Microplastics are these small plastic particles that can now be found just about everywhere: in oceans, beaches, fetuses and even in some foods. A subject of concern for many companies, accused of having contributed to their dissemination, microplastics are a topic that is of increasing interest to the media but also to consumers.
Regional and scientific media are the ones that are most interested in the issue.
In order to find out more about the interests of journalists and consumers in this theme, we decided to analyze more than 700 articles published between 2020 and 2021 in French national media using the term “microplastic” in the singular and plural.
Our first conclusion is that microplastics are mainly a subject for the regional press (letelegramme.fr, 37 articles, france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr, midilibre.fr, leparisien...), but also for the specialized scientific press (sciencesetavenir.fr, futura-sciences.com, nationalgeographic.fr...), but also for the specialized scientific press (sciencesetavenir.fr, futura-sciences.com, nationalgeographic.fr...).
In terms of fallout, it is the presence of microplastics in baby bottles, the Laundry detergents from our clothes who would contribute to the dissemination of these, with the study claiming that more than 14 million tons of microplastics pollute the seabed, beaches threatened by tons of plastic in Sri-Lanka as well as a study indicating that microplastics have been found in the A child's fetus which attracted the most attention of journalists.
The three entities most mentioned in the articles were WWF, CNRS, and Tara.
A Huffington Post article about microplastics discovered in a fetus generated over 60K reactions on Facebook.
However, while the number of articles published on the subject is high, only 37 of them generated a number of commitments, that is, shares, reactions, and comments greater than 1000. Among them, there is an overrepresentation of National Geographic and regional media 20minutes.fr and france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr. In terms of the number of total commitments generated, Huffington Post (64K commitments) and National Geographic (25K commitments) dominate the debates. In fact, it was the Huffington Post article on microplastics present in the fetus that alone generated 63K commitments on Facebook.
To go further, we analyzed which groups and pages shared these articles on Facebook. And the least we can say is that most of the noise on Facebook is linked to the sharing of articles on the official pages of national (Les Echos), regional (20 Minutes) or scientific (National Geographic) media, but also to those more committed such as Mr Globalization or Thinkerview.
Next come the influencers active on the subject such as Hugo Clément or Leo's World, associations, NGOs, foundations or institutes (Permvenir, It's Enough), pages or groups whose objective is to protect the environment (More trees, fewer jerks, Stop Ecocide) and political pages and groups (With François Ruffin). Finally, other less engaging pages or groups related to the arts, regionals/local cities, sports or animal protection have also relayed these articles.
To conclude, to understand where information related to microplastics is disseminated, it is not enough just to identify the media that talked about it but also to analyze the typology of groups and pages that relayed the article on Facebook and gave it a new echo. The analysis of the verbatims that are the comments submitted can also provide us with additional light on the opinion of Internet users on this theme.
