Temporal changes in attitudes towards crows and sparrows, analyzed from newspaper articles

Abstract

Crows and sparrows are familiar birds in Japan. Experiences with these species during daily life lead to people having both positive and negative feelings toward them. We analyzed newspaper articles available at the online database of Asahi Shimbun Kikuzo II Visual to assess how attitudes towards crows and sparrows have changed over time. Of the total number of search results, since 1990, we found that articles about crows accounted for 0.08% and sparrows accounted for 0.04%. Negative attitudes were more marked in articles about crows, while positive or favorable attitudes were relatively dominant in articles about sparrows. The trend was greater in 2015–2016 than in 2000–2001.