How does the media portray sharks?

Jaws (1975)

Briana Le Busque analysed 109 shark films released between 1958 and 2019. 96% of these films overtly portrayed sharks as potentially threatening to humans. This means that the films showed scary sharks that were biting/killing people or featured people fearing sharks. After examining the posters for these shark films, nearly 75% of them featured the shark's teeth. The impact of these films can particularly be seen after the release of Jaws in 1975. Director and founder of Shark Stewards, David McGuire, remembers surfers fleeing the ocean at the sight of a leopard shark, a harmless species of shark with no previous history of dangerous encounters with humans.

The long term consequences of this can be summarised in three points using the 'Jaws effect': the belief that sharks intentionally bite humans, encounters with sharks are always fatal and sharks should be killed to prevent future attacks from occurring.

Similar portrayals of sharks can also be found on news sites. Reports of shark encounters, especially those with fatalities, attract high levels of media interest as they can be a highly emotive topic, evoking a lot of fear. I decided to see this media coverage for myself so I chose a news website to find shark related articles. A simple search of the phrase 'shark attack' brings thousands of results. I found that most of the titles of the articles had very emotive language, with 'MONSTER' and 'SAVAGE' being some of the most frequently used. 

'The Sun' article titles dated between April-July 2022- emotive language is highlighted