Full Media analysis

In order to learn more about before, during and after the construction of Erie Shores Wind Farm, a detailed media report was done. The closest medium sized city to the Port Burwell area was Tillsonburg and many people who received newspapers to their door often received the Tillsonburg News. According to data provided by the newspaper, there are approximately 2,500 paid subscriptions (Monday and Friday) and 9,500 non-

paid subscriptions (Wednesday) in the area. In addition, articles written in the hard-copy version are also published on tillsonburgnews.ca.

It has been commonly agreed that the media can play an important role in influencing the perceptions and decisions its readership makes in the public sphere (Dispensa & Brulle, 2003; McCombs and Shaw, 1972). Iyengar (1997) describes a framework where the media can have four major effects on the public. He shows that the media can act as: informers, agendas setters, farmers and persuaders. The latter two of these may have particular relevance to the idea of social amplification/attenuation of wind turbine risk in the Port Burwell area. For example, if the majority of media articles framed the development of local wind turbines as being a dangerous or nonsensical thing for the area, it is possible that local people may think so as well.

The media, including newspapers have been shown to exert a powerful influence on people’s perceptions of the world (Slovic, 2000, pg. 192). The risk perception

literature for example has stated that media reports have the ability to either amplify or attenuate the amount of danger a person feels is present. An well-known example of risk amplification can be seen in the case of nuclear power. While expert opinion consistently ranks nuclear electricity generation a low-medium risk activity, the public often perceives it as a high risk (Slovic, pg. 244, table 13.1). This discrepancy may indicate the presence of social factors and their ability to transform the idea of “risk”- meaning different things to different people. Being aware of these types of processes can help us better understand the role of local media (Tillsonburg News) in the Port Burwell area.

In order to collect the greatest number of relevant articles three different search terms were used. In the first round “erie shores wind” was used. This search initially brought forth 500 articles. After careful selection, 56 articles were chosen to be important for the report. The newspapers’ website measured relevancy through a helpful tool- for “erie shores wind” all articles that were between 76% and 30% relevancy were used. Every article lower than 30% seemed to contribute nothing to the report. Despite the specific search terms, many were unrelated to Erie Shores Wind Farm and/or wind

energy in general. In the second round of the search, “wind turbines” was used. Although this search brought up 250 articles, many were either irrelevant or were already collected through the original search. From this round we used all articles that were between 75% and 35%- after the latter value the relevance of each article seem to decrease

dramatically. A total of 37 articles were chosen from this round. Lastly, to find even more articles relating to Erie Shores Wind Farm, wind energy, or a related topic “green energy” was used in the third round. From this search term we were able to gather 500 articles, 9

Table 4.2 - Results of Media Analysis (by theme, tone and frequency)

THEME TONE FREQUENCY

Poor or incapable government / policy

Negative High (13)

Sustainability/Environmental Benefits

Positive High (9)

Job creation Positive High (8)

of which were used in the analysis. Again, many of the relevant articles were already found within one of the first two rounds. In the end, 102 articles were used in the analysis.

Contribution to the grid Positive Medium (5)

Tourist attraction Positive Medium (5)

Health effects Negative Medium (4)

Capable businesses/ government Positive Medium (4)

Cost of Electricity Negative Medium (3)

Bird deaths Negative Medium (2)

No health effects Positive Low (1)

No bird deaths Positive Low (1)

Property values Negative Low (0)

Local conflict Negative Low (1)

Noise Negative Low (0)

The themes that were presented in each article were varied and included many of the supposed advantages and

disadvantages of wind turbines. Because it was a local paper, the majority of the articles spoke about specific local issues relating to wind turbines including financial compensation, health effects, bird deaths and electricity generation. More regional or general issues were spoken about also however the original source of these articles often came from the Canadian Press or larger newspapers like the London Free Press. Although these were not written by the Tillsonburg News staff, the fact that they were published in the local paper meant that the local population was exposed to it and thus was included in the analysis. For the sake of simplicity table 4.2 above shows the most common themes that were discussed in the articles. Generally each theme fit into one of three categories: 1) a positive or supposed advantage of wind turbines, 2) a

negative or supposed disadvantage of wind turbines or 3) A neutral portrayal of wind. For simplicity, only those labeled in the former two are listed. In an effort to measure the tone and/or themes over time, quantitative analysis was performed on the 102 articles. Based on the general tone, each article was given a number between 0 and 2- 0 indicated a negative tone, 1 a neutral tone, and 2 a positive tone. In order to quantify the time each was written, each article was given a number between 1 and 85. Beginning in November

2004 and ending with the last article in December 2011, each month was given a number between 1 and 85. Months in which no article was written were ‘skipped-over’ and in cases where multiple articles were written in the same month, they shared the same number. In the end, a weak negative relationship was found. This means that as time passed, the tone of the articles generally became more negative. The R2 value of 0.1397 indicates that the relationship is not strong. Looking at figure 4.6, two things stand out: 1) The fairly consistent occurrence of both positive and neutral articles over time and 2) The great increase in negative articles during the second half (beginning December 2008).

One fascinating observation noticed in the report was the great increase in Letters to the Editor that concerned the Erie Shores Wind Farm or wind energy in general.

Although articles about the topic began in late 2004, it wasn’t until April of 2010 before a Letter to the editor was written. This form of public discourse became more popular in the coming months and likely indicates a higher level of activism, both for and against wind turbine development. In all, there were 12 Letters to the editor written from April 2010 to August 2011; 7 speaking on the negative aspects of turbines and 5 on the

positives. Letters to the editor have been said to be “essential to the effective operation of the democratic system (Hynds, 1991, pg. 124). Although there is some debate in the literature as to what role letters to the editor play. One consistent finding has been the understanding of the person who writes to the editor. They tend to be: older, more educated, more conservative and more display more negativity than the average person (Forsythe, 1950; Foster and Friedrich 1937; Grey and Brown 1970; Rosenau 1974; Tarrant 1957; Vacin 1965; and Volgy et al., 1977). Still other research has concluded that in some cases, the number and types of letters to the editor closely resemble actual

public opinion polls (Buell 1975; Hill 1981). Because of a lack of absolute truth in the area, letters to the editors were not analyzed individually for content. Because writing a letter to the editor represents one of the few ways in which the average person can have their opinion heard on the public stage, it represents a “debating society that never adjourns” (Kapoor and Botan, 1992). The presence and specifically great increase of them beginning in 2010 likely indicates a growing interest in wind turbine politics. The fact that there was clearly pro-wind or ant-wind sentiments in each piece also may be a sign that there developed a debate during that time as well.

Another interesting aspect from the media report is the emergence of articles written by local politician Toby Barrett. He is a Conservative MPP from Haldimand- Norfolk who was first elected in 1995 with reelections in 1999, 2003, and 2007 (Barrett, 2011). Of the 102 articles collected 3 were written by Mr. Barrett, all of which were spoke of the disadvantages of wind turbines. They were also all written fairly recently- ranging from August 2010 to the most recent in December 2011. The criticisms brought forth by Barrett all seem to be in opposition to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and his green energy policy. According to the articles, he sees a variety of problems including the cost, possible health effects, and the policy process associated with wind turbine

development. Barrett’s lack of confidence in McGuinty when it comes to wind energy is summed up nicely when he said “…the only science Mr. McGuinty seems to use for decisions on wind tower placement is political science…” (Barrett, 2011b). In his most recent article, “Industrial wind turbines require local decisions” (Barrett, December 2011) he speaks of the 2009 decision by McGuinty to streamline the development of wind

turbines in Ontario by eliminating the need for community approval of projects. This is an important issue and is discussed in more detail within the literature review.

The above chart was created from articles in Tillsonburg News. From

conversations with local residents, I was informed that it was the ‘major local paper’, though some did suggest other smaller ones during member checking. The themes in the articles seem consistent with what I found in the interviews, and the chart is a very crude way to represent some of the themes in the 102 articles I read. The increase in reporting about “Poor policy” after the introduction of the Green Energy Act (GEA)- was put in

place reinforces the idea that the reason for relative contentment with turbines in the Burwell area is in part due to the fact the turbines were not put there under the GEA but instead through a far more participatory process.