Media narratives on (Ecological) sustainability: A topic modeling analysis of entrepreneurship news in the MENA region

Amidst the increasing ecological pressures arising from industrial activity and consumerism, with particularly tangible impacts outside of the global north, the private sector is being held accountable to reduce its environmental footprint and transition to sustainable business models and processes. Nevertheless, perceptions of sustainability and its dimensions largely vary between cultures and contexts, while local media discourses both shape and reflect those concepts and narratives. This in turn shapes sustainability practices and the nature and impacts of emerging entrepreneurial business activity. Given the dearth of sustainability research in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) and the region’s extreme vulnerability to climate change, pollution, draughts combined with political instability and institutional fragility, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of media narratives at the intersection of sustainability and entrepreneurship in the region. This was done by means of the machine learning method of topic modelling on two datasets of 486 and 217 news media articles extracted from a major regional English-language news outlet, followed by a manual content analysis of the extracted topics and articles. We find that the term sustainability is highly associated with economic prosperity and that ecology-related themes are often formulated in terms of financial gain, for instance transitioning out of oil & gas dependence. We find a surprising lack of focus on water scarcity and biodiversity, coupled with a welcomed focus on the energy transition, recycling, urban mobility, as well as social networking and minority integration. Our findings hence provide a nuanced contextual understanding of sustainability, which may support businesses and decision-makers alike in (re)defining priorities and reflecting upon the status quo and necessary next steps in the transition to more sustainable societies.Author summary: Ecological pressures keep increasing: Arising from industrial activity and consumerism, they have severe impact especially outside of the global north, such as the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region. To mitigate risks and impacts, the private sector is being held particularly accountable to shift to more sustainable business models and processes. However, perceptions of sustainability largely vary between cultures and contexts. Local media discourses both shape and reflect those narratives. This paper provides an analysis of media narratives at the intersection of sustainability and entrepreneurship in the region. We applied the machine learning method of topic modelling to regional English-language entrepreneurship news media articles. This was followed by a manual content analysis that revealed e.g. that the term “sustainability” is highly associated with economic prosperity, even in domains usually associated with ecological themes. We find a surprising lack of focus on water scarcity and biodiversity, and a welcomed focus on the energy transition, recycling, urban mobility, as well as social networking and minority integration. Our findings may support businesses and decision-makers alike in (re)defining priorities and necessary next steps in the transition to more sustainable societies.