| Summary: | In 1993, the Vancouver Aquarium developed new strategic objectives that implemented the
institution's commitment to conservation education. Media relations were identified as an area
which the institution could utilize in order to provide educational information to the general public
and, thereby, effect its conservation education mandate. This thesis addresses two questions (a)
How does the Vancouver Aquarium use its media relations opportunities to promote educational
information? and (b) Do the print media use the educational information conveyed in Vancouver
Aquarium news releases? Vancouver Aquarium news releases were selected as an appropriate
media relations opportunity for transmitting educational information to the media. The print
media, specifically newspaper articles, were chosen as the type of news item to be examined.
Thirty news releases were selected and matched with 81 corresponding newspaper articles.
Factors examined included: content of news releases and newspaper articles, type of information
(event, animal and conservation messages), readability of news releases and the source of the
newspaper articles. The results of the content analysis revealed that all 30 news releases contained
Event and Animal Messages, but only 47% of the news releases contained Conservation
Messages. Percent concurrence was calculated in order to compare content of the news releases
with the content of the newspaper articles. This analysis indicated that news releases are an
effective method of transmitting Event Messages, and somewhat effective at transmitting
educational information (Animal and Conservation Messages). A model of the Vancouver
Aquarium communication process was developed.
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