Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D08810
Notes:
Pages 41-69 in Patrick D. Murphy, The media commons: globalization and environmental discourses. United States: University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield. 192 pages.
Authors emphasize how factors that influence media coverage of climate science intertwine and diverge in the United States and United Kingdom. Journalism and public concerns have shaped decisions in climate science and policy , just as climate science and policy have shaped media reporting and public understanding.
18 pages., via online journal., This essay explores the different meanings of the 1960s’ pesticide controversy
as conveyed by the multiple representations of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
(1962). I argue that to understand the impact of Carson’s work on a heterogeneous audience in the early ’60s, we must move beyond an examination
of the book, Silent Spring, to consider its other media manifestations, as a
serialization for The New Yorker and as a television expose for “CBS Reports.” ´
Each conveyed a unique message stylized for the audience of that particular
media. This analysis demonstrates the problems and opportunities for scholars
attempting to gauge the influence of a book on the public understanding of
science. This argument also suggests that to understand the transition of
environmentalism from a grass-roots movement to near universal consensus,
we need to examine carefully the role of media in shaping divergent messages
for different audiences—a phenomenon that assisted in transforming local
environmental issues into a matter of national concern.
