African Swine Fever Awareness in the Internet Media in Poland – exploratory review
African Swine Fever Awareness in the Internet Media in Poland – exploratory review

Summary/Abstract: African Swine Fever (ASF) is a viral infection in domestic pigs and wild boars. It is estimated that ASF causes more than one billion EUR losses in Eastern Europe every year. In Poland, after initial outbreaks in 2014, almost 90% of pig farms stopped their production (in regions affected up to June 2017) due to restrictions (Jarynowski, Belk, 2019). In November 2019, the ASF virus has been confirmed in a wild boar in the Wschowa poviat, just 30 km from the pig production hub in Wielkopolska (the so-called “swine district”). Recent rapid propagation of the ASF from East to West of Europe encouraged us to prepare analysis of the Internet media awareness in Poland reflecting the above mentioned social dynamics. Methods. Using computational techniques we analyse agents and events in the Internet media. The intensive control measures against ASF in the European Union significantly transform biosecurity, trade, sanitary, environmental regulations and ethical standards causing protests of various social groups of interest: 1) farmers (who are not ready to apply biosecurity measures), 2) ecologists (who do not agree with governmental policy of wild boar depopulation) and 3) hunters with public administration (that have to take control on wild boar population). Results. In particular, we have reviewed possible ways of public opinion’s influence using Twitter, Facebook and mainstream websites’s data of selected groups of interest. We identify two main frames of events: 1) Culling of wild boar to minimize ASF spread and the risk of transmission to domestic pigs caused massive protest among ecological associations in Poland, due to opposition of some experts in beginning of 2019; 2) jump of the virus to Western Poland caused intensive discussion and lobbying of farmers postulates at the turn of 2019/2020. Conclusions. We claim that reliable analysis of the perception of the ASF is important to understand possible conflicts and issues. We have provided analysis of usability of available Internet resources as Secondary Data Digital Footprints.

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