Jaws: The Classic that Doomed Sharks
Advisor: Bryan Meyerowitz
Internship Location: Aspiring Scholars Directed Research Program
Onsite Mentor: Connor Adams
“Monster of the Deep” or “Ecological Savior”? Since the release of Jaws, sharks have been at the forefront of apprehensions of the ocean and its unknowns. Prior to the movie, shark attacks were reported infrequently. However, since the movie’s screening, shark reports, political rhetoric, and control programs have substantially increased in prevalence and severity, especially in Australia, despite no increase in actual attacks. Consequently, how has public media’s portrayal (movies, news stories, and general rhetoric) of sharks affected Australian White Shark populations and public perceptions of the animal? Utilizing existing databases and sightings, this project will attempt to determine the potential statistically significant link between public information and yearly changes in these populations, contextualized on a timeline of notable shark-related media releases and expert opinions. The publication of villainous depictions of sharks and their overexaggerated threat to humans has changed common perception, but determining its numerical impact may be helpful in driving any necessary change in communication to save a variety of species from extinction if there exists a connection between media and changing shark populations. Discovering which methods minimize the damage done to shark populations can check other predators’ populations and keep food chains in equilibrium. Subsequently, transforming these aquatic apex predators’ narrative towards conservation may be essential for maintaining the longevity of our world’s largest natural ecosystem.
Project Blog
Week 1: Starting with a Splash
Hello! Name’s Brandon. What’s a couple of “bites” like you doing on this blog? Nothing? Great! You have time to keep reading then.
Finding Nemo references aside, I’m excited that you’d like to learn a little bit about my Senior Project on White Sharks and their relationship with the media we consume every day. My project will be primarily conducted virtually with the assistance of Mr. Connor Adams, my external advisor from the Aspiring Scholars Directed Research Program, and Mr. Bryan Meyerowitz, my faculty advisor.
Background
First, a brief introduction about myself. I’m currently a Senior at BASIS Independent Silicon Valley, who if you couldn’t tell already, loves sharks. I also love to solve the puzzles existing in the virtual and physical world, from debugging one error to the next to figuring out how we can design the green and blue future only yet seen in science fiction. Additionally, I have over 4 years of experience in Python, mixed with HTML, CSS, PyMongo, JavaScript, and Java; and I have had some explorations in robotics with Raspberry Pi and machine learning after some self-teaching.
In terms of curricular subjects relevant to my project, I have taken AP Biology, AP Calculus AB/BC, and AP Statistics, and I have taken the capstones Existentialism and the Absurd and Differential Equations. These classes will serve as a useful background from which I can build my analysis and understanding of White Sharks, their populations, and the risks they face in their ecosystems and with human society.
Hook, Line, and Thinker
Returning to my project, what title are you more familiar with for the shark: “Monster of the Deep” or “Ecological Savior”? Since the release of Jaws, sharks have been at the forefront of apprehensions of the ocean and its unknowns. Prior to the movie, shark attacks were reported infrequently. However, since the movie’s screening, shark reports, political rhetoric, and control programs have substantially increased in prevalence and severity, especially in Australia, despite no increase in actual attacks. Consequently, how has public media’s portrayal (movies, news stories, and general rhetoric) of sharks affected Australian White Shark populations and public perceptions of the animal?
I hypothesize that I will first see a negative trend in these White Shark populations, especially after the release of Jaws and similar media, and then, in more recent years with greater awareness through conservation efforts and government recognition, there will be a positive trend in these populations.
Utilizing existing databases and sightings, this project will attempt to determine the potential statistically significant link between public information and yearly changes in these populations, contextualized on a timeline of notable shark-related media releases and expert opinions. The publication of villainous depictions of sharks and their overexaggerated threat to humans has changed common perception, but determining its numerical impact may be helpful in driving any necessary change in communication to save a variety of species from extinction if there exists a connection. Discovering which methods minimize the damage done to shark populations can check other predators’ populations and keep food chains in equilibrium. Subsequently, transforming these aquatic apex predators’ narrative towards conservation may be essential for maintaining the longevity of our world’s largest natural ecosystem.
Diving into the (Sea)Weeds
For this first week, my project started off calmly by simply processing some of the data from two sources I’ll be frequently referring to throughout this trimester: the Australian Shark Incident Database and “A Review of the Biology and Status of White Sharks in Australian Waters” by H. Malcolm, B. D. Bruce and J. D. Stevens. Using Python’s libraries, namely numpy, matplotlib, and pandas, I imported the data from the Excel database file and transcribed the graphs from the report to create graphs that I’d be able to analyze and test for the rest of my project.
From the Australian Shark Incident Database, I graphed the number of shark incidents that occurred per year. I will definitely be filtering through this dataset more in the coming weeks, but I think this look is a good start for my shark media journey.
From the report, I recreated the graphs related to the number of White Sharks caught and Catch per Unit Effort (CPUE - the number of sharks caught per net sets, hours spent fishing, etc.) in Australia’s New South Wales and Queensland Shark Control Programs to the best of my ability and rewrote them into my own Excel file so that I can run statistical tests on them in the future. While it was a fairly tedious process, the preliminary trends noted from these graphs with declining CPUE across both programs in recent years are concerning for the current sustainability of White Sharks in Australian waters. Looking ahead, utilizing more recent records from these programs and looking into the background of Malcolm et al.’s sources should give me some more information into the broader “seabed” of this issue.
(If you’d like to take a look at these graphs, here is a Google Slides link to the images: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ztNBhfb4JKSAzPp9-aIvS8-wAzeIduecC3D3oQxeQo8/edit?usp=sharing)
Like any great migration, be it birds, whales, or even sharks, progress is slowly made. If you’re interested in learning more about how “Video Killed The [Underwater] Star,” be sure to tune in for the rest of my blog posts! You won’t want to miss next week’s where I’ll be reviewing all types of shark film, from classics to probably regrettable and forgettable “horror” flicks.
And remember, “fish are friends, not food!”
Citations
Francis, B. (2012). BEFORE AND AFTER “JAWS”: CHANGING REPRESENTATIONS OF SHARK ATTACKS. The Great Circle, 34(2), 44–64. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23622226.
Malcolm, H., Bruce, B. D., & Stevens, J. D. (2001, September). A Review of the Biology and Status of White Sharks in Australian Waters. CSIRO Marine Research, Hobart. https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=procite:1d0d13e5-7a60-4e65-be78-636e6f2dd22e&dsid=DS1.
Meagher, P. (2024). Australian Shark Incident Database [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10476905.
Walters, G. (Producer), & Stanton, A. (Director). (2003) Finding Nemo [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.disneyplus.com/.
Week 2: Lights, Camera, SHARK!
Welcome, small fry! In this blog, I’ll be describing to you the “wonderful” experience I’ve had over the past week watching almost 20 hours of shark movies and documentaries. While this week’s plan seems like an excuse to just sit back and watch some mindless cinema while taking notes (which it definitely partially is), I assure you this experience was not nearly as pleasant as it sounds and gave me some extremely interesting insights into how we write about sharks on the big screen. So, whether you’re joining me in my journey on understanding the connection between shark populations, especially White Sharks, and their portrayals in media, or you’re particularly interested in a random Senior’s reviews on some classic and “not-so-classic” shark films, I appreciate you wading through the numerous other Senior Projects and blogs to get here.
Before we move on however, I would first like to emphasize that these are my opinions and perceptions from watching these films. Of course, different people will come up with different interpretations of the message, motives, and effects of different scenes, and how these factors play out in my reviews do not mean that I am trying to say these are the only opinions you can have or that what I am saying are facts. If you think Jaws deserves to be a 10/10 for its monumental impact on the film industry as a blockbuster, summer, horror flick, or a 0/10 because “the mechanical shark didn’t scare me,” be my guest! I am a fan of judging opinions, not the people behind them (unless you think The Reef deserves more than a 2/10, maybe a 3/10, that movie is terrible). Without further ado, let’s dive into this pool of good and bad!
Scanning the Surface
The movies and episodes I watched were Jaws, Jaws 2, Seaspiracy, Discovery’s Shark Week (Season 2004: Episode 1, Season 2008: Episode 1, Season 2016: Episode 1, and Season 2016: Episode 8), The Meg, Meg 2: The Trench, The Reef, The Reef: Stalked, Sharknado, Sharkwater Extinction, and Shark Girl. Through my watches, I noted the general portrayal of sharks throughout the production (positive, mixed, or negative), any significant statistics pointed out, any key traits attributed to sharks, and any story points or miscellaneous information that could augment the message the film intentionally or unintentionally conveys.
Overall, there were some generally consistent qualities throughout the different categories of shark representation. “Positive” showcases of sharks really only fully existed within documentaries. In these positive documentaries, the narrator and/or researchers, which are oftentimes the same person, usually use a myriad of data or emotional appeals to encourage the audience to change their habits or vouch for change, helping to destigmatize sharks. Some presentations were more appealing to me than others, frequently coming down to storytelling, editing, and novelty (4 hours of video prior to watching another documentary truly does something to someone). The standout piece from this category was Seaspiracy. Although it wasn’t solely focused on sharks, it presents a measured and incredibly well-researched investigation on the surprisingly complicated topic of fishing and its role in our everyday lives.
While there were some fictional movies such as The Meg and “entertainment-first” documentaries like some episodes from Shark Week that noted the importance sharks play in ocean ecosystems, the relative peacefulness of sharks to other dangers, or the means at reducing one’s risk to shark attacks, more often than not, these small disclaimers were comparatively insignificant to the dramatic narration or flashy cinematography a director could create around the shark. I noted these types of depictions as “mixed” as they included both sympathetic and overly aggressive imagery of sharks which may lead to audiences forming accurate and/or inaccurate ideas on how sharks behave. For example, in The Meg, there is a scene where the main cast sails off their marine exploration base and finds the scraps of shark finning boat as a result of the Megalodon. This boat could have literally held anything, but the directors obviously intentionally chose shark finning to contrast the ruthless, destructive capabilities of the Megalodon. This part of the movie along with other “savior-complex” lines from the characters to “preserve and explore the ocean” condemn practices like shark finning and raise some slight awareness for these issues. However, if this message is actually remembered by the audience after leaving the theater is a different question, especially when much of the movie’s budget is clearly spent on its cast, flashy visual effects, and the simulation of the Megalodon itself.
Finally, the negative portrayals of sharks included the horror or suspense movies that are typically associated with sharks and one Shark Week episode that more fits the “crime scene investigation” niche instead of “documentary” by not supplementing any of its harsh imagery with education about the sharks, only brief comments on respecting sharks as animals. In creating more entertaining plots, these productions reused similar stereotypes that can rather clearly be traced back to Jaws, sometimes even directly referencing it. These tropes included ideas that sharks have an insatiable appetite, sharks only kill after biting, sharks intentionally hunt people, and sharks will do anything (break boats, leap onto boats, jump school buses, etc.) to eat people. Additionally, most of these stories use only the White Shark; the only movie where White Sharks aren’t only used is Sharknado because it includes White Sharks, Hammerhead Sharks, and other species.
Rapidfire Reviews
To save this blog from getting too long, I’ll be quickly giving my rating for each of the films I watched and a brief explanation. If you’d like some more context behind my choices, you can of course watch the movies and make your own opinion, and check out the notes I’ve taken on each - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v47AOmoYcOCET_EmgY6SK3shJJZfdZaZpWBbpgjeMeA/edit?usp=sharing.
Jaws: (8/10 - Negative [Portrayal]) While it is egregious with some of its exaggerations of sharks, the “Classic Shark Movie” definitely deserves its title as it holds up surprisingly well compared to some more recent shark movies. Story-wise, it has some holes that if fixed would make the movie perfect, but the plot makes sense for what experience it is trying to create. I can definitely see how the obsession and paranoia around sharks may have started.
Jaws 2: (3/10 - Negative) This was an unnecessary sequel to the original that dragged on too long with too many new characters with weak connections made with the audience. The shark (in the shark movie) takes a back seat to the various characters and is once again misleading in its aggressiveness.
Seaspiracy: (9/10 - Positive) If there was one film I’d recommend after this week, it would be this one. This documentary was fantastic in terms of storytelling, message, and investigative journalism. It is a “must-see-to-learn” because of what it finds related to fishing.
Shark Week (Season 2004: Episode 1 - “A Boy’s Fight to Survive”): (7/10 - Mixed) This episode was a decent documentary that applauded the resilience in a boy who survived and recovered from a shark attack. This struggles between attempting to inform audiences on best practices with sharks and entertaining or intense, shark attack scene reenactments.
Shark Week (Season 2008: Episode 1 - “Day of the Shark”): (6/10 - Mixed) This episode was a compilation of various shark attack stories, and Discovery took liberties to try to make each as engaging as possible. Similarly, it runs into the same issue as the 2004 episode of “education vs. entertainment.”
Shark Week (Season 2016: Episode 1 - “Isle of Jaws”): (8/10 - Positive) This episode was a solid dive into White Sharks and their potential migration patterns with no substantial villainization, just a little injected TV excitement.
Shark Week (Season 2016: Episode 8 - “Wrath of a Great White”): (4/10 - Negative) This episode was pretty weak in its “crime scene investigation” story, relying instead on the fear factor of the White Shark. Riding the line between documentary and simple shark-watching, educating the audience isn’t given full attention as the leader of the crew mainly searches for bigger and bigger sharks.
The Meg: (7/10 - Mixed) This movie is as good as a Godzilla or King Kong movie: okay story and pretty good visual effects. It is inspired by Jaws with its characterization of the Megalodon, but it also attempts to spin a kinder narrative to real-world sharks and oceans.
Meg 2: The Trench: (6/10 - Mixed) Although not as bad as Jaws 2, this movie mimics the performance of the sequel by focusing on a “human-based” story and not living up to the original. Visual effects were better, but they were given less attention in favor of the “conflict-of-interest” story between “discovering the depths” vs. “exploiting our oceans”
The Reef: (2/10 - Negative) This movie seems like Australia’s version of Jaws 2 with half the budget, half the action, and no story (with a literal plain text conclusion). No real action occurs until an hour in, ironically making it one of the more accurate “shark horror” films because of how long it takes for sharks to arrive to the group and how the shark only attacks when the people move around erratically and desperately.
The Reef: Stalked: (6/10 - Negative) Like Jaws 2, this movie was more focused on the human story than the original, but it had a much healthier balance of story and shark hunting, though at the expense of some of its predecessor’s “realism.” The characters are also relatively reasonable and well-informed on sharks, though there are some peculiar moments like the main character Nic saying “We’re going to trap [the shark] and drown it.”
Sharknado: (3/10 - Negative) This movie’s CGI was terrible, with Jaws, a movie released 40 years prior, looking significantly better. Sometimes, it is “fun-bad” with some ludicrous scenes and an already ludicrous premise that should likely be understood by most audiences though some relatively “lighter” assumptions like sharks’ aggression may be overlooked and accepted.
Sharkwater Extinction: (8/10 - Positive) This documentary was very well put-together and storied that at times got repetitive. It relied heavily on facts to communicate its message which are effective occasionally but quickly get boring.
Shark Girl: (8/10 - Positive) This documentary was particularly inspiring to me as “Shark Girl” was a 19-year-old student who loves sharks, did some significant investigation into sharks and the fishing industry in Australia compared to the rest of the world, and attempted to make significant change. The production was decent though a little rough around the edges with some interesting facts, statistics, and ways to approach better awareness for sharks.
That concludes my weeklong escapade into shark and shark-adjacent films. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did (hopefully more). Would I do it again? Definitely not. In contrast to Matt Hooper’s quote in Jaws on the shark, there is a limit to what I’m gonna do. Next week, I’ll be taking a statistical look on the various factors affecting shark attacks using the information from the “Australian Shark Incident Database” and yearly changes in Australian white shark populations from “A Review of the Biology and Status of White Sharks in Australian Waters,” so swim by to learn about the results I find and the potential leads to conduct my own “crime scene investigation.”
Citations
Andersen, K. (Producer), & Tabrizi, A. (Director). (2021) Seaspiracy [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.netflix.com/
Bonaventura, L., & Avery, B. (Producers), & Wheatley, B. (Director). (2023) Meg 2: The Trench [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.netflix.com/.
Bonaventura, L., Avery, B., & Wilson, C. (Producers), & Turteltaub, J. (Director). (2018) The Meg [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.netflix.com/.
Campbell, S., Stewart, B., & Stewart, R. (Producers), & Stewart, R. (Director). (2018) Sharkwater Extinction [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=2858778011.
Christian, J., Kingston, N., Robertson, M., & Traucki, A. (Producers), & Traucki, A. (Director). (2022) The Reef: Stalked [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=2858778011.
Kaufmann, G. (Producer), & Kaufmann, G. (Director). (2014) Shark Girl [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=2858778011.
Kurr, J., Pelletier, C., & Golden, T. (Creators). (1987-) Shark Week [Television series]. Retrieved from https://www.discoveryplus.com/.
Latt, D. M. (Producer), & Levin, T. (Director). (2013) Sharknado [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=2858778011.
Malcolm, H., Bruce, B. D., & Stevens, J. D. (2001, September). A Review of the Biology and Status of White Sharks in Australian Waters. CSIRO Marine Research, Hobart. https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=procite:1d0d13e5-7a60-4e65-be78-636e6f2dd22e&dsid=DS1.
Meagher, P. (2024). Australian Shark Incident Database [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10476905.
Robertson, M., & Traucki, A. (Producers), & Traucki, A. (Director). (2010) The Reef [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=2858778011.
Zanuck, R. D., & Brown, D. (Producers), & Spielberg, Steven (Director). (1975) Jaws [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=2858778011.
Zanuck, R. D., & Brown, D. (Producers), & Szwarc, J. (Director). (1978) Jaws 2 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=2858778011.
Week 3: Trouble in Statistical Waters
It wouldn’t be a compelling story without a little conflict, now would it?
Hello, adventurous diver! I’m pleased that you’d like to join me on my journey through the caverns of statistics, programming, and random Internet forums. While last week I explored the wonders and horrors of shark films, this week I experienced the horrors of trying to analyze shark populations, so strap in because we’re about to be whirling through some numbers that I can only hope to understand and improve.
The Sunlight Zone: Clear Surface to Dark Depths
First, let me introduce you to the goal of the week, and likely next week as well now. To delve deeper into the issues and significance of media representation of sharks and how they affect White Shark populations, I will be attempting to determine which factors, according to those tracked and consistently filled by the Australian Shark Incident Database, tend to result in shark attacks and which years are notable (large increase or decline) in terms of sharks caught from the New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland (QLD) Shark Control Programs, and the Game-Fishing Club of South Australia (GFCSA), utilizing the data from “A Review of the Biology and Status of White Sharks in Australian Waters.”
With these objectives in mind, I’ll run you through my mindset going into Week 3. For anyone who has taken and remembers AP Statistics, you should be pretty familiar with z-tests and t-tests. However, for everyone else who actually could put down their calculators or forgot the course material after the AP test, I’ll include a brief summary here. Z-tests and t-tests are statistical “tests” (shocker, I know) that are used for different types of datasets to determine how “significant” or how much a certain value deviates from a normal (bell curve distributed) distribution of the data. Z-tests are generally used for larger (greater than 30) sample sizes and when standard deviation is known, and t-tests are used for smaller (less than 30) sample sizes and when standard deviation can be approximated.
At first glance, these tests seem perfect for the “noting significant years” part of this week, but the problem I quickly realized was that the “number of sharks caught” is only a count and can have (ideally) no standard deviation unless I assumed there was some arbitrary error with these organizations’ counting methods. You may have also noticed that there’s no way to account for a variety of factors, most of which were categorical or qualitative values, and their relationship to shark incidents. As a result, I needed to look beyond my classroom analysis techniques and do a little improvisation.
Twilight Zone: Finding the Current
As with any good research, it requires collaboration, so confused on where to look next, I asked some friends for some guidance. After a while I ended up with some “decent” methodologies for determining which years were “significant” and, more or less, analyzing the factors of shark incidents (thanks, Sidhant?).
For noting crucial years, I used a rolling average of the previous five years of White Sharks caught in the observed program to determine if one specific year deviated from this prior trend. For example, if we were looking at the years 1955-1956 in the NSW Shark Control Program, the years taken into consideration for the rolling average would be 1950-1955, resulting in an average of 15. Then, I created a range of an arbitrary 30% above and below this value, that is to say 1.3 times 15 (19.5) and 0.7 times 15 (10.5). Because 15 is within this range, I determined this year to be “insignificant” and following the general trend of sharks caught as years before. On the other hand, if we looked at 1957-1958 with 10 White Sharks caught in the year, a rolling average for 1952-1957 is 17.2, and a range of 12.04-22.36, we can see that this datapoint shows a “significant” decline in sharks caught for this one year.
I continued this method for the rest of NSW’s, QLD’s, and GFCSA’s data, and you can take a look at the new color-coded graphs through this link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1g-7EowtLYajwYeP9DA2dLqW8S3O6qOdfgeL8F5L6qxo/edit?usp=sharing. (Significant declines are noted in yellow, and significant increases are noted in red.) This method wasn’t the cleanest way of noting significance and includes a bit of arbitrariness, and I’m still investigating better ways of analyzing this data, but this progress is definitely useful to start forming some preliminary conclusions and finding possibly impactful time periods’ media to study.
For relating various factors to shark incidents, I had more trouble. I was pointed to Correspondence Analysis which is fundamentally a method of integrating a variety of variables into “components” and determining these variables’ relation to these components and thereby each other. The specific Correspondence Analysis method I looked into was Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA), useful for analyzing categorical data though it is somewhat inefficient by treating each possible value in an identifying column as its own category through a method called “one-hot encoding.”
Now, doing my best to explain a topic I’m not fully sure of, I will describe my use of MCA to the best of my current understanding. Starting off, I created the model with another (slightly less) arbitrary 83 components. The reason that I chose 83 was that this number of components accounted for all of the eigenvalues (solutions) and variance (spread) in my data. These components integrated the numerous factors I filtered down from the Australian Shark Incident Database to varying degrees: some factors with 0% and others with 25%. In theory, all of my data points could be graphed on an 83-D plane, but that makes as much sense to you and me as it does to a krill’s conception of a blue whale, so I’ve graphed “Components 0” and “1” on a 2-D plane.
Taking a look at the graph above, you will definitely be overwhelmed at first glance (and this is the graph zoomed in). However, all these are saying are the “correspondence” of each factor or incident to one another, where blue dots are “columns” or the identifying factors of a shark incident and orange dots are “rows” or each individual incident. The first graph shows us that a lot of cases are “related” to clothing color being black, victims boarding, or the season being Spring, but another important thing to note with these graphs is location of these points: they are all close to the origin of (0.00, 0.00) which means that these factors are all similar because they are unrelated or have little connection to Components 0 and 1. That doesn’t mean that these factors aren’t related to any other components, but relatively for these components, they are (confusingly) “related by being unrelated.”
Looking at this second plot, we can see that we’re much further out from the origin at least for Component 0, but there are also much fewer points. From this distance, we are able to make some better, relative conclusions that purple clothing, a shark length of 1.5 to 1.9 meters, and the blacktip reef shark are related for Component 0 and, somewhat, for Component 1. While I could go through all these graphs and their variations, the biggest problem I’ve run into now is interpreting and drawing meaningful conclusions from this data.
This table holds the contributions of each factor to the numerous components included in my MCA model. From what I have researched online, I believe that if the percentage of a factor’s column contribution is greater than the average inertia per column (100%/number of unique categories = 100%/88 = ~1.2048%), then that factor is a “significant” contributor to that component. I’ve made decent progress in this direction, but I think I might be at a dead end as it’s difficult to truly say what a “component” is in a practical sense and make conclusions on what factors are pivotal or greatly related to shark incidents as a whole.
A Ray of Sunlight or Bioluminescence in the Twilight Zone?
So, where do I go from here next week? Well, I’ve done some research and a process called Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA) seems promising or at least more accurate than MCA as it separates the different categorical values by the factors they fall under (like White Shark, Tiger Shark, Bull Shark, etc. under Shark Name instead of treating each of them as separate categories). I did try working with that this week, but the Python module I’ve been using (prince) seems to have some fairly outdated documentation preventing any of my programs from working, so I might look into a different module if I want to continue on this Correspondence Analysis route.
Instead, I’m leaning towards a method my external advisor pointed out to me called Multivariate Analysis that seems promising, but we’ll just have to see next week in my adventures in the seas of sharks, statistics, and oh-so-much Python. I’m also planning to see if I can polish my yearly shark catch analysis method and email some researchers and/or marine conservationists to hopefully get interviews and greater insight into the media-shark nightmare around the world.
Citations
Malcolm, H., Bruce, B. D., & Stevens, J. D. (2001, September). A Review of the Biology and Status of White Sharks in Australian Waters. CSIRO Marine Research, Hobart. https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=procite:1d0d13e5-7a60-4e65-be78-636e6f2dd22e&dsid=DS1.
Meagher, P. (2024). Australian Shark Incident Database [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10476905.
Week 4: The Dive Continues
Salutations, intrepid reader! Thank you for returning to my blog as I try to surpass a hopefully rather small bump in my Senior Project journey. This week, I’ve continued my work from last week, attempting to determine the relationship between a curated selection of shark incident features and their potential influence on the inciting of these shark incidents (from the Australian Shark Incident Database), and bettering my understanding of the significance of the number of yearly shark catches (from “A Review of the Biology and Status of White Sharks in Australian Waters”). Additionally, I wrote some emails and messages to researchers and conservation groups with the hopes of interviewing them about their works which have been essential in my project’s development and/or about their contributions and observations to the global front of marine preservation.
A Struggle Against the Current
While last week I focused on Multiple Correspondence Analysis, this week I tried my hand, or data, on Multivariate Analysis (MVA) and Cluster Analysis. As a brief rundown, MVA is a rather broad category of numerous forms of analyses that is mainly intended for use with multiple sets of quantitative data where certain “variables” can be grouped on a variety of axes and then compared to see where each variable or, in this case, shark incident factors overlaps or differs. Cluster Analysis is a specific variation on MVA where we specifically try to group these similarities into separated “clusters” using certain characteristics found in the data points.
Cautiously hopeful, I pushed through various module documentations and forums to figure out how to make my data work, but once again, resurfaced empty handed. The tutorials I found on MVA all, predictably, revolved around quantitative data, and even after converting my categorical data into quantitative 1’s and 0’s using the one-hot encoding method I learned last week, I arrived at first, a graph whose syntax did not fit any of the modules that were said to be required and then, a rather inconclusive heatmap that may foreshadow the final results of my attempts at cracking the Australian Shark Incident Database.
In the later end of this week, I also tried running Cluster Analysis on the database and ended up with a graph that not only I don’t quite understand, but also a graph that looks nothing like what Cluster Analysis usually looks like (search up images and compare them to my graph, and you’ll easily see the difference). Even though this is concerning, I am not giving up on this method yet as there’s definitely some potential (and it didn’t break down on me yet).
In more positive news, I was successful in creating some more insightful versions of the significance graphs of the various catch programs from last week. In particular, I added the 30% error bars to the numbers of sharks caught graphs and created a running average graph, both of which included the color-coding system I created last week (red for “significant increases” in sharks caught and yellow for “significant declines”). These graphs should help to make it visually clear why particular years stand out as outliers from previous year trends.
(If you’d like to take a look at any of the graphs I refer to in this section, here is a Google Slides link to the images: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eH9r4rMJK-ODqEy7nRLR4lgvD0iBH1Ud8CzwBd-T78M/edit?usp=sharing)
Searching for More Opinions
Beyond just messing around with plots, I am planning ahead for future weeks by sending invitations for interviews from researchers. As for the general themes for these interviews, I intend to ask about the researcher’s or organization’s current and past works, sharks and their roles in their ecosystems, shark sensationalization, and shark attacks. These expert opinions should clear up any suspicions I have and better inform any conclusions I hope to make regarding my project. Of course, I have written down nuanced questions for each individual, but I’ll just have to wait and see where my cold calls take me.
Returning to the Depths
Looking ahead into the following week, I am crossing my fingers that something works for connecting the factors I selected from the Australian Shark Incident Database. However, I am also ready to let this part of my analysis go if it proves too time-consuming as the main thing proving any or no connections (which may be what I have now) with features of shark incidents would be offering advice or clearing up any common misconceptions associated with shark attacks. Overall, this proof would be a neat addition to the promotional video I plan to produce, but it would hardly be the end of the world if I can’t draw anything conclusive.
Additionally, I am aiming to find possibly influential, historical Australian written, audio, and/or visual reports, shark (control) policies or programs, and other publications or records that could add some context to my previously noted significant time periods. This upcoming week should be the start of the creation of a sourced timeline to potentially explain how popular portrayals of sharks came to be and why the numbers of sharks caught and/or Catch per Unit Effort (as a reminder, this means the numbers caught per hour, net, etc.) in these shark control programs or fishing groups changed over the years.
Citations
Malcolm, H., Bruce, B. D., & Stevens, J. D. (2001, September). A Review of the Biology and Status of White Sharks in Australian Waters. CSIRO Marine Research, Hobart. https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=procite:1d0d13e5-7a60-4e65-be78-636e6f2dd22e&dsid=DS1.
Meagher, P. (2024). Australian Shark Incident Database [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10476905.
Week 5: Cutting Dead Weight for New Missions
Huh? What? Who are you? Not another statistical model, right? Because if you are, I am going to lose it! Oh, it’s that time of week again: the blog. Well, I have a story to tell, but it definitely isn’t the prettiest.
The Final Struggle (Against the Australian Shark Incident Factors Data)
As I’ve been doing for the past two weeks, I’ve been attempting to crack the enigmatic relationship between a select group of factors picked from the Australian Shark Incident Database. So far, I’ve been the most successful at interpreting the results from Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) on the data, though that did have its own caveats. Namely, it was difficult to understand what each “component” or percentage grouping of various factors meant and how to draw conclusions from these components. However, I believe I’ve since figured that out, while eliminating numerous other analysis methods.
As a reminder, last week, I was tinkering with Multivariate Analysis and (K-Means) Cluster Analysis. I have not been able to get those functioning in greater capacity and have added two new Cluster models to my accumulating graveyard: the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) and the Spectral Clustering model.
GMM relies on its namesake, Gaussian Distributions or, more commonly known, normal or bell curve distributions. While K-Means Clustering is efficient at finding spherical clusters, GMM could find clusters of a variety of complex and flexible shapes assuming that the data follows a Gaussian distribution. All of this description sounds extremely appealing but when applied to my data, it runs into several problems. First, the Australian Shark Incident Database deals with categorical data, and secondly, even after one-hot encoding and standardizing the data, one cannot simply assume that the data follows a normal distribution. As a result, I was left with the rather unsatisfactory graph below that clearly didn’t say much.
On the other hand, Spectral Clustering is intended to work with high dimensional and complicated datasets, specializing in dimension reduction. High dimensionality was definitely a problem in my case, but how this model reduces dimensions is by “predicting” how specifically two factors relate to one another which would neglect everything else I was trying to analyze as well. Consequently, this model was a dead end as well.
Going back to Week 3, I discussed trying Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA) as it seemed to be a more accurate version of MCA because it grouped the categorical values of each factor into their columns, observing the relationships between both individual values and columns instead of treating each value as its own category. I returned to this model hoping for good news, but unfortunately this time, I was just stopped by a mixture of my lack of experience in the topic, a lack of documentation from the Python module, and some incompatibility in the database.
Finally, this brings me back to the beginning of this journey: MCA. If you want a more indepth rundown of the model, refer back to Week 3’s blog, but I’ll quickly summarize it here. MCA uses the multiple categorical value types I’ve listed in the Australian Shark Incident Database to form a certain number of components (in this case an arbitrary 83 to account for all variance in the model) which are combinations of these values. From these components, each incident factor and case has its own percentage contribution to each component. These percentage contributions are determined to be significant if 100% divided by the number of rows or columns (depending on what is being analyzed) is less than that value’s contribution to the component.
Now adding on what I learnt this week, I believe I can use significant percent contributions for individual factors in components to figure out what factors tend to relate to one another. This form of analysis would already be much better than simply looking at the MCA plot of two components one by one and measuring how far points are away from each other, and the reason that I think this makes sense is from Component 0. This component has a 13% contribution from river locations and an 8% contribution from bull sharks (which are both significant because 100%/83 factors = ~1.2048%). This sort of relationship would make sense for a component that is attempting to correlate freshwater shark incidents which, though uncommon, would tend to involve bull sharks who can survive for extended periods in freshwater. Additionally, while I had believed that knowing row contributions for the dataset was rather pointless, I now see that they can be quite important for understanding which cases are influencing the percentage contributions of each factor for each component.
One more tidbit I deciphered was that the percent variance listed for each component is meant to represent the “explained variance” which means that the percentage listed for each component indicates how much of the total variance in the original dataset is explained by the (principal) component. Thus, because the earlier components have higher eigenvalues and variance, they are more significant to the dataset.
These discoveries and trials probably mark the end of my saga with different methods of analyzing the Australian Shark Incident Database’s factors. I will likely be returning to MCA later on in my project to draw some further conclusions from this data and research why some of what I will observe will happen, but for now, I’ll be continuing a different mission I started this week.
Constructing a Timeline
One of the main goals of this Senior Project is to connect significant increases or decreases in Australian White Shark catches, a proxy for their population numbers, to relevant media of the time, whether that be newspapers, audio recordings, movies, government or organizational rhetoric, etc. This week marked the start of this attempt, and I started by referring back to the color-coded significant graphs I created and improved upon in Weeks 3 and 4. I used the noted “significant” years to pinpoint periods of time that I wanted to further research. Currently, I’ve made it up to the 1960’s, combing through Trove (an archive of Australian media) for newspapers that mentioned the word “shark” and noting the general sentiment, wording, context, and other miscellaneous information about the reporting of these animals. Overall and rather predictably, the vast majority of these articles were written around shark attacks, sightings, or catches with only a slim minority being about regulation and “counter-information” to combat the fears people already had of the time of sharks in the ocean. However, I still have many more decades, articles, and mediums of information to go through new week, so I’ll be making a note of any differences.
That concludes this week’s blog. I did have one tiny update related to the emails I sent out last week for interviews. I heard back from one conservation group: the Shark Conservation Fund (SCF). SCF works with researchers and volunteers to fund Marine Protected and Conserved Areas and encourage policy development or reform related to conservation and fisheries. While they weren’t able to schedule an interview, they were able to answer some of my questions, and I’m extremely excited to incorporate this information into my project. Thanks for cruising by, and I hope you drift by again next week when I’m hopefully well-versed in Australian shark journalism!
Week 6: Collecting (Journalistic) Samples
Welcome, daring explorer! In this edition of the weekly blog, I’ll be delving into the archives of Australian newspapers for a couple of decades and some general notes I’ve taken from them. This update will be “rather” short compared to its predecessors (by my standards), simply because I haven’t been able to create a general conclusion for all my observations yet and because I am missing a few more decades to round out my research until 2000.
Filtering the Grub from the Gravel
With data ranging from 1938 up to 2000, I obviously could not go through every newspaper article mentioning sharks through the years. Instead, how I narrowed down my search was by first using the noted “significant” years in the numbers of sharks caught from the New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland (QLD) shark control programs, and the biennial catches of the Game Fishing Club of South Australia (GFCSA). As a callback to previous weeks, “significant” years were identified by using a running average of one datapoint’s five prior entries and then determining whether the current datapoint fell below or far surpassed the running average, specifically by a margin of 30%.
From these noted significant years, I then roughly grouped certain years together so that I could study any particular trends that existed within successive years. In the end, I was left with the distinct time period groups of 1953-1954; 1955-1956; 1957-1958, 1960-1962, and 1963-1966; 1969-1976; 1977-1982; 1985-1991; and finally, 1992-2000. In each of these years, using the Trove, an archive of Australian media, I looked at the earliest and more relevant articles to get a sample of the newspaper coverage on sharks at the time. This process was pretty time-consuming, so I was only able to reach 1969 this week and will continue to press forward over this upcoming week.
A Survey of the Current Samples
Presently, I can make some general observations from my readings of these time periods of Australian journalism. Overall, sharks are mainly only given either a negative or a neutral depiction in Australian newspapers. Overwhelmingly and reasonably, many of these articles were written around shark attacks and sightings. In a significant proportion of these stories, sharks, especially “White Pointers” or White Sharks, would be written as villainous and deliberately predatory stalkers for bathers, swimmers, and spearfishermen. Related to spearfishing, the sport was and still is quite popular in the country, and protections for those involved is highly emphasized. These protections spanned from more or less harmless methods like “shark repellant” to more shark-lethal technologies like explosive-tipped spears and skin-piercing guns.
Surprisingly as well, Australia proudly marketed its shark fishing trade. At a time where conservation for sharks was an extremely low priority, shark fishing for species like gummy and school sharks was prevalent, and big catches were highly praised. According to the GFCSA at the time, “No one likes sharks, so kill them by all means in any manner that the killer wishes to use. However, if sharks are fished for as a sport — and they are worthy opponents — then we should treat them as worthy opponents, and not ‘stunt fish’ and be termed as ‘big game bandits’ and ‘record robbers’.” This mixed respect could also be seen with the pest-like treatment of sharks for commercial fishermen who saw them as a mixture of powerful, bloodthirsty beasts that needed to be eradicated and mindless fish that tampered net lines and stole catches from their bottom lines.
Now, for more “positive” representations of sharks, these really only appeared in cases where no blame was assigned to the culprit shark in the attack or mentions that sharks were merely present in various locations. However, there was one article reprimanding the negative portrayals of sharks in Australian media at the time, but this was easily overwhelmed by the waves of shark attacks, catches, and fears reported on a monthly and sometimes daily basis. Additionally, due to the nature of consumer publications, in many cases, the mentioning of sharks were likely motivated by the paranoia around the animals and the excitement they stir for audiences, no matter how significant of a role they played in an incident. These biases against sharks manifested throughout the years as it seems to me that the rhetoric and pop culture (written stories and movies) around sharks over these decades did seem to grow more jaded and “revenge” killings and calls for them became slightly more common.
This was a brief summary of the notes I have so far, but don’t worry I’ll be on the same corner of the webpage next week with a new blog. I’ll be adding onto this article, in a hopefully more organized way, with some records dating only a little over two decades ago that may shed some light into Australian White Shark populations and the public sentiment that grew around them.
Citations
Malcolm, H., Bruce, B. D., & Stevens, J. D. (2001, September). A Review of the Biology and Status of White Sharks in Australian Waters. CSIRO Marine Research, Hobart. https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=procite:1d0d13e5-7a60-4e65-be78-636e6f2dd22e&dsid=DS1.
Numerous Articles from Trove (https://trove.nla.gov.au/) which digitizes numerous historical Australian newspaper articles and collaborates with the National Library of Australia and hundreds of partners around Australia.
Week 7: Untangling the (Sea)Weeds
SAN JOSE - 6 weeks ago, a version of this blog’s name was a minor section. Now, I’ll continue a different story started last week on the trends and potential biases in Australian journalism in the 20th century. Once again, I appreciate your interest in basically “Part 2” of my dive into the developments of articles on sharks in all types of situations over the decades. This blogpost, like the last, will be on the shorter side as I haven’t been able to compile conclusions on each time period I observed and an overarching conclusion summarizing my findings, but I will instead focus on the general changes I’ve noticed as I’ve read through the years. Also, be sure to stick to the end for an interesting achievement for my project.
The Last Worm in the Sand
Returning to last week’s blog, I talked about how I processed the data I was using, how I narrowed down what years I have been investigating, and how I decided what articles to sample in my analysis. If you’d like to learn more about my methodology, you can refer to the section near the top titled “Filtering the Grub from the Gravel” on my Week 6 blog (https://basisindependent.com/silicon-valley/senior-projects/2024/brandon-t). From this point on, I’ll assume you understand my “filtering” process or at least trust me enough to believe what I’ve written.
Summing up the progress I’ve made this week, I’ve made it through the time periods 1969-1976, 1977-1982, and 1985-1991. With these years processed, the only collection of years I have left to comb through is 1992-2000 which I aim to complete early on in this upcoming week.
The Plot Thickens while the Waters Clear
Moving through the two decades I looked at this week, I noticed an interesting and surprisingly, rather clear shift in rhetoric around sharks. While before the 1970’s I stated that positive representations of sharks were extremely rare, the 70’s and 80’s turned that around especially increasing the more modern the article was. What do I believe was the main cause for this shift? Interestingly, Jaws. Now, let me explain. I am not saying that Jaws helped the perception of sharks and my senior project title is completely backwards, absolutely not. However, the movie brought a lot more attention and interest into these animals when previously they were only seen as an obstacle to overcome.
Prior to Jaws’ release in 1974 and 1975, respectively (the book and the hit movie based on it), sharks were an animal and nothing more. They had the potential to kill people, they messed up fishing lines, some of them tasted decent, and it’s an impressive achievement to catch a big one. There was no distinction between more passive and more irritable or territorial sharks. A shark was a shark, and that was it. After Jaws and, to an extent, Blue Water, White Death, a shark documentary before it, sharks, especially White Sharks, were scary, powerful spectacles. Consequently, with this fear, people grew increasingly fascinated and wanted to learn more about the animals, resulting in more funding not only for shark control programs but also for shark research. On the other hand, the openly aggressive and one-note nature of the sharks portrayed in these films only strengthened the beliefs of those worried or vengeful of sharks, creating a two-sided debate around sharks and the danger they truly pose for the public.
This shift in perspective played out in newspaper articles in multiple ways. First, stories on shark discoveries, ancient or novel, such as fossils, new species, or even taggings, were often reported and included news from around the world. Secondly, shark attack reports tended to slow down, likely caused by multiple factors: greater organizational understanding of shark behaviors resulting in more effective shark attack prevention methods, greater public understanding of means to mitigate a potential attack, and the ripple effects of shark overfishing. The reason that I can claim that final point is that there was previously much support for the hunting and killing of sharks that were growing young, and with many sharks’ low reproduction rates, the impact on populations likely started to have its intended effects in terms of shark attacks. Adding on, the descriptions for these shark attacks tended to soften, with reporters and, in some cases, the victims attributing less of the blame on the shark and more on personal negligence, risks associated with the ocean, and natural instinct. Furthermore, shark consumption and its industry did formalize its presence, but it did face more regulation specifically with mercury concentration and illegal fishing for shark fins by Asian fishermen, though no outright ban on the product.
Finally, these decades included back-and-forth discussions between “shark lovers,” like researchers, photographers, and some members of the public, and “shark haters,” like some game fishermen, outspoken members of the public, and shark victims and their families. Arguments from those in favor of sharks revolved around their “attack-when-threatened” behavior, threatened state from fishing, and sympathy particularly to less dangerous species looped in with those that more commonly cause incidents. Arguments against tended to revolve around deep-seated emotion and/or vitriol for the danger sharks could pose, claiming that the “shark problem” has only worsened despite little data proving these statements true. I’m not claiming there is no reason for this fear and frustration, but in many cases, I can’t help but feel there is often some embellishment in many of the stories those worried about sharks tell, either to prove their point or sell a paper.
Overall, these paragraphs were a rough summary and analysis of what I read this past week. This upcoming week will include the formalization of my thoughts into a cohesive argument and timeline and my attempt to connect my findings to similar worldwide trends, such as here on the West Coast.
A Shimmer in the Sand
Thank you for reading or skipping to the end to read my exciting update. In addition to the work I put into my project this week, Kevin and I were interviewed about our senior projects by NBC Bay Area for their upcoming Today in the Bay segment on “Earth Week.” This experience was honestly nerve-wracking but unforgettable and really fulfilled the core purpose of my project, informing others on the hidden beauty in sharks, so I truly appreciate this opportunity given to me by Konnect, BASIS’ PR team, and NBC.
Citations
Malcolm, H., Bruce, B. D., & Stevens, J. D. (2001, September). A Review of the Biology and Status of White Sharks in Australian Waters. CSIRO Marine Research, Hobart. https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=procite:1d0d13e5-7a60-4e65-be78-636e6f2dd22e&dsid=DS1.
Numerous Articles from Trove (https://trove.nla.gov.au/) which digitizes numerous historical Australian newspaper articles and collaborates with the National Library of Australia and hundreds of partners around Australia.
Week 8: A “Fishy” Timeline
Greetings, investigator! Though not nearly as suspicious as the title suggests, I have compiled all that I have researched related to sharks from Australian newspapers, spanning from 1938 until 2000. As the culmination of three weeks of work, my “timeline” or analysis of various notable time periods’ newspaper articles is extremely lengthy, so for the sake of organization and length on this blog, you can find an in-depth rundown of the different collections of years I looked into in the following Google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YQ5rJPwSIqAMvAtR71b24KQwNAeuFblS83yKWSvdlro/edit?usp=sharing.
(Once again, if you’d like to learn more about my process of selecting notable years and articles to sample from these years, please refer to “Filtering the Grub from the Gravel” on my Week 6 blog - https://basisindependent.com/silicon-valley/senior-projects/2024/brandon-t)
Timeline Summary
Looking over the years, Australia grew significantly in its understanding of sharks, especially White Sharks, and its treatment of the animal. Game fishing initially existed as a thrilling and challenging pastime, embodying man vs. nature and little sympathy for the opponent at the end of the line. Similarly, sharks from sightings and attacks were mainly seen from two angles: annoying nuisances that could cause some financial damage or brutal, cruel, and intentional beasts that stalked the beaches.
As time passed, this narrative only grew and was picked up by filmmakers and reporters, playing off these negative stereotypes to create eye-catching and unforgettable stories. These cemented sharks into the mainstream as powerful yet majestic beasts, bringing pros and cons. Sharks became synonymous with the ocean, and anything covering them was fascinating to readers worldwide. This popularity came with both a desire to preserve their beauty and to mistakenly over-defend ourselves from their exaggerated danger.
Arguments on both sides grew to be more defined on the true danger sharks posed to humans, eventually culminating in pressures to secure White Shark populations. Although there was no complete consensus on the population size of the species, a ban on direct fishing of White Sharks was implemented. This move, applauded by researchers and ecotour operators, was still extremely controversial to some members of the public who saw this protection as unnecessary and/or premature.
Conclusion
From this deep dive into Australia’s relationship with sharks, I’ve grown a great appreciation for not only the individuals who acted as the voices for sharks but also those who brought valuable discourse into the conversation regarding protection. The fishermen especially would know sharks extremely well, and it is undoubtedly their support that pushed our current understanding of sharks forward. Applying what I’ve learnt related to media’s portrayals of sharks to my Senior Project will rely heavily on attempting to shatter decades-old stereotypes of sharks. Depending on my audience as well, my message and presentation may need to vary significantly, starting from glaring issues like the location I am talking about (which is what I’m planning to tackle next week), to my choice on main themes such as the economic benefits of protecting White Sharks or the ecological importance of such an apex predator has for large, beautiful ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef.
In addition to connecting what I have learnt from Australian White Sharks to those across the world, I will be starting my work in creating my own piece of media, combating the typical portrayals of sharks in many forms of content. Be sure to join me on my filmmaking journey next week when I should hopefully have drafted a script and sketched out an idea for my shark “promotional video.”
Citations
Malcolm, H., Bruce, B. D., & Stevens, J. D. (2001, September). A Review of the Biology and Status of White Sharks in Australian Waters. CSIRO Marine Research, Hobart. https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=procite:1d0d13e5-7a60-4e65-be78-636e6f2dd22e&dsid=DS1.
Numerous Articles from Trove (https://trove.nla.gov.au/) which digitizes numerous historical Australian newspaper articles and collaborates with the National Library of Australia and hundreds of partners around Australia.
Week 9: Jaws and Effect
Once again, welcome, blog enthusiast! As BISV’s 2024 Senior Projects come to a close, and my peers and I ready our final products, I have gained a fairly complete understanding of the age-old “shark problem.” Although understanding and generalizing public opinion is extremely difficult, this past week, I’ve done extensive research and have adapted and drafted some conclusions that are well-supported by peer-reviewed studies and scientists. Additionally, in this week, I’ve kept to my word from the last blog, and I’ve made some good progress on the promotional video, brainstorming ideas, completing an outline, and writing half of the script that I plan to finish and record this upcoming week.
Crossing the Seas
A core part of this week’s research was connecting what I observed in my “Australian Shark Media Timeline” from last week to the rest of the world, especially here locally in California. The main goal was comparing and contrasting Australian and American reactions and portrayals of sharks and noting key ways I could improve the communication of my ideas. Overall, the predominant focus of many of peer-reviewed articles was, directly or indirectly, the “Jaws Effect” (Neff, 2015). This theory, obviously inspired by the blockbuster film, states that the releases of these negative portrayals of sharks in media have resulted in three main perspectives on sharks: sharks intentionally bite people, human-shark encounters are always fatal, and sharks should be killed to prevent future attacks.
First looking at Australia in recent times, its shark control programs still exist, spanning from simple netting to catch and kill programs for sharks of certain lengths. According to Pepin-Neff, et al., even in some regions that had recently experienced fatal shark attacks, there is little support for lethal options to mitigate shark risks, a distinct contrast to what is argued and enacted by local governments. In fact, the public often associates these risks as inherent to engaging in ocean activities, placing little to no blame on sharks themselves; however, those who do support lethal measures see sharks as intentional “human hunters” who may need to be killed if they “get a taste of human flesh.” This disconnect continues for more recent newspapers’ accounts for sharks where after successive fatalities, organizations focused almost exclusively on portraying the risks sharks posed to humans and interviews from victims, members of the public, and government officials than scientists (who were usually featured for general interest articles) (Sabatier, 2018). Along with this, the study noted a 72% increase in articles “discussing mitigation measures that involved targeted killing of sharks.”
Now summarizing Californian efforts on shark awareness, it was exceptionally easy to find articles in support of sharks if you were looking for them. There was the occasional article highlighting shark sightings or increasing populations but oftentimes mixed in with the general, hyped-up fears associated with sharks there were messages in favor of conservation. California and, in general, the broader US does a decent job at presenting at least a neutral reporting on sharks in the news media. My observations line up with well publicized efforts by California State University Long Beach’s (CSULB) Shark Lab, their efforts to spread awareness, and Florida’s International Shark Attack File that attempts to destigmatize the numbers associated with sharks. More specifically, CSULB students and researchers run monthly appearances in the form of a “Shark Shack” on the coast educating the public at museums or on the beach on the real, lessened danger of sharks in contrast to what Hollywood depicts (Errico, 2023). These efforts also seem to be rather effective as numerous studies have made encouraging reports that White Shark populations off California may be stable or even increasing with minimal changes in shark incidents for the average individual (Ugoretz, 2022).
Comparing the two countries, there was one important study that truly highlighted the differences in sharks’ media representation: Muter, et al. In their study, they used an algorithm to analyze 300 articles across 20 publications from Australia and the US, noting how “media studies have long recognized the ability of mass media to reflect popular views.” From their analysis, they proved that summers understandably had the most coverage of sharks and shark coverage positively correlated with sharks attacks in both countries, and they showed that both countries tended to cover shark attacks (52% of articles) than conservation (11%) due to their “episodic” nature. A reason this article proposed was that news organizations prefer “case-study oriented” stories over “thematic” or “big-picture synthesis” stories that conservation movements often require to hold and influence audiences. Consequently, the authors suggested that framing individual victims, be it sharks or people, in favor of conservation may be more influential than speaking to the more abstract concept of “shark populations.” Their analysis also exposed some concerning trends with conservation groups’ reporting where politicians were positively correlated with stories discussing positive effects on sharks (successful conservation efforts), while conservation groups were correlated with negative effects on sharks (likely their founding cause).
In the end, an overwhelming majority (96%) of 109 shark-related films from 1985 to 2019 portrayed sharks as potentially threatening to humans, the only exception being Finding Dory which included a whale shark (Baier, 2021). While not all films may seem realistic, those that tow the line can have a significant impact on public opinion and more balanced representation of shark attacks can go a long way, such as including greater context to an attack, stating the rarity of attacks, and referring to shark “attacks” as “encounters” instead like we do in the Bay Area. In addition, simply mentioning that shark bites are unintentional may not help either as members of the public may perceive a lack of control, so positive messaging may help bring some of that agency back to the common beachgoer (Casola, 2022).
Testing the Waters
This past week, I’ve been applying what I’ve learnt into building a video that hopefully doesn’t commit the common mistakes other “pro-conservation” initiatives do such as overly relying on emotion, thereby turning away the target audience, and drowning the audience in meaningless statistics that do nothing to change the core prejudices against misinterpreted animals like sharks. As a result, my current plan for my video is to stick with a short, condensed, and semi-formal “PSA” on sharks, including a bit of the statistics that are usually mentioned but also sections separating the big screen and reality and the real-world significance of sharks. My hope with this endeavor is to make a fun and educational piece of audiovisual content that will reverse the narrative that has been cemented for decades.
While there isn’t much to show yet, I await your online presence next week as I learn to record, edit, and produce a video from (nearly) scratch and prepare my presentation for the Senior Project Showcase in just a few weeks.
Citations
Baier, J. (2021, September 7). If you think sharks are scary, blame Hollywood, new study suggests. Mongabay Environmental News. https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/if-you-think-sharks-are-scary-blame-hollywood-new-study-suggests/.
Casola, W. R., Beall, J. M., Peterson, M. N., Larson, L. R., Price, C. S. (2022). Influence of social media on fear of sharks, perceptions of intentionality associated with shark bites, and shark management preferences. Frontiers in Communication, vol. 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2022.1033347. (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2022.1033347)
Errico, G. (2023, June 27). Attention beachgoers: Everything you think you know about sharks is probably wrong. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2023-07-27/sharks-in-southern-california-get-image-makeover-from-csulb-shark-lab.
How jaws influenced shark perception. Shark Stewards. (n.d.). https://sharkstewards.org/how-jaws-influenced-shark-perception/.
Kanive, P. E., Rotella, J. J., Chapple, T. K., Anderson, S. D., White, T. D., Block, B. A. & Jorgensen, S. J. (2021, May). Estimates of regional annual abundance and population growth rates of white sharks off central California. Biological Conservation, vol. 257, 2021, 109104. ISSN 0006-3207, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109104. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320721001567)
Muter, B. A., Gore, M., Gledhill, K., Lamont, C., Huveneers, C. (2012). Australian and U.S. News Media Portrayal of Sharks and Their Conservation. Conservation biology: The journal of the Society for Conservation Biology. 27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2012.01952.x (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232740412_Australian_and_US_News_Media_Portrayal_of_Sharks_and_Their_Conservation)
NBCUniversal News Group. (2014, July 14). Reality bites: Why sharks aren’t always to blame for attacks. NBCNews.com. https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/sharkwatch/reality-bites-why-sharks-arent-always-blame-attacks-n153826.
Neff, C. (2015). The Jaws Effect: How movie narratives are used to influence policy responses to shark bites in Western Australia. Australian Journal of Political Science, 50(1), 114–127. https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2014.989385.
Pepin-Neff, C., Wynter, T. (2017, August 29). Shark Bites and Shark Conservation: An Analysis of Human Attitudes Following Shark Bite Incidents in Two Locations in Australia. Conservation Letters. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12407. (https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12407)
Sabatier, E., & Huveneers, C. (2018). Changes in Media Portrayal of Human-wildlife Conflict During Successive Fatal Shark Bites. Conservation and Society, 16(3), 338–350. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26500645.
Ugoretz, J., Hellmers, E.A. & Coates, J.H. (2022). Shark incidents in California 1950-2021; frequency and trends. Frontiers in Marine Science, vol. 9. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.1020187/full.
White shark information. California Department of Fish and Wildlife. 19 Oct. 2023, https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Marine/White-Shark.
Week 10: Sharpening Teeth
Hey, there! I’m glad to see that you’ve returned to my Senior Project blog! Unfortunately, there’s not too much to report for blog readers like you, but I did make some good progress on my final products! By the end of my 12 weeks, I am hoping to present my findings, of course, but also to create a promotional video for sharks as I stated in prior weeks.
Related to the video, I have fully written, edited, and recorded my script. However, it does seem quite long and will likely translate into an even longer video, so I will see what I cut if necessary. My video is aiming to strike a balance between entertaining and informative, without falling into the same pitfalls I’ve noticed and researched over the course of my senior project. I will attempt to cover statistics related to sharks, the chance of dying to them, common portrayals of them in the media, comparisons of these portrayals, and their importance, hopefully all in a brief video.
For my presentation, I have finished creating the slides and only need to practice for the final showcase. My presentation will contain a bit of what I covered in my proposal defense and, obviously, the research and findings I’ve made over these last months. I am aiming for sections that will go through my background, sharks’ circumstances, international and cross media comparisons, data processing, analysis, and conclusion.
That’s about it for this week’s blog! Next week, I’ll be working on developing my video and practicing my presentation. I hope you enjoyed these weekly updates as they near an end and are as excited as I am for the final results.
Week 11: The Calm before the Storm
For the second last time, hello, my enthusiastic shark blog reader! We are steadily approaching the end of the 2024 Senior Projects, and I can’t be more excited! Not only will I be able to present my findings, achieving part of my goal of clearing up the misunderstandings of sharks, but also I will be finally able to reclaim some of my carelessness for my daily routines. This week I did much of the same as I did last week (working on my presentation and promotional video), so unfortunately, there is not that much to report here on this blog, but if you come back next week or to the Senior Project Showcase, you will not be disappointed.
Expanding on my progress this week, I simply practiced my presentation and did a mock run through with my faculty advisor Mr. Meyerowitz on Friday. This attempt was extremely informative, and I got a bunch of tips that I think will definitely make my presentation both informative and engaging. Following this meeting, I have made some edits and am currently working on rehearsing this new and improved version.
On the other hand, for my promotional video, progress is much slower due to my inexperience with the editing software that I am currently using: Vegas Pro. I’ve currently made up to three minutes of content of what should be a nine minute video. However, as I’m getting accustomed to the software and its features, the thirty seconds of content that used to take hours to edit should hopefully be done in a couple of minutes.
(A little snapshot of my progress…)
That’ll conclude this second last blog of my Senior Project, and the final one before the “ultimate battle” to win over the hearts and minds of BASIS Independent Silicon Valley students, parents, and teachers on sharks. In next week’s blog, I’ll share the final results of my project and where you can find them for future reference if you’d like to build off anything I’ve covered! I hope to see (the distant, virtual, collective) you at the Showcase!
Week 12: Reeling in the Results
Whether you’re tuning into my blog for the first or last time, welcome! Especially if you visited my showcase this past Saturday, I want to thank you for your interest in my “fishy” exploration. As the final edition of my 12-episode shark saga, I’d like to provide some insight into my video making process, how that turned into my final result, and where you can find all of the resources I used for my project.
The Video
First off, if you haven’t seen the video or if you haven’t seen all of it, you can take a look at its entire ten minutes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvUsGsW0BWY.
Now, breaking down my process, I started with some brainstorming for interesting visual techniques, themes, and topics to cover in a piece of visual content. This planning stage helped me get an initial direction for my final product. At the core, I wanted a more casual or informal video that could include a bit of humor while remaining informative and not falling into any of the more alienating tendencies conservation advertisements tend to do, i.e. extreme appeals to emotions that may push away some audiences and broad sweeping statements that are meaningless to the common person. This led me to a few core points that I wanted to cover: statistics, normal behaviors of sharks, common portrayals in media, a twist on a comparably more popular animal, and finally, an emphasis on the importance of sharks. With this setup, I had the springboard to expand my idea into a script.
To make the recording and editing process as seamless as possible, I made sure to extensively map out my script. It extended from the specific intonations (I thought) I wanted to use, key words I wanted to highlight, certain transitions that I envisioned in the video, and other such similar notes on the audio and visual side. However, there was a clear downside to being so thorough. I wrote a lot. I even said so in my Week 10 blog, but my script ended up being 14 pages long, including some images I planned on showcasing or adapting and, once recorded, resulted in a one-hour audio file with numerous tweakings in lines that eventually boiled down to eight minutes of just me talking.
Adding onto my experience of recording the script, because I don’t have any fancy equipment, I resorted to some more “interesting” methods to suppress any background noise and echoing. Firstly, I tested every single microphone I could get my hands on: my phone, different headphones, and a headset mic. I eventually just landed on my phone’s Voice Recorder app, and then, I tested different rooms around my house from the living room, my bedroom (with and without closed doors), the closet, and the blanket. From my mini experiment, I found that subjecting myself to a baking in my sheets resulted in the clearest recording of my voice, so that was what I went with.
Finally, onto the grueling process of making the video, I had initially zero knowledge on how to edit with my only experience being in BISV’s Animation elective in my Junior year. With the advice from my external advisor, I decided to work with Vegas Pro’s free trial (you can see the watermark on my video) as it’s fairly intuitive and has a wide variety of built-in transitions, animations, etc. The biggest things I struggled when I started learning the software were the layer and animation timing systems. Compared to programs like Adobe Animate, Vegas Pro required new layers to be created for each new element and the “key frames” (basically, specific snapshots of the frames in a video) followed by Vegas Pro were in a fairly different format from Animate. I eventually got a hold of it, but the learning curve was definitely a hindrance and slowed my progress at the start, though not terrible for moving from animation to editing.
What really took a toll on my patience was a mixture of waiting for assets to download from the Internet and how abysmally slow my laptop ran Vegas Pro. In my video, I used plenty of stock assets and some snippets of YouTube videos, and although I had already decided on quite a number through my script, the downloading, importing, and trimming time for each individual file definitely added up. Additionally, though I know my laptop isn’t the best, it absolutely couldn’t handle the sheer number of moving parts and layers that the final ten-minute video required. However, it pulled through, and I couldn’t be prouder about the result, especially given that I had finished it in a little over a week.
The Final, “Fin-tastic” Finale
It seems like it’s almost time to go on our separate currents, but I’d like to add here a huge thank you to Mr. Meyerowitz, my faculty advisor; Mr. Adams, my external advisor; and Mr. Cunningham, the Senior Project Coordinator, for their help in the past year. In addition to all of the teachers that have supported me to get to this position, they especially have encouraged me to take on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and make the best out of it.
I’d also like to thank you. Whether you’ve seen one blog, all the blogs, or only attended my Senior Project presentation, I truly appreciate the support and hope that you learned something new and enjoyed my journey.
To show my gratitude, I’d also like to provide a link to both a Google Drive of all my files if you wanted to take an in-depth look at my research (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pdM_PpXJjM4LkDxYK_SePJAgBYKniq3m?usp=sharing) and the GitHub repository holding the data I analyzed, the code I used, and some images of it in action (https://github.com/Fire05s/Senior_Project/tree/main). If you’re looking to continue any of my work or if you use any of my files, I’d greatly appreciate a citing and a message as I’d love to see what more can be accomplished for my favorite animals.
While this may be goodbye, I hope to greet you all once again, maybe petting some of the “dogs of the oceans.”
Bibliography
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12oeCIFeiBNCjP56y2rcGrTItVKnJzRTkbViOp_U0LUM/edit?usp=sharing