What does popular media have to tell us about the future of seafood?

We examined similar to 300 newspaper and business-oriented articles published over a 10-year period to assess trends in how seafood sustainability is talked about. We mapped key concepts relating to seafood sustainability as the word was used. We asked if the reports provided evidence that perceptions of problems or solutions for sustainability in seafood have changed over time. What were emergent areas of interest, and what concepts relevant to sustainable fisheries and seafood were absent in the reports? The number of reports concerning sustainability that focused on the middle of the supply chain (e.g., primary processors and importers) increased over time; certification was cited as both part of sustainability problems and a solution. We observed very little change over time in the kinds of fishery and seafood problems reported in the media sampled; themes consistently focused on environmental aspects of fisheries (social wellbeing aspects did not appear in the sample as linked with the term sustainability); and very few media reports on sustainable seafood cited aquaculture as a solution. We discuss the gap between what many researchers may perceive as the state-of-the-art of ideas and communication in seafood sustainability, and what appeared empirically in media during the period under study.