of great significance. Firstly, narratives serve as effective tools for conveying complex phenomena, as they have the ability to engage and provide meaning to highly intricate problems that may be challenging for the general public to comprehend (Arnold 2018). Meanwhile, narrative communication can improve achieving expected results, understanding, interest, and engagement (Dahlstrom 2014). Secondly, it appeals to emotions. According to dual processing theory, our cognitive processes are governed by two separate systems: one is intuitive, narrative, and emotion-based, while the other is analytical, logical, and considerate (Croskerry 2009, Djulbegovic et al 2012). Thus, scientific communication is assumed to activate analytical systems responsible for rational decision-making. In contrast, narrative communication activates systems related to emotional decision-making (Raile et al 2022). Lastly, it can be measured and analyzed. Even though narrative information is a construction of reality, narrative elements have a stable structure that can be analyzed over time (Raile et al 2022). Geertz (1973) defines narrative as a story told by someone to someone, on a specific occasion, and for a specific purpose. The narrative contains the elements such as the subject, story/ theme, situation/ platform, and purpose/ effect. In a word, environmental communication narratives are highly compatible with the characteristics of social media. On the one hand, social media users, who belong to non-professional groups receive easily comprehensible narrative content. On the other hand, the narrative's emotional stimulation contributes to forming group opinions in social media spaces.
2.2. Characteristics of media narrative in environmental communication
Environmental communication is seen as a part of risk communication and science communication (Besley 2015). Media narratives in environmental communication often broadcast scientific and complex information from the perspective of professional experts, and focus mainly on emotions, with fear and worry being the most frequently studied in wildlife protection narratives (Swim and Bloodhart 2015). Especially in the wildlife conservation narrative, crisis narratives often depict endangered species (Ghazal Aswad 2019) in a way evoking protective instincts and compassion (Slocum 2004, Huggan 2016). Among the typical examples, we can list polar bears, which have become the symbol of climate change (Pearce 2006, O'Neill et al 2008). Visual communication linked to endangered Arctic regions often depicts polar bears on floating icebergs (Born 2019).
However, the role of expert narratives and fear narratives has been questioned. Brulle (2010) believes that by applying cognitive science in their work, professional communication experts can create environmental information content that could influence public opinion. Nevertheless, such methods are likely to have short-term effects, inapplicable for large-scale mobilization and strengthening of citizen participation. And some scholars have questioned the empathetic effect of negative emotions. Moser and Dilling (2004) argue that using emotions such as anger and guilt may not lead to a better understanding of the problem, followed by further action. Negative emotions in wildlife protection narratives are losing their significance in favor of aesthetics (artistic and symbolic characteristics of animals) increasingly significant in the perception of endangered species (Knight 2008). Moreover, the crisis narrative, which aims to emphasize that wildlife is threatened by human activity, sees the solution in establishing protected areas that would not be affected by humans. This kind of narrative does not achieve much emotional resonance from the audience because it is an exclusive, top-down approach. Just as there is a great physical distance between polar bears and people, images of hungry polar bears may not necessarily make audiences feel the threat of climate crisis (Skutka 2021). Campbell (2002) claims that new narratives should concentrate on affirming the value of wildlife and follow the principles of community-based conservation, which assumes inclusive, bottom-up actions and empathetic coexistence with animals.
Empathy is the ability to sense the feelings of others (De Vignemont and Singer 2006, Singer and Klimecki 2014). The 'emotional anchoring effect' could be described as its essence, meaning arousing corresponding emotions in the audience (Jacobs 2009, Huggan 2016). Sentiments play an essential role in wildlife conservation (Castillo-Huitrón et al 2020), and people with higher levels of empathy commonly exhibit stronger environmental attitudes and behaviors (Berenguer 2007).
To conclude, among the characteristics of related research, we can highlight the following: wildlife protection is a global focus of environmental communication. Additionally, social media have become an important platform for environmental communication. But fear and worry dominate wildlife protection narratives, other emotions, such as empathy, should also be studied. What kind of social media narrative will attract more attention and stimulate more empathy is relevant for the field. Besley (2015) states that environmental communication is also a science that involves public opinion, persuasion, and strategic communication, and that creating useful guidelines can facilitate environmental communication to be effective. Based on the research gap in environmental communication, this paper attempts to analyze how wildlife-themed environmental communication on social media can use more narrative style to trigger audience attention. Therefore, this paper proposes three main research questions:
- (1)What narrative themes of wildlife conservation in environmental communication can trigger the empathetic effect on social media platforms?
- (2)What narrative subjects of wildlife conservation in environmental communication can enhance the empathetic effect on social media platforms?
- (3)What narrative presentation methods of wildlife conservation in environmental communication can increase the empathetic effect on social media platforms?
3. Materials and methods
The reason for choosing Twitter as a target social media is not solely based on its abundance of elephant-related content, but also its role as an environmental medium. There has been a lack of climate-related public discourse on social media in China for a long time (Liu and Wallace 2023). However, the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan has sparked public interest in the topic, flooding social media platforms, particularly Twitter and YouTube, with content full of clips of elephants' various antics (AP News 2021). Our focus lies on Twitter, a multimodal interactive digital platform that exhibits diverse functionalities based on the specific social and political context in which it is employed (Hutchins 2016). As a large-scale, international platform with available data (Steinert-Threlkeld 2018), it is used frequently for communication about climate change (Deb et al 2023). Environmental topics such as climate change and global warming (Jang and Hart 2015), consumption of single-use plastic items (Heidbreder et al 2021), and water conservation campaigns (Boyer et al 2021) were all studied on Twitter. Our case study, which examines environmental communication, allows us to discern how Twitter influences the organization of individual and collective interactions regarding this topic. The particular context of the Wild Elephant Northward Migration helps us identify the ways in which Twitter impacts engagement and communication in relation to the environment. In our paper, we used Twitter to study the narrative theme, the narrative subject, and the narrative presentation of the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan.
Tweets containing the keywords 'wandering elephants', 'Yunnan elephants', 'Kunming elephants', and 'migrant elephants' were collected from 1st of May to 16th of July 2021, which coincided with the peak of public attention towards the event. The Twitter streaming Application Programming Interface (API) based on Python technology was utilized for data collection. Twitter's API allows for a keyword search to find all tweets with a specific keyword (e.g. ' wandering elephants ') for a given day (Deb et al 2023). To ensure that the content of the tweets was closely related to the event, we manually verified the initial result and ended up with a total of 1230 tweets.
According to Liu and Wallace (2023) who investigated the discourse of climate change on Weibo, environmental issues are nearly absent from Chinese social media. Moreover, even when these topics are trending, people do not post frequently. The authors demonstrated this on a dataset of trending topics over a 72 h period, showing that each individual post received an average of 13.7 comments, 12.9 retweets, and 41.7 likes. This implies that while the data volume may not be that large, it remains valid. However, the metrics cited are based on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform often regarded as China's equivalent of Twitter, rather than encompassing Twitter or other social media platforms. Hence, providing a direct comparison is not scientifically appropriate. We referred to other environmental studies on Twitter, despite the limited number available. Some scholars have argued that Chai Jing's 'Under the Dome' went viral on Twitter and collected 1725 tweets searching for this issue date from 28 February 2015 to 6 March 2015 (Mao et al 2023). Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the 1230 tweets also provide some evidence that the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan being representative, although we have extended the data collection time since Wandering Elephant unfolds at a slower pace compared to the sudden attention garnered by a documentary like Chai Jing's 'Under the Dome'.
To clarify the narrative theme, we used a transformers model to segment the text and conduct word frequency statistics and word co-occurrence statistics on the segmented words. Transformers, an open-source library, has rapidly become the dominant architecture for natural language processing (NLP), and is regarded as the state-of-the-art approach in Natural Language Processing (Wolf et al 2020). By employing a tokenization process that divides inputs into multiple tokens, the transformer can use self-attention to extract their pairwise relationships (Qian et al 2022). Subsequently, ECharts was used to generate word clouds. ECharts is an open source, web-based, cross-platform framework that supports the rapid construction of interactive visualizations. Its core is a declarative visual design language that allows customization of built-in chart types (Li et al 2018, Wang et al 2019). A 'word cloud' is a visual representation of word frequency. The more frequently the word appears in the text being analyzed, the larger the word is in the generated image. Word clouds are increasingly used as a simple tool to identify the focus of written material. They have found applications in various fields including politics, business, education, and environment (Atenstaedt 2012, Heimerl et al 2014, Heidbreder et al 2021). The tweets with the highest number of likes, comments, and retweets were combined to find the most interactive narrative themes.
For analyzing the narrative subject, we focused on the number of reposts gained by the content. Retweeting is a significantly stronger indicator of topical interest (Welch et al 2011), and it relates to the credibility, professionalism, and attractiveness of the source of information (Liu et al 2012).
For exploring the narrative presentation method, we combined sentiment analysis with the semantic network analysis (SNA). Sentiment analysis can unveil the overall attitudes toward the elephants. VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner), a simple rule-based model for general sentiment analysis, outperforms individual human raters. It is calculated by adding up the value scores of each word in the lexicon, adjusting them according to the rules, and then normalizing them to between −1 (most extreme negative) and +1 (most extreme positive) (Hutto and Gilbert 2014, Heidbreder et al 2021). SNA is a popular branch of computerized content analysis that can complement traditional manually coded content analysis. It improves reliability and overcomes the limitations of crude categorization in analytic frameworks. SNA extracts underlying conceptual associations by analyzing semantic structure (Calabrese et al 2019, Luo et al 2021). A free software for quantitative content analysis HK Coder was used to visualize the semantic networks (Higuchi 2016, Higuchi 2017).
4. Results
4.1. RQ1: Analysis of narrative themes
In this paper, we selected the top 200 words from the tweet content in order to create a word cloud (figure 1). And in the appendix, we have included the bar plot (figure A1) showing the frequency of each top 90 words from the content, with different perspectives color-coded.
Figure 1. Analysis of narrative themes.
Download figure:
Standard image High-resolution imageThe first protagonist of this event is undoubtedly elephants, and many human figures also emerge, such as 'experts', 'conservationists' and 'government officials'. The narrative focuses mainly on the following perspectives: describing the activities of the elephant herd ('trek', 'migrant', 'nap', 'rest', 'move' etc), introducing the location and the related words indicating distance, especially the natural environment and the reserve ('reserve', 'nature', 'forest', 'habitat', 'lake' etc), portraying family ('home', 'family', 'hometown', 'baby' etc), expressing hopes and wishes ('safe', 'safety', 'happily', 'passion', etc).
Combining the tweets with the highest number of comments, the highest number of likes and the highest number of retweets shows that the narrative of the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan is related to sleeping elephants. The narrative does not use scientific language or migration prediction but instead focuses on warm feelings and descriptions of elephants' daily routines.
BBC News (World): Sweet dreams! Wandering elephants take a snooze https://bbc.in/3gndYZY. (9th June 2021, the post with the highest number of likes and retweets, 3812 likes and 591 retweets).
Parveen Kaswan, IFS: If anybody wants to see how elephants sleep. (8th June 2021, the post with the highest number of comments, 665 comments).
To conclude, the theme could be described as 'cute'. The 'cuteness' of the content attracts the audience, which is consistent with the baby schema effect, a fundamental social instinct responsible for altruism (Lorenz 1943). According to Wilson (1984), humans have a biological tendency to affiliate with animals. Borgi and Circuli (2016) further argue that animals serve as significant stimuli, particularly when they possess infantile features that capture attention and evoke affectionate behaviors, such as willingness to care. In this case, its essence is the sleeping elephant herd which brings people the feeling of family warmth, comfort in life, and environmental safety. The harmony between humans and elephants refers to the symbiosis between humans and their natural environment, touching upon the common interests of the global public and triggering empathy effects.
4.2. RQ2: Analysis of narrative subjects
The number of reposts of a given social media content reflects its scope of influence. In this article, we focus on the top 200 publishers whose content gained the highest number of reposts in order to create the narrative subjects' influence graph (figure 2). And we provided the bar plot (figure 3) showing the retweeting of top 30 subjects, and coloring the different perspectives. The results show that professional news media and influencers play a leading role in the narrative of the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan.
Figure 2. The narrative subjects' influence graph.
Download figure:
Standard image High-resolution image
Figure 3. The retweeting of top 30 subjects.
Download figure:
Standard image High-resolution imageWe also observed the privileged position of professional news media (Engesser and Humprecht 2015) in the narrative, as the content published by TIME, Reuters, CBS, ABC, and BBC gained leading positions in terms of the number of reposts. Professional news media have been a dominant force in the public construction of shared experiences and public perceptions of what is real and important (Schudson 2003). In this case, reposting behavior related to the credibility, professionalism, and attractiveness of the source of information (Liu et al 2012). Moreover, it could be seen that the deinstitutionalization of social media is only partial, with the significant outlets still concentrated in the hands of a few international media players (Bechmann and Lomborg 2013, Castells 2009). In the tweet posted on the 8th of June 2021, ABC News wrote, 'China's wandering elephant herd has become a viral sensation in the country, with videos of them doing everyday activities like resting racking up hundreds of millions of views.' This short sentence aptly summarizes the popular content related to wild elephants in Yunnan. It not only highlights the non-scientific and non-crisis-oriented way of building the narrative but also herd effect stimulation, capturing attention, and developing curiosity in the audience.
Twitter, as the networked public sphere, is a space for audiences to share, discuss and contribute to the news (Hermida et al 2012). Other influencers, for example, China Eastern Airlines, played an important role in expanding the topics and keeping them popular. In July 2021, the content surrounding started to be leveraged by companies. For instance, China Eastern Airlines promoted tourism and local delicacies, including rose cakes: 'crispy and flaky pastry, flowery and aromatic flavor...yum yum! That's why the elephants also want to have a bite'. Even though these topics were not directly related to the ecological environment, they continued the empathetic narrative by expressing good emotions, love for the elephants, and a sense of harmony between humans and nature. The hashtags included in the original tweet were #Yunnan and #elephant. All tweets that share the same hashtag (#) can be displayed together (Heidbreder et al 2021), helping to perpetuate the consistent narrative.
To sum up, the empathy present in the narrative of the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan was driven by both professional news media and influencers. Due to their credibility, the former attracted more public attention, while the latter continued and expanded the topics, keeping them interesting, intimate, and fun.
4.3. RQ3: Analysis of narrative presentation
Observation, recording, and dissemination difficulties are common challenges in wildlife protection narratives. In the case of Yunnan wild elephants, the problem was not only investigating the real reasons behind the elephants' migration but also ensuring the safety of both the elephants and the people living in the areas where they passed (Jiang et al 2021). In consequence, 11.52% of the negative emotions present in the narrative of the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan mainly focused on fears and concerns about the destructive power of elephants and the uncertainty of their migration: 'Their destination remains unknown', or 'But humans may be the reason they left home.'
We have found that 74.19% of the positive emotions (neutral emotions accounted for 14.29%) were linked to the use of playful language to describe the elephants' life and express affection towards them, e.g., 'Gallivanting throughout countryside: China's famed wandering elephants are on the move again.' The emotions were also related to keeping the elephants safe: 'Wandering elephants take well-deserved rest during China migration', 'Authorities rush to close off roads and neighborhoods to protect both the animals and people'.
The drone monitoring team, sent by Yunnan Forest Fire Brigade, used drones, infrared radiation, and other technological solutions to carry out the uninterrupted topographical survey to obtain the latest information and ensure safety. The dynamic tracking technology helped thoroughly document the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan. It provided up to a minute presentation of first-hand information and conveyed positive emotions to the audience. The image of the sleeping herd (figure 4) has become very popular and frequently quoted by ABC, NBC, and CBS. Netizens use this picture to make cute emoticons and disseminate the content in a two-step flow of communication. CBS News posted on the 8st of June 2021: ' REST STOP: Wild elephants took a nap before carrying on wandering through a forest in China.'
Figure 4. The image of the sleeping herd.
Download figure:
Standard image High-resolution imageCompared to word frequency, SNA can show word co-occurrence and present each semantic sub-cluster by a specific color (Luo et al 2021). Although the vocabulary is not sufficient to determine the theme of each cluster, we can still see that different colors represent different topics, such as international stars (in blue), the distance of 500Km (in red), the activities of sleep and rest (in cyan), and the content related to Eastern Airlines (in orange). The semantic network visualization of the narrative content (figure 5) shows that the popular topic of 'nap' is connected to 'capture' and 'photo', which confirms that the narrative of sleeping elephants is related to some visual materials.
Figure 5. The Semantic network visualization of the narrative content.
Download figure:
Standard image High-resolution imageTo conclude, scientific and technological means, such as real-time monitoring, are appropriate for documenting the dynamic activities of wild animals and have also proved adaptable to the timeliness and richness of social media presentation. Moreover, they realized the technologization of narrative methods vividly reflected the event and enhanced the audience's empathy for the wildlife conservation narrative.
5. Discussion
5.1. Narrative themes: the effectiveness of positive emotions over fear in arousing public attention
In the past, the environmental communication narratives aroused public awareness by using the traditional scientific discourse and narratives of danger. They focused on the most serious threats posed to wildlife and tried to popularize the importance of its conservation. The Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan provides the alternative in the form of an emotional narrative, conveying warm feelings to draw the public's attention. It is worth mentioning that the migration, which began in 2020, did not reach its peak of popularity on social media until May and June 2021, and among themes that mostly attracted public attention and accelerated the further spreading of the content were 'sleeping elephants'. It goes in line with the finding that animals' emotional expressions, either innate or learned, are likely to trigger an emotional response among humans (Jacobs 2009, Jacobs et al 2012). Therefore, the appropriate use of narrative in the content is crucial to arouse audience's attention and bring an emotional reaction. Since humans are emotional animals, friendship and family love are appreciated by all human beings, therefore, they have the potential to generate emotional resonance and stimulate forming of shared values. In today's attention-driven economy, individuals are constantly in pursuit of, receiving or giving attention. This system revolves around the scarcity and distinctiveness of human attention, leading to organized efforts that involve broader and more diverse audiences (Goldhaber 2006). In the era of information abundance, attention has become a valuable and limited resource (Goldhaber 1997). Therefore, when it comes to wildlife protection narratives, a shift in focus from fear and guilt to warm and positive emotions can effectively enhance audience empathy.
It is relevant to mention that the peak of popularity of the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan occurred in the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic. From the very beginning of its onset, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Weibo served as important sources of information about public emotions. User-generated content confirmed the presence of emotions such as fear, sadness, or anger (Li et al 2020). Therefore, the topic of elephant migration served as a diversion from the depressing reality.
5.2. Narrative subjects: the dominant position of professional news media in environmental communication, and the need of strengthening participation of influencers
In some countries, environmental topics are considered relevant only to governments, diplomats and elites. In the past, wildlife conservation narratives were voiced mainly by environmental experts and professional institutions, which resulted in deficiencies in environmental communication linked to the public's lack of understanding (Moser and Dilling 2004). Media Convergence theory states that we live in the era of ubiquitous media, with a wide range of interconnected media (Jenkins 2004). In the beginning, the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan narrative was introduced and led by professional news media, with influencers gradually following up, enriching the content and increasing its popularity. As a result, the two kinds of media formed a close relationship and became a credible sources of information for the public. One of the most critical features of social media is giving everyone a voice to speak out. Our analysis illustrated how the cooperation of multiple subjects shaped the narrative from emphasizing publicity to public participation (Brulle 2010). Moreover, using language skills to convey information and social abilities such as empathy to infer another person's emotional state is crucial for successful communication and coordinating joint actions (Singer and Klimecki 2014). For that reason, the participation of multiple subjects in the wildlife protection narrative is relevant for balancing the authority and timeliness of professional news media with the influence and intimacy created by opinion leaders. It should me mentioned that China Eastern Airlines is also endowed with a certain degree of authority due to the weight of their subject attributes and identities. However, environmental issues on social media still lack more representative influencers.
5.3. Narrative presentation: the rich visual presentation brought by new technology helps to attract public attention, but may cause over-entertainment
With the global spread of regional environmental communication narratives, it is crucial to recognize that emotions are culturally influenced, and there is always a risk of cross-cultural stereotyping due to the differences in interpretations. Social values, personal experiences, and other factors shape people's interpretations (Sturgis and Allum 2004), and information that conflicts with one's standards is usually ignored (Lorenzoni et al 2007). That is why the empathetic narrative effect cannot rely solely on emotional stimulation but needs to be enhanced by the timeliness and credibility of information. Most importantly, reporting newly-occurring facts must be truthful, timely, and accurate. Second, an empathetic narrative does not imply misinformation. In a case study of Pulitzer Prize-winning articles, British scholars have examined the strategic ritual of emotionality, concluding that the objectivity of reporting and the emotionalization of stories are not in conflict (Wahl-Jorgensen 2013). Lastly, new technologies directly impact the operation and logic of the news industry, making the news content more eye-catching and the data presentation more precise, contributing to greater persuasiveness and trust in media objectivity. The Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan narrative was based on high-technology and video materials, which positively affected the interactivity of the theme, and helped with overcoming cognitive barriers (e.g., scientific language or different knowledge levels) of the audience, forming the unexpected narrative effect. Therefore, there is a need to emphasize new technologies in documenting objective facts in wildlife protection narratives to positively affect a narrative's timeliness, authenticity, and credibility. Due to the expansion of the public's contact with information, individuals' and groups' beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors could be converged to promote wildlife conservation.
However, although pictures and videos attract a lot of attention to elephants, these contents are primarily for entertainment purposes. What is popular are images of elephants sleeping and bathing, and many users even create emojis featuring elephants. The reasons for migration and the changes in nature receive less attention, which somewhat confuses the focus of environmental communication. Elephant migration is a complex ecological process. Several potential explanations such as habitat shrinkage, food shortages, and population growth are explained for this event, but they lack quantitative data to support them (Wang et al 2021). The cause of the elephant migration still needs to be explored. Achieving lasting harmony between humans and elephants remains a scientific issue rather than a mere topic for discussion on social media.
6. Conclusion
According to Hughes (2009), the environment cannot be viewed as a separate backdrop to human history. Environmental issues are global in nature, and humans are both reliant on natural factors and subject to ecological principles. He also introduces the concept of the 'community of life' to illustrate the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living organisms on Earth. As humans and wildlife are both essential parts of the community of life, their actions profoundly impact the environment. The environmental threats that are putting wildlife populations at risk have also become the symbol of humanity's plight. The narrative of the Wild Elephant Northward Migration in Yunnan has proved that elephants affected people's emotions worldwide. This observation confirms human beings' attention to life and their own behavior. Generating solid public support and enhancing mobilization are the key objectives of wildlife preservation. How wildlife conservation narratives can draw the public's attention, increase engagement, and inspire future actions is an important topic for further research. Cultural context plays a fundamental role in understanding basic human emotions toward wildlife species. It relates to the physical environment combined with individual and collective experiences, meanings, beliefs, and attitudes, all linked to animals and creating a wide range of emotions among people. Castillo-Huitrón et al (2020) believe large predators promote mainly anger, fear and disgust. However, we find that people also give positive symbolic meanings to large and potentially dangerous animals as elephants, which are generally considered to bring good luck and be a sacred.
This paper affirms social media's role in constructing people's emotions and aims to provide new ideas for animal protection by demonstrating that audiences can spontaneously participate in content construction, becoming creators of environmental protection content instead of its passive recipients. The narrative analyzed in this paper, incorporating themes such as warm feelings, diverse subjects, and scientific presentation, could be suitable for many areas such as results marketing, social mobilization, team sports, and contribute to filling the research gap of empathetic narrative on wildlife conservation on social media platforms. Moreover, identifying positive feelings and beliefs in wildlife conservation narratives can evoke group participation (Pooley and o'Connor 2000) and prove more effective than the use of scientific language. It should also be noted that the authoritative media are holding a leading position on current environmental issues on social media, which still lacks public participation. Moreover, excessive anthropomorphic presentation that focuses on entertaining the audience may fail to address the relevant aspects contributing to environmental protection.
We have to mention the limitations of our study. Firstly, although the researchers conduct a full-sample analysis, the data is not big. Although environmental events like 'The Northward Migration of Wild Elephants in Yunnan' have been covered by influential media such as the BBC, which still do not get as much interaction on social media as entertainment news. It also shows that strategies of attracting more public attention through environmental events should be developed. Besides, the text mining method will lead to some omissions during data collection. Secondly, we only focus on a single social media platform (i.e., Twitter), and future research should analyze the integration of data from multiple platforms. Thirdly, the quantitative character of our research does not allow us for in-depth analysis. The extent to which the public's increased attention and participation in social media events can translate into actual actions remains for further exploration. Future research could utilize interviews or questionnaires to deeper investigate the effects of empathetic narrative in wildlife protection among the audiences.
Data availability statement
The data cannot be made publicly available upon publication because they are not available in a format that is sufficiently accessible or reusable by other researchers. The data that support the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request from the authors.
Institutional review board statement
Not applicable.
Informed consent statement
Not applicable.
Funding
This research project received funding from Shanghai Jiao Tong University's USC-SJTU Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry, and from Zizhu National High-Tech Industrial Development Zone, via the Zizhu New Media Management Research Center and the International Association of Cultural and Creative Industry Research.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Author contributions
Conceptualization, K X, methodology, K X and S L, resources, K X, data curation, S L, writing—original draft preparation, S L and A W, writing—review and editing, K X, S L and A W, supervision, K X.
Appendix
Figure A1. The frequency of top 90 words.
Download figure:
Standard image High-resolution image
