Journalism, Invasive Species, and Marginalized Environmental Discourse on Social Media

Invasive species are a threat to ecosystems around the world. In public discourse, however, the topic is marginalized and occluded. This article explores that marginality in terms of identity and positioning work in specialist journalists’ tweets. Two countries with high incursion risks, Aotearoa New Zealand and the United States, are studied. The article finds that invasive species are largely left in the realm of the technical and excluded from politics. Using field theory, the article proposes that the topic lacks symbolic power. Journalists are oriented to norms in both countries that give them limited power to name an environmental crisis.