Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C29761
Notes:
Pages 109-114 in Thomas R. Dunlap (Ed.), DDT, Silent Spring and the rise of environmentalism: classic texts. University of Washington Press, Seattle. 152 pages.
Authors follow the notion that ignorance is not simply the absence of knowledge, but rather has its own configurations. They use examples to illustrate how interest groups and news media "appropriate and emphasize those ignorance claims that advance and protect their own particular concerns." Examples include Alar pesticide and tobacco.
18 pages., Online via UI e-subscription., "This article addresses the interaction between social movements and the media. Based on qualitative research into the media coverage of occupational diseases linked to pesticides, we show how professionals from the journalism sector have helped farmers who felt they were victims of such products get involved in a political cause. Given that sociologists have alerted to the risks of media-centric analyses, we also point up the role of other parties - environmental activists and legal professionals - in the interaction between the media and victims, and we underscore that the latter develop strategies to control their image in the media and express their own political voice in the public sphere."
