Wolves in the media: surprising analysis results

While coverage in the local press tends to be more neutral and often more positive, specialist media in Germany predominantly feature negative reports.

A media analysis of wolf coverage was to become the subject of his final thesis in the field of agricultural economics.

Tischer's study, based on the method «coding by tenor», covered 84 print articles from 2012 to 2024 from a variety of sources. The results show that the scientific perspective is often underrepresented in the media and that there is a lack of interest in specialist information.

Part of the results surprised him as much as his professor: “The specialist media are not as neutral as one would have expected. There are consistently no positive reports about wolves, and a third of the coverage has a negative tenor,” says Luke Tischer. In this respect, specialist media behave exactly like the tabloid press. Notably, the local press not only reports in a considerably more neutral manner, but also more frequently adopts a positive tenor.

He advocates continuing to discuss the topic on social media as well, since that is where significant opinion formation takes place.

Opinion formation is influenced by the media, and as a result this also has an impact on the acceptance of herd protection measures, local conflicts, efforts to protect livestock on the one hand and the preservation of biodiversity on the other, and much more besides.

All the more important, therefore, is an objective view of the animal, which is deeply embedded in the collective memory in a predominantly negative way — particularly through its fear-inspiring role in folk tales and oral traditions.

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