The power of empathy and positive emotions in enhancing the communication of environmental issues: a case study of ‘wandering elephant in Yunnan’ on twitter

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.