Mercury contamination in the Canadian Arctic is a significant concern. Some traditional food sources are contaminated by mercury and pose a health risk to local residents. Media can affect public awareness and opinions of environmental health risks. Therefore, it is important to understand how the risks associated with contaminants are communicated through the media. To better understand how the issue of mercury contamination in the Arctic has been presented in the media, a content analysis was conducted across 14 newspapers in the Canadian North and South. We examined how news sources presented the health risks of mercury in the Arctic, how mercury was defined, if pathways for self-efficacy (i.e., how a person can reduce his or her exposure to a hazard) were provided and who was quoted as an information source. Results demonstrate that few Indigenous people were cited as information sources, articles often failed to describe mercury to the reader and many did not provide direction to support self-efficacy. This study provides insight into how newspapers have communicated about mercury in the Canadian Arctic and suggests specific ways that this communication can be improved.

中文翻译：

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媒体对加拿大北极地区汞污染的报道

加拿大北极地区的汞污染是一个重大问题。一些传统食物来源被汞污染，对当地居民的健康构成威胁。媒体可以影响公众对环境健康风险的认识和看法。因此，了解与污染物相关的风险如何通过媒体传播非常重要。为了更好地了解媒体如何报道北极的汞污染问题，对加拿大北部和南部的 14 家报纸进行了内容分析。我们研究了新闻来源如何呈现北极地区汞的健康风险、如何定义汞、是否提供了自我效能的途径（即，一个人如何减少他或她对危害的暴露）以及谁被引述为信息来源。结果表明，很少有土著人被引用为信息来源，文章往往未能向读者描述汞，许多文章没有提供支持自我效能的指导。这项研究深入了解了报纸如何就加拿大北极地区的汞进行传播，并提出了可以改进这种传播的具体方法。