Whale Mortalities and Offshore Wind in the News: Analyzing the "Facts"

Research Title: 

Whale Mortalities and Offshore Wind in the News: Analyzing the "Facts"

This study uses a mixed-method approach to investigate how recent whale strandings in New Jersey have been framed by the media in relation to offshore wind development. The first part of this study is a media content analysis of articles from national, regional, and local newspapers. The media content analysis is followed by a thematic analysis of data.   

The second part of this study consists of semi-structured interviews with whale experts (e.g., serious injury and mortality specialists and marine acousticians). The semi-structured interviews, coupled with what was learned from the literature review, was aimed to determine the facts of whether offshore wind development may affect large whale populations in this region, and more generally, what are the likely causes of the Unusual Mortality Events (UMEs) to ground the truth for the media content analysis.

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