Testing How Militaristic and Xenophobic Language Affects Engagement with Facebook Posts about Invasive Species

ABSTRACT

Invasive species are considered a significant threat to biodiversity and economic activities. Concerned stakeholders have adopted militaristic metaphors and xenophobic language to raise public awareness about the issue, yet communication theory provides conflicting guidance on whether this is likely to be effective. This research insight analyzes over 400,000 Facebook posts from North American stakeholders to find that stakeholder Facebook pages discuss invasive species infrequently, sometimes using militaristic and rarely xenophobic language, but that neither militaristic nor xenophobic language is associated with online engagement.

KEYWORDS:

• Invasive species
• metaphor
• public engagement
• social media

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).