When headlines hurt: How media fuels the human-elephant conflict

In Kerala’s forest-fringed villages, encounters between people and wild elephants are no longer rare; they’ve become a regular fixture in the news. But behind the headlines about rampaging tuskers and grieving families lies a deeper issue: The way the media portrays these events.

Increasingly, elephants are cast as rogue intruders and local communities as powerless victims. This reductionist narrative not only oversimplifies a complex ecological crisis but also undermines the search for sustainable solutions.

Drawing on critical discourse analysis (CDA) of English-language reportage from news outlets The Hindu, Times of India, Malayala Manorama and Mathrubhumi, this article explores how journalistic language and imagery shape public perception, and what is lost when wildlife is portrayed solely as a threat.

Crisis of representation in wildlife reporting

In Kerala’s forest-edge communities, encounters with elephants have become both tragically routine and predictably sensationalised. Mainstream media often depicts elephants as violent trespassers, framing the conflict as a stark choice between animal aggression and human suffering. This narrative obscures deeper ecological and infrastructural failings, while pushing aside alternative stories rooted in coexistence and conservation.

By examining how the media constructs this conflict, the article reveals how journalism not only informs public opinion but also influences policy. At a time when Kerala must balance the pressures of conservation and development, a shift in media framing is vital.

Human-wildlife conflict is a global challenge, worsened by habitat fragmentation, climate change and developmental pressures. In South Asia, elephant-related conflicts are on the rise due to shrinking corridors and encroaching human settlements. Yet another, often overlooked driver of the crisis is the media narrative itself.

Drawing on theorists like Van Dijk (2004) and Tahir (2013), this article investigates how media language creates adversarial images. Coverage in Kerala frequently emphasises human fatalities with dramatic visuals and headlines, heightening public fear and justifying reactionary policies such as translocation or even lethal control. Ecological degradation, conservation planning and long-term solutions rarely receive comparable attention.

Moreover, media reports tend to elevate official voices like forest officials and politicians while sidelining ecologists, conservationists and forest-dwelling communities. This top-down framing silences traditional knowledge systems and limits the conversation to state-centric, human-first perspectives. Similar patterns are evident worldwide, from lion conflicts in Africa to tigers in India, where negative portrayals often lead to retaliatory killings and regressive policies.

Language that frames elephants as aggressors

Using CDA, particularly Van Dijk’s framework of Actor Description, this analysis identifies a consistent pattern of representing elephants as wilful aggressors. Headlines like Elephants remain major killers in Kerala (The Hindu, February 2024) and phrases such as “marauding wild elephants” reinforce an image of elephants as dangerous threats. These narratives attribute deliberate intent to animals, transforming ecological events into tales of attack and defence.

Such framing positions humans as orderly and rational, while painting elephants as irrational and violent. The result is a distorted public understanding of human-wildlife conflict, disconnected from broader realities like deforestation, changing land use, or disrupted migration routes. The conflict is seen not as a symptom of systemic ecological failure, but as an unprovoked invasion by an external foe.

Another striking trend is the political exploitation of wildlife encounters. A The Times of India report dated March 28, 2024, titled Tribal Woman Killed by Wild Elephant in Kerala Forest, used a tragic death to highlight political blame games, with leaders targeting rivals rather than addressing the underlying ecological or governance issues.

Simultaneously, the voices of tribal and forest-dwelling communities — those who live closest to elephants and often possess rich ecological knowledge — are conspicuously absent from most reporting. Their coping strategies and insights are drowned out by bureaucratic and political posturing. Scholars such as Manfredo and Dayer (2004) and Dickman (2010), remind us that these conflicts often reflect broader power struggles between marginalised communities and state institutions.

This pattern reflects what Van Dijk and Tahir describe as a discourse of victimisation, one where humans are repeatedly shown as powerless, with statistics selectively presented. For instance, while The Hindu reported 202 human deaths from elephant encounters over a decade, comparable figures for elephant deaths caused by humans are rarely mentioned. This imbalance perpetuates a skewed narrative that legitimises harsh, one-sided interventions.

Victimisation and hyperbole: Language that fuels fear

The discourse of victimhood is further amplified by sensationalist language. Headlines such as Angry Wayanad crowd tells ministers to seek votes from elephants, wild boars (Malayala Manorama, February 2024) turn legitimate anger into theatre. News reports are peppered with emotionally loaded words like “terrorised,” “invaded,” or “deadly encounter”— a language borrowed from war zones.

This dramatisation turns isolated incidents into national spectacles, intensifying public fear and skewing the debate. Instead of promoting thoughtful dialogue about shared spaces and ecological justice, such reporting pushes communities and policymakers towards short-term, fear-driven decisions.

Metaphors also play a powerful role in shaping public perception. A headline on Manorama Online titled Wild Elephant Attack Against Maoists (February 2024) anthropomorphised the elephant, wrapping its actions in a militarised, political frame. Similarly, Mathrubhumi’s Miraculous Escape Caught on Video (January 2024) dramatised an encounter, reinforcing tropes of danger and heroism.

Such metaphors serve what Van Dijk calls “negative othering”, which is portraying elephants as alien, violent intruders. The result is a narrative of a civilised human world under siege from the wild. These binary depictions erase the ecological truth: that human and animal lives are deeply intertwined and that our landscapes are shared.

Constructive, coexistence-oriented discourse

Not all reporting is sensationalist. But a significant share of Kerala’s media coverage on elephant encounters leans heavily on fear, exaggeration and oppositional framing. These narratives obscure the complex realities of habitat degradation, infrastructural gaps and policy inertia. As noted by Chapron et al. (2014) and Marianne de Nazareth & Nagarathinam (2012), such portrayals hinder empathy for wildlife and stall meaningful conservation.

What’s needed is a pivot towards ecologically literate journalism, reporting that seeks out conservation scientists, listens to local voices and foregrounds systemic causes rather than isolated events. Reframing the narrative from conflict to coexistence is beyond a matter of tone, it is an ethical and social imperative. Journalism holds enormous power to shape public discourse, inform policy and influence how communities respond to living with wildlife.

By embracing nuance, empathy and ecological understanding, the media can do more than report crisis — it can help build a more sustainable and inclusive future.

Anto P Cheerotha is Assistant Professor, Department of Journalism & Mass Communication, Kunnamangalam Arts & Science College

Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth