Minh-Xuan Athy Truong

As nature is increasingly encountered on screens, we examine how an unscripted slow-TV wildlife livestream, Den Stora Älgvandringen ( The Great Moose Migration , DSÄ), supports restoration, well-being, and human–nature connection. In 2024 we fielded an online survey ( N = 2,011) and combined reflexive thematic analysis with logistic regressions on theme mentions. Seven themes emerged: Unpredictability/Live, Sensory Immersion, Format Appreciation, Calmness, Authenticity & Realness, Social Engagement, and Well-Being. Viewers described folding DSÄ into daily routines for micro-restoration and companionship; high-fidelity soundscapes and unedited visuals underpinned immersion, while live chat and shared rituals fostered communal co-presence. Modelling indicated modest demographic and attitudinal correlations of theme mentions (e.g., age, access to nature, environmental concern), consistent with multifactorial social phenomena. Together, the findings suggest that slow-TV nature cultivates attentional ease, perceived authenticity, and shared meaning-making that complement direct nature contact. We outline design principles for digital nature content that preserves ecological integrity, supports slow attention, and enables inclusive access.

Technological mediation increasingly shapes how audiences encounter and interpret biodiversity. Digital nature programming, including livestreams and curated highlight formats, offers new opportunities for connection but also risks selective representations of ecological complexity. This study examines Den Stora Älgvandringen ( DSÄ ), a Swedish slow-TV nature broadcast centred on the moose migration, and its system of digitally curated höjdpunkter (‘highlights’). We analyse 1063 highlights from the 2023 and 2024 seasons, combining species identification, comparative biodiversity assessment and qualitative content analysis of highlight labels. The findings reveal a strongly skewed focus towards charismatic megafauna, particularly moose, while also documenting broader ecological dynamics within boreal riparian landscapes. The highlights selectively amplify spectacular, visually striking encounters while compressing natural temporal rhythms, contributing to an ‘Instagrammable’ portrayal of nature. While curated highlights offer accessible pathways for ecological engagement and potential contributions to citizen science, they may also reinforce romanticized wilderness narratives and contribute to the extinction of experience. We argue that slow-TV formats such as DSÄ simultaneously expand and constrain public understandings of biodiversity by shaping how ecological attention is organized through digital mediation, illustrating both the possibilities and tensions inherent in contemporary screen-based encounters with nature.

Digital technology plays an increasingly important role in wildlife management and conservation, by enhancing monitoring capabilities and reshaping human-wildlife interactions. However, the transformative potential of these digital solutions for coexistence remains unclear. This paper presents a novel framework to assess the transformative potential of digital systems in wildlife management and conservation, focusing on two key factors: Digital Maturity, which evaluates technical sophistication of digital systems, and Systemic Depth, which measures their capacity for enabling lasting change. We used this framework to evaluate 524 studies in a systematic literature review in wildlife management and conservation, and found that although sometimes higher Digital Maturity or Systemic Depth was achieved, overall the transformative potential of applied digital systems was still low. Studies that scored high emphasize interdisciplinary collaboration, adaptability, data sharing, and technologies such as machine learning. This research highlights achieving transformative potential requires a holistic approach integrating ecological, social, and technological perspectives.

Den Stora Älgvandringen (DSÄ), Sweden’s annual livestream of the spring moose migration, provides a rare counterpoint to platform cultures organised around speed, novelty, and metrics. This article conceptualises DSÄ as a digital campfire: a ritual ecology of attention and companionship grounded in ecological temporality and more-than-human presence. Drawing on a multi-sited qualitative corpus (programme archives, chat transcripts, and public Facebook discussions), the analysis shows how participation layers together silent dwelling, conversational companionship in chat, and year-round tending by core “flamekeepers” who welcome newcomers, share knowledge, and maintain continuity across seasons. Rather than centring spectacle or narrative climax, DSÄ organises collective watching around waiting, uncertainty, and seasonal return, cultivating arts of attentiveness and shared memory. Situated in public service media, the livestream stands outside monetisation logics, which affords editorial independence while exposing the project to political and budgetary pressures. The value that emerges is durational and relational: presence as participation, rhythm as meaning, and co-presence with more-than-human life as a public good. The article advances three contributions: it specifies the digital campfire as an analytical concept distinct from brand-led uses of the term; it demonstrates how slow, multispecies media can sustain communal care and informal expertise; and it reframes value in digital culture in terms of continuity and ecological attunement rather than virality and reach.

With direct experiences of nature declining due to urbanisation, technology‐mediated encounters may offer alternative ways to foster human–nature connections. This study investigates how Den Stora Älgvandringen (The Great Moose Migration, TGMM), a Swedish Slow TV programme live‐streaming moose migration, influences viewers' experiences of nature and human–nature relationships. Specifically, it explores the types of mediated nature experiences viewers have while watching TGMM, their motivations for engaging with the programme and how these motivations relate to their connectedness with nature. We employed a mixed‐methods approach involving an online survey completed by 2011 respondents. The survey included demographic questions, the Humans and Nature (HaN) scale, the Inclusion of Nature in Self (INS) scale and questions about viewers' experiences. Our findings show TGMM offers restorative, immersive experiences that foster emotional connectedness and ecological curiosity, with key themes of appreciating natural sounds, experiencing nature at its own pace and feelings of connectedness and nostalgia. Using HaN and INS scales, we found strong associations between nature connectedness, direct nature experience frequency and environmental concern. TGMM serves as a digital connection to nature and a community platform, providing an unfiltered, real‐time portrayal of wildlife that deeply resonates with viewers. While these experiences cannot replace direct nature contact, they play a valuable role in promoting conservation attitudes and fostering human–nature connectedness, especially for those with limited access to nature. These findings highlight the potential of Slow TV and similar media to inspire emotional and cognitive engagement with nature, with implications for biodiversity conservation and environmental education. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Advances in technologies have affected birdwatching and its popularization through time. To better understand how, we expose ways by which today's digital technology—typically taken for granted—shapes the social practices of birdwatching, which shifts human–bird relationships and has consequences for birds themselves. Starting in the transition from analogue to digital, we highlight how technologies have functioned to enhance human abilities and create connections among people, organizations, and places. We then analyze contemporary digital technologies (e.g., digital cameras, social media, and online biodiversity monitoring platforms), demonstrating how their entry into birdwatching practices reformulates the interests and power of various actors. Such processes affect the experience of birdwatching, its perceived benefits, the organization of birdwatching communities, and how birds are seen. To conclude, we address societal and ethical implications of digital technologies in birdwatching, focusing on their democratizing potential, as well as concerns over privacy, data ownership, and uneven digital engagement.

Two decades ago, Gaston and O'Neill (2004) deliberated on why automated species identification had not become widely employed. We no longer have to wonder: This AI-based technology is here, embedded in numerous web and mobile apps used by large audiences interested in nature. Now that automated species identification tools are available, popular, and efficient, it is time to look at how the apps are developed, what they promise, and how users appraise them. Delving into the automated species identification apps landscape, we found that free and paid apps differ fundamentally in presentation, experience, and the use of biodiversity and personal data. However, these two business models are deeply intertwined. Going forward, although big tech companies will eventually take over the landscape, citizen science programs will likely continue to have their own identification tools because of their specific purpose and their ability to create a strong sense of belonging among naturalist communities.

Regular contact with urban nature has been shown to have positive effects on human health and cognitive and psychological restoration. Although complex and multisensory, the sensory part of the experience of nature has been primarily studied through vision and audition. In contrast, despite its importance in the formation of human self and identity, the sense of smell remains little explored with respect to understanding an individual’s psychological relationship with nature. In a quantitative study, we used an online questionnaire to study the individual relationship between neurological and physiological self-reported smell sensitivity, affective and emotional connection to nature, and actual sensory experiences in natural spaces. Based on the answers from 463 French adult respondents, we demonstrate that people having high smell sensitivity also have greater sensory uses of natural spaces, and that this correlation is mediated by their environmental identity. We then highlight the fact that the environmental identity, in its definition, could deeply be sense-related. These initial results call for a better understanding of how nature is experienced through smell and other senses, how these experiences can influence the way people interact with natural spaces, and the future use and management of natural spaces.