Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D08815
Notes:
Pages 105-136 in Heike Graf (ed.), The environment in the age of the internet: activists, communication, and the digital landscape. United Kingdom: Open Book Publishers, Cambridge. 175 pages.
Authors review research involving public concerns in the United Kingdom, USA and Canada regarding the existence of a secret, large-scale atmospheric spraying program (SLAP). Research involved an analysis of scientist consensus regarding the issue.
Online via keyword search of UI e-catalog., Authors exmined the "forgotten history" of a scientific literature involving relationship between the media and farmers from the 1960s to date. "Farmers were once greatly valued in the media. There was a tacit agreement between members of the farming, government, and journalistic elite on the portrayal of the modern farmer figure. And yet this unity began to dissolve in the 1980s. Farmers were challenged in the public eye: awareness was raised about union struggles, doubt was cast on the cost of agricultural activities financed by society, new environmental concerns arose, promoted by journalists, and a series of health-related crises flourished in the 1990s."
