A shifting nature of understanding: Media coverage of environmentalism during the early 1990s

Barbara Ruth Burke, Purdue University

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to describe the ways in which American mass media stories in the 1990s discussed environmentalism and environmental activists. Research questions focus on the diversity of included topic categories, the types of social actors selected by journalists as information sources, and the assortment of "frames" utilized in the environmentalist articles. After examining materials about the environment which were published in Newsweek, Time, and the New York Times from January 1990 to July 1992, (2254 articles in total) this study supports three basic premises. First, environmental issues have resilience, and there have been stable amounts of coverage across the range of topics. Second, government, industry, experts, and advocacy groups speak frequently on the environment. Third, the majority of articles about the environment feature conclusions associated with two frames "reliance on authority" and "philosophical mainstreaming". The discussion of findings suggests that in the United States, in the 1990s, the control over the stories about environmentalism may no longer be the domain of social movements. Instead, environmentalism has been co-opted and re-configured in this country--as an "attitude" promoted to us as consumers. Therefore, media messages have assisted in reducing "the revolutionary potential" of environmentalism.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Neufeldt, Purdue University.

Subject Area

American studies|Mass media|Environmental science|Journalism

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