African Swine Fever Awareness in the Internet Media in Poland – exploratory review

Aim. African Swine Fever (ASF) is a viral infection in domestic pigs and wild boars.It is estimated that ASF causes more than one billion EUR losses in Eastern Europe everyyear. In Poland, after initial outbreaks in 2014, almost 90% of pig farms stopped their production(in regions affected up to June 2017) due to restrictions (Jarynowski, Belk, 2019). InNovember 2019, the ASF virus has been confi rmed in a wild boar in the Wschowa poviat,just 30 km from the pig production hub in Wielkopolska (the so-called “swine district”).Recent rapid propagation of the ASF from East to West of Europe encouraged us to prepareanalysis of the Internet media awareness in Poland refl ecting the above mentioned socialdynamics.Methods. Using computational techniques we analyse agents and events in the Internetmedia. The intensive control measures against ASF in the European Union signifi cantlytransform biosecurity, trade, sanitary, environmental regulations and ethical standardscausing protests of various social groups of interest: 1) farmers (who are not ready to applye-methodology 2019 (6) 101biosecurity measures), 2) ecologists (who do not agree with governmental policy of wildboar depopulation) and 3) hunters with public administration (that have to take control onwild boar population).Results. In particular, we have reviewed possible ways of public opinion’s infl uenceusing Twitter, Facebook and mainstream websites’s data of selected groups of interest. Weidentify two main frames of events: 1) Culling of wild boar to minimize ASF spread and therisk of transmission to domestic pigs caused massive protest among ecological associationsin Poland, due to opposition of some experts in beginning of 2019; 2) jump of the virus toWestern Poland caused intensive discussion and lobbying of farmers postulates at the turnof 2019/2020.Conclusions. We claim that reliable analysis of the perception of the ASF is importantto understand possible confl icts and issues. We have provided analysis of usability of availableInternet resources as Secondary Data Digital Footprints.Key words: The Internet media, Social Media, Risk perception, African Swine Fever,ASF, Digital traces, Veterinary Public Health.