Communicating Nature: Wild Animals in the Living Room

ABSTRACT

This research is an examination of the relationship between representations of nonhuman species in nature-oriented television programs and films and viewer perceptions of those species. Of particular interest were the relationships between the message strategies used to tell the stories of the lives of other species (e.g., action orientation, use of high visibility sources, personification, demonstrations of similarity, and so forth) and the perceptions of those species. Focus group discussions of four video presentations revealed four types of message/communication strategies: (1) credibility of the narrator and/or featured humans, (2) emphasis on similarity of the species to humans, (3) degree of personification of the species, and (4) juxtaposition of elements and arguments. The impact of these message/communication strategies on participant perceptions is discussed, and several recommendations for the structure and critical assessment of media portrayals of nonhuman species are offered.