People from all over the world are familiar with animal rescue through personal experience or from other resources. With technological progress, receiving news became very easy for people, so issues like the animal rescue became more publicized in mass media. Despite the fact that the media covers animal rescue issues, the topic is not popular and profitable for big companies to cover it.
To begin with, it is important to discuss how animal rescue is covered by the media. Most of the time any media materials related to animal rescue are in video format. In the article ‘By the Numbers: Why Video Is Effective’ HIV.GOV (the organization) states that video format content works better because ‘Videos are a great way to make content more accessible and inviting to a wider audience. Videos help people feel part of something bigger – and better convey emotion than text’ (HIV.GOV,2017). Before YouTube, people who were interested in wildlife had the opportunity to watch animal documentaries. Some of the most famous documentary contributors are BBC and Animal Planet channels.
Some companies and organizations cover animal related issues and events on their websites. Big mass media organizations like BBC, Independent and Global News keep a separate category for animal news. Very often one can find information related to animal rescue on such websites because of two reasons. First, the website’s holder covers many topics and can afford to have a separate animal category. Second, organizations specialise at animal issues or rescue operations.
Another popular method to bring the animal rescue or just animal topic to public is to write a book. Books are not considered as mass media but as print media (Balow, 2017). There are many academic and fictional books related to the animal rescue. Authors of such books write them for adults and kids. The books for adults contain information that is more academic whereas kids get easy to understand text plus some pictures.
Despite the fact that animal rescue is covered in media, it is still not popular. The reason why animal rescue does not make it to the top of the leading topics might be due to newsworthiness. According to Richard J. Harris and Fred W. Sanborn’s book ‘A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication’, the newsworthiness can be primarily characterized by Personalization, Drama/Conflict, Action, Novelty/Deviance and Link to Ongoing Themes (Harris, Sanborn, PP. 214-218, 2014). A tragic story about dying or successfully rescued animal will definitely make a strong connection with the audience which cares about nature or has their own pets. This excludes a major portion of potential viewers. However, animal rescue operations are quite dramatic, and this makes viewers watch to find out how situation will be resolved. Depending on the length of action (animal rescue operation), viewers might lose interest in it. Most of the time, mass media covers only recent big animal events, ignoring some long ongoing rescue operations because the audience would be simply tired of watching them. Covered rescue operations happen during uncovered illegal animal trafficking or during natural disasters, and both of them happen rarely. Lastly, it is extremely rare to see a link to ongoing themes from animal news. According to Pew Research Center’s article ‘Leading Topics’, the top three popular topics of 2011-2012 for mass media were politics, economy and disasters (see Table 1) (Pew Research Center: Journalism & Media Staff, 2012).
Table 1
These topics are mainly covered because the audience is interested in them and can relate to any of those topics on everyday basis. Only a specific group of people would read and watch news about animal rescue, because it is too distant from everyday life.
Reference:
D. Balow (2017), ‘Books are Not Mass Media’, The Steve Laube Agency, Available on https://stevelaube.com/books-not-mass-media/
R. J., Harris and F. W. Sanborn (2014). ‘A cognitive psychology of mass communication (6th ed.)’, PP. 214-218, New York, NY, US: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
HIV.GOV (2017), ‘By the Numbers: Why Video Is Effective’, DigitalGov, Available on https://digital.gov/2017/08/07/by-the-numbers-why-video-is-effective/
Pew Research Center: Journalism & Media Staff (2012),‘Leading Topics’, Pew Research Center: Journalism & Media, Available on https://www.journalism.org/2012/07/16/leading-topics/
To begin with, it is important to discuss how animal rescue is covered by the media. Most of the time any media materials related to animal rescue are in video format. In the article ‘By the Numbers: Why Video Is Effective’ HIV.GOV (the organization) states that video format content works better because ‘Videos are a great way to make content more accessible and inviting to a wider audience. Videos help people feel part of something bigger – and better convey emotion than text’ (HIV.GOV,2017). Before YouTube, people who were interested in wildlife had the opportunity to watch animal documentaries. Some of the most famous documentary contributors are BBC and Animal Planet channels.
Some companies and organizations cover animal related issues and events on their websites. Big mass media organizations like BBC, Independent and Global News keep a separate category for animal news. Very often one can find information related to animal rescue on such websites because of two reasons. First, the website’s holder covers many topics and can afford to have a separate animal category. Second, organizations specialise at animal issues or rescue operations.
Another popular method to bring the animal rescue or just animal topic to public is to write a book. Books are not considered as mass media but as print media (Balow, 2017). There are many academic and fictional books related to the animal rescue. Authors of such books write them for adults and kids. The books for adults contain information that is more academic whereas kids get easy to understand text plus some pictures.
Despite the fact that animal rescue is covered in media, it is still not popular. The reason why animal rescue does not make it to the top of the leading topics might be due to newsworthiness. According to Richard J. Harris and Fred W. Sanborn’s book ‘A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication’, the newsworthiness can be primarily characterized by Personalization, Drama/Conflict, Action, Novelty/Deviance and Link to Ongoing Themes (Harris, Sanborn, PP. 214-218, 2014). A tragic story about dying or successfully rescued animal will definitely make a strong connection with the audience which cares about nature or has their own pets. This excludes a major portion of potential viewers. However, animal rescue operations are quite dramatic, and this makes viewers watch to find out how situation will be resolved. Depending on the length of action (animal rescue operation), viewers might lose interest in it. Most of the time, mass media covers only recent big animal events, ignoring some long ongoing rescue operations because the audience would be simply tired of watching them. Covered rescue operations happen during uncovered illegal animal trafficking or during natural disasters, and both of them happen rarely. Lastly, it is extremely rare to see a link to ongoing themes from animal news. According to Pew Research Center’s article ‘Leading Topics’, the top three popular topics of 2011-2012 for mass media were politics, economy and disasters (see Table 1) (Pew Research Center: Journalism & Media Staff, 2012).
Table 1
These topics are mainly covered because the audience is interested in them and can relate to any of those topics on everyday basis. Only a specific group of people would read and watch news about animal rescue, because it is too distant from everyday life.
Reference:
D. Balow (2017), ‘Books are Not Mass Media’, The Steve Laube Agency, Available on https://stevelaube.com/books-not-mass-media/
R. J., Harris and F. W. Sanborn (2014). ‘A cognitive psychology of mass communication (6th ed.)’, PP. 214-218, New York, NY, US: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
HIV.GOV (2017), ‘By the Numbers: Why Video Is Effective’, DigitalGov, Available on https://digital.gov/2017/08/07/by-the-numbers-why-video-is-effective/
Pew Research Center: Journalism & Media Staff (2012),‘Leading Topics’, Pew Research Center: Journalism & Media, Available on https://www.journalism.org/2012/07/16/leading-topics/
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