Media reporting on food contamination after the Fukushima accident. Content analysis of four Belgian newspapers

This report summarises the main results from the media content analysis of four Belgian newspapers: De Standaard, Het Laatste Nieuws, Le Soir and La Dèrniere Heure. The selection of the newspapers was made as follows: in each of the Dutch and French language, a highest quality newspaper and a popular newspaper were chosen for the analysis. The articles selected for analysis, referred, at least in part of the text, to the radioactive contamination in the food chain or the related environmental contamination. A dedicated codebook was created. The content analysis of the published articles looked in detail at the food chain issues reported, among other at the importance attributed by the printed media to this issue, the information sources used to report about radioactivity in the food chain (domestic, Japanese and other external sources), the emergency management phase addressed, the focus of the articles, the main issues reported (e.g. health effects, protective actions, etc.), the presence of conflicts, the radiation units and the risk comparisons used.