Aquaculture Europe 2023

September 18 - 21, 2023

Vienna,Austria

Add To Calendar 21/09/2023 16:00:0021/09/2023 16:15:00Europe/ViennaAquaculture Europe 2023SOCIETAL PERCEPTION OF AQUACULTURE: COMBINING SCOPING REVIEW AND MEDIA ANALYSISSchubert 4The European Aquaculture Societywebmaster@aquaeas.orgfalseDD/MM/YYYYaaVZHLXMfzTRLzDrHmAi181982

SOCIETAL PERCEPTION OF AQUACULTURE: COMBINING SCOPING REVIEW AND MEDIA ANALYSIS

M Budhathoki1, S Tunca2, R Lopez Martinez3, W Zhang4, S Li5, B Le Gallic3, K Brunsø2, P Sharma6, P Eljasik7, G Gyalog6, R Panicz7, D Little1

 1 Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK

2 MAPP Centre, Department of Management, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University (AU), Fuglesangs Allé 4, 8210 Aarhus, Denmark

3 Université Brest, Ifremer , CNRS, UMR 6308, AMURE, IUEM, F-29280 Plouzané, France

 4  National Demonstration Center for Experimental Fisheries Science Education, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai 201308, China

5 Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK

6 Research Centre of Aquaculture and Fisheries, Hungarian University of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Anna liget . u. 35, 5540 Szarvas, Hungary

7  Department of Meat Science, Faculty of Food Science and Fisheries, West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin, 4 Kazimierza Królewicza Street, 71-550 Szczecin, Poland

                Email: mausam.budhathoki@stir.ac.uk

 



 

Introduction

 Aquaculture has been recognised as a potential food industry to contribute to multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals; its growth and development depend on understanding societal perceptions in a broader context. However, to date,  no comprehensive reviews  have been conducted to understand whether scientific publications and newspaper outlets portray societal perceptions of aquaculture – in terms of sustainability – in positive, negative, or neutral terms. To fill this gap, this study synthesises articles on societal perceptions of aquaculture to understand whether scientific and newspaper articles mention multiple sustainable dimensions before portraying aquaculture as positive, negative, or neutral.

Methods and materials

Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar were consulted to search research articles published from 1  January 2015 to 15 January 2023 with search terms : aquaculture , farmed fish , aquafarming , mariculture , polyculture , perception , belief , attitude , image, and opinion. Scientific articles following inclusion criteria were thematically clustered employing the visualisation of similarities (VOS) software .  Further,  100 newspaper articles (n = 100) were selected from each of the following countries: UK, Denmark, France, Spain, Turkey and China; 79 were selected from Poland, while articles from Hungary (n = 29) and India (n = 70) were also selected for media  content analysis.

Results

A scoping review identified 151 studies for inclusion in our five identified clusters of scientific publications: (1) social acceptability, (2) growth and development, (3) media coverage, (4) sustainable aquaculture, and (5) consumer perception.  Further, with triangulation , t he findings  from this study  suggest that scientific and newspaper articles mention one or more aspects of aquacultural sustainability in an abstract form to base their perception as positive, negative, or neutral.   Key stakeholder groups include the fish farming industry (fish farmers, aquaculture associations or groups), civil society groups (environmental NGOs, activists, community groups, media), governmental officials, scientists, and business leaders (retailers/wholesalers, technology industry, other industries such as fisheries, tourism), and the public (indigenous groups, residents, and consumers). The stakeholder groups perceive aquaculture differently, both between them and depending on the circumstances and context; their perception ranged from positive to negative. Multiple factors influence their perceptions, including aquaculture’s impact on  multiple sustainability dimensions, knowledge, transparency, personal interests, types, and location of aquaculture practises, regulations, experience, food-related and dietary lifestyles, as well as sociodemographic characteristics such as age, gender, education, household size, occupation, and income.

Implications

 We recommend that aquaculture practitioners focus on context-specific multifaceted strategies – prioritising transparency, communication, and accountability – and provide essential knowledge to ensure that societal perceptions of aquaculture are based on accurate, empirical information.