News Media and Technological Risks

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The Sociological Quarterly 46 (2005) 671698 2005 Midwest Sociological Society 671

The Sociological Quarterly ISSN 0038-0253

ac we u s n . x or , an a en, e oc o o ca uar er y - wes oc o o ca oc e y , , Ne ws Me a a n Te c n o og c a R s s Va e r e

J. Gunter

*Direct all correspondence to Valerie J. Gunter, Department of Sociology, University of New Orleans, 365Liberal Arts, New Orleans, LA 70148, 504/280-3962; e-mail: [email protected]

NEWS MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGICAL RISKS:

The Case of Pesticides after Silent Spring

Valerie J. Gunter*

University of New Orleans

The 1962 publication of Rachel Carsons Silent Spring

vaulted pesticide risks to a prominent place

on the media agenda. This article reports on a study of the relative weight of attention given by the

New York Times

to alarming or reassuring messages about pesticides in the immediate aftermath of

Silent Spring

. Theoretically, it uses a combination of inductive and deductive approaches to explain

the empirical findings. Three models of media coverage are examined: conflict theory, sensational-

ism, and problem frame. These models are employed chronologically as analysis revealed a compli-

cated pattern of coverage which first highlighted, then downplayed, risk.

Focusing events are well-publicized occurrences that dramatically highlight potential

problems in a society (Kingdon 1995). In the area of hazardous technologies, focusing

events typically take the form of disasters such as Love Canal, Times Beach, Seveso,

Bhopal, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and the Exxon Valdez

(Birkland 1997). Less fre-

quently widespread scrutiny is brought to bear on a particular technology via an espe-

cially cogent popular presentation of risk, possibly the best-known example of which is

Rachel Carsons Silent Spring

(1962; see also Graham 1970; Lutts 2000; Waddell 2000a).

Carson wrote Silent Spring

with the explicit hope it would

become a focusing event;

her goal was to draw public attention to a host of environmental and human health

threats stemming from the burgeoning use of synthetic chemicals in the post-World War

II era (Graham 1970). She was especially concerned about massive application of syn-

thetic organic pesticides, paying particular attention to the best known of these products,

Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (DDT). She sought to shift public and official atten-

tion from the obvious benefits of the new synthetics to the accumulating evidence of

unintended side effects, including (1) their long-term persistence in the environment; (2)

their tendency to bioaccumulate in body fat and to biomagnify up the food chain; (3)

their poisoning of beneficial animal and insect species such as honey bees; (4) their dele-

terious effects on the reproductive success of birds of prey; and (5) their ability to poselong-term, chronic human health problems stemming from, among other things, their

mutagenic, teratogenic, and carcinogenic potential.

Carson was not the first to raise concerns about these substances (Perkins 1978;

Dunlap 1981; Gunter and Harris 1998). She was, however, the first to assemble the vari-

ous threads of evidence from disparate scientific fields, translate mountains of complex

scientific literature into a language and style accessible to the lay public, and bring to this

endeavor a national reputation as a highly respected nature writer (Graham 1970;
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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The Sociological Quarterly 46 (2005) 671698 2005 Midwest Sociological Society

News Media and Technological Risks

Valerie J. Gunter

Waddell 2000a). The publics first exposure to this work occurred in June 1962, when The

New Yorker

magazine published excerpts from Silent Spring

in three consecutive weekly

issues. The book-length version of that article was published in late September 1962. It

was offered as a selection in the Book of the Month Club in October 1962, and quicklybecame a national bestseller (Graham 1970). John Kenneth Galbraith described it as

one of the most important books of Western literature . . . and Robert Downs listed it as

one of the books that changed America (Lutts 2000:17; see also Downs 1970:26061;

Immortal Nominations 1979).

Focusing events such as this make salient the question of acceptable risk of particu-

lar technologies; in their aftermath, producers, promoters, and users of the technology

will rush to offer reassurances of their safety (Mazur 1981; Bogard 1989). News media are

the primary venue through which competing risk claims are disseminated to the public,

making the question of the systematic bias in coverage an important one. This article con-

stitutes both a theoretical and empirical contribution to this literature. Empirically, itreports on a study of the relative weight of attention given by theNew York Times

to alarm-

ing or reassuring messages about pesticides in the two-and-a-half years following the

publication ofSilent Spring

. Theoretically, it articulates three distinct models of media

coverage of technological controversies offering divergent expectations about the pro-

pensity of news coverage to highlight or downplay risk.

This latter contribution is the result of an unexpected theoretical journey that took

place over the duration of this project, the result of a methodological approach that com-

bined the inductive orientation of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and

Corbin 1990; Charmaz 2001) and ethnographic content analysis (Altheide 1987; 1996)with the deductive orientation of pattern matching (Yin 1989). Fine (2004) has recently

championed the need to treat these two approaches to theory as complementary. While

his comments are specifically directed toward field research, they apply equally well to

qualitative content analysis.

It is not possible to separate deduction and induction in the way that has been sug-

gested, particularly as regard to field research. . . . [T]he inductive and deductive

models of research can never be disentangled. . . . Theoretical analysis is not some-

thing that occurs only before entering the field or after one has been in the field, but is

a continuing and recursive process. . . . Researchers should always be engaged in the-

ory buildingbefore, during, and after the gathering of ethnographic data. (Fine2004: 5, 11)

Pragmatically, employing such a methodological approach means working for extended

periods of time with conceptual frameworks that are quite protean in nature. The present

article is written with an eye toward capturing this aspect of the research process, and as

such employs a bit of an unconventional organizational format.

DATA SOURCES AND METHODS

The primary data for this project are 144 articles on pesticides published in theNew York

Times

between July 1962 (the month immediately following publication of the New


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Yorker Silent Spring

excerpts, and the first month during which theNew York Times

pub-

lished articles responding to Carsons work) and December 1964 (seven months after pes-

ticides near displacement from the media agenda). Counts of published articles were

made through June 1966 to ensure that apparent displacement was a sustained one (seeFigure 1. [The second component of this figure, frequency of appearance of federal claims

makers, will be discussed at a later point]). Compilation of this data set aimed to be inclu-

sive of all articles on pesticides published in the

New York Times

over the designated

period. These articles are supplemented by material from a number of secondary sources

(Graham 1970; Blodgett 1974; Whorton 1974; van den Bosch 1978; Perkins 1978; Dunlap

1981; Bosso 1987; Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Gunter and Harris 1998; Lutts 2000;

Waddell 2000a), as well as articles on pesticides published over the 1962 to 1966 period in

environmental periodicals such asAudubon Magazine

and industry trade journals such as

Farm Chemicals

and Oil, Paint and Drug Reporter

.

Following the precepts of ethnographic content analysis (Altheide 1987; 1996) articlecoding and data analysis were designed to have an extensive inductive component.

Because focusing events involve the designation of some aspect of the empirical world as

problematic, I began with a set of basic descriptive questions derived from the construc-

tionist approach to social problems (Best 1989): Who are the claims makers? What are

their claims? What solutions are they advancing to the concerns raised by Carson? I did

not work with a preestablished set of coding responses but rather allowed the answers to

these questions to emerge through careful readings of the articles. Following general

strategies of qualitative data analysis, early efforts to retain extensive detail were replaced

over time by more analytic categories (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and Corbin 1990;Silverman 1993). For example, I initially developed an extensive list of claims made about

FIGURE 1.

Temporal Distribution of Articles on Pesticides Published in the New York Times

,

mid-1962 through mid-1966, and Frequency of Appearance of Federal Claims Makers, mid-1962

through 1964.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

date

Sep1962

Dec1962

Mar1963

Jun1963

Sep1963

Dec1963

Mar1964

Jun1964

Sep1964

Dec1964

Mar1965

Jun1965

Sep1965

Dec1965

Mar1966

Articles

Federal Claims Makers


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Valerie J. Gunter

DDT, ranging from It kills beneficial insects to It only poses a risk when it is used

improperly. As the project progressed, my focus shifted from the exact content of partic-

ular claims to the more general question of whether claims highlighted or downplayed

pesticide risks. Some additional illustrations of this process of category refinement areprovided later in the article.

It was in my efforts to explain patterns of media coverage that I entered a deductive

element into my research. While not all grounded theorists agree with them (for an over-

view see Charmaz 2001), Strauss and Corbin (1990) have argued that inductive

approaches do not preclude the consideration of the potential applicability of concepts

and propositions drawn from the existing literature. Fine (2004:5) states the issue in a

particularly succinct fashion: The impossible ideal of induction is to enter a field site as

a stranger without preconceived ideasthe sociologist as Martian. Rather than endlessly

reinvent the same wheel, it seems to me a wise strategy to draw on existing literature for

clues about what might be fruitful avenues of exploration and analysis.Where this approach differs from strict deductive theory testing is the end goal of

the project. If the goal is theory testing, then the project is over when the researcher

demonstrates the findings either conform, or fail to conform, to expected relationship

patterns set out in the hypotheses. If the goal is to develop an analytic model that

accounts, in a robust fashion, for the particulars of a given case, then work continues

until such a model is developed. In the reflexive move between induction and deduc-

tion advocated by Fine (2004), the researcher utilizes insights from existing literature

that prove useful while continuously pushing beyond the borders of extant theory. The

problem lies not with using preexisting concepts and propositions but in being sofocused on them that the analyst is incapable of seeing parts of the social world that lie

beyond their purview.

For the deductive component of my research I utilized a pattern-matching strategy.

For case study analysis, one of the most desirable strategies is the use of a pattern-

matching logic. Such a logic compares an empirically based pattern with a predicted

one (or with several alternative predictions) (Yin 1989:109). The following two sec-

tions are organized to reflect the deductive flow of a pattern-matching approach. Each

section opens with a brief summary of findings from research on media coverage of

technological-focusing events, the first with the Santa Barbara oil spill and the second

with the discovery of chemical contamination at Love Canal, New York. Like the publi-cation ofSilent Spring, these are both seminal events in the history of the contemporary

environmental movement. I move from a discussion of the particular empirical pattern

of coverage reported in each of these studies to presentation of a theoretical model that

accounts for these findings (in the first section, conflict theory; in the second, a model I

label sensationalism). From each of these models I derive four expectations about

media coverage in the aftermath of technological-focusing events; I then proceed to

determine the extent to which coverage in the case I am examining matches these

expected patterns.

Inductive components of the research project enter in the movement from the first

to the second theoretical model. My initial expectation was that conflict theory would


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provide a viable explanatory framework for the findings in this case; when it did not, I

went on to elaborate an alternative theoretical model that seemed to provide a better fit

with the findings. While an improvement, this second model failed to meet the criteria of

theoretical robustness; it did provide a match with some key findings but left otherimportant components of the case unexamined or unexplained.

Continuing the reflexive move between inductive and deductive theorizing, I pro-

ceeded to identify a third model that provides a more robust accounting of this case. In

this final section I do not include an empirical example of existing research applying this

model to media coverage of a technological-focusing event, because as far as I know such

a study does not yet exist. I do, however, derive four expectations about media coverage

from this model, and then demonstrate the degree of fit between these expectations and

my findings. A word of warning: this is not a strict deductive, theory-testing exercise. By

this time I have done sufficient analysis on the case to know these patterns will, indeed,

match. My purpose in listing these four expectations in the final section is to articulatetheory, to make this particular model of media coverage more accessible for future

research.

Specific information about coding and data analysis decisions is discussed in the body

of the text, in conjunction with relevant findings. This violates the usual placement of this

material in the Methods section, but provides much richer insight into the recursive strat-

egy used in this project. Qualitative data analysis of the kind reported in this study, which

requires extensive immersion in and interpretation of some aspect of the social world (in

this case, repeated readings of newspaper articles and other relevant material) are difficult

to subject to the same kind of reliability checks found in quantitative work. Qualitativeresearchers are more prone to talk about things like trustworthiness of the analysis

(Lincoln and Guba 1985; Creswell 1994:157); hopefully my repeated failures, docu-

mented below, to find what I expected lends a degree of trust to the rigorousness of this

research process. Having said that, there is a small, descriptive quantitative component

(frequency counts) in the findings reported below. Using a systematic sample of one

quarter of the articles included in the data set, two coders did reliability checks on the

findings reported in Tables 15. Intercoder agreement was high (kappa =

.83).

TABLE 1.

Distribution of theNew York Times

Articles by Headline Theme for All Articles and for

Articles with a Federal Claims Maker in the Headline or WASHINGTON in the Byline, July 1962

December 1964

Theme

All Articles

(Percent)

Federal Claims

Maker (Percent)

Highlights Pesticide Risks/Supports Carson 57 59

Neutral Message about Risk 24 28

Downplays Pesticide Risks/Highlights Benefits of Use 18 13

TOTAL (Percent) 100 100

NUMBER (Base) 144 46


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Valerie J. Gunter

TABLE 2.

Brief Summary of theNew York Times

Articles on Pesticides, JulyDecember 1962

Articles Highlighting Pesticides Risks and/or Supportive of Rachel Carson

July 2, 1962:28 Editorial endorsing Carsons work.

June 26, 1962:26 Letter to the editor urging stricter government controls ofpesticides.

August 19, 1962:54 Clear Lake, California, was sprayed with the pesticide DDD

beginning in the late 1940s to kill gnats. Unintended result of this

action was the decimation of the Western Grebe.

August 24, 1962:15 Agricultural pesticides pose threat to honey bees.

August 25, 1962:44 Pesticide residues found in the milk of some California dairy cows.

August 26, 1962:81 Decline of pheasant population in area of Sacramento Valley linked

to pesticides.

September 3, 1962:30 Audubon Society says spraying with DDT did nothing to stop

encephalitis in Florida.

September11, 1962:30 Favorable review of Silent Spring.

September 16, 1962:49 DDT sprayed on Dutch elms in Detroit claimed to kill robins.

September 21, 1962:28 Letter to the editor says greater research monies need to go to

alternative pest control strategies like biological controls.

September 23, 1962:71 Friends of Rachel Carson helped to spark writing ofSilent Springby

their concern over bird deaths because of pesticides.

September 23, 1962:35 Favorable review of Silent Spring.

Articles Downplaying Pesticide Risks, Highlighting the Benefits of Pesticide Use, and/or Highlighting

the Risks of Not Using Pesticides

July 22, 1962:III, 1 Industry response to Silent Spring.

September 6, 1962:30 Letter to the editor argues there is no risk from dry cleaners use

of DDT as a moth preventative.

September 13, 1962:34 Report from the meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Chemists argue nation needs pesticides to feed people, and that

existing controls are adequate to protect public safety.

September 14, 1962:37 Silent Springis called one-sided. Pesticides are needed to maintain

food supply.

September 22, 1962:28 Monsantos parody ofSilent Spring, The Desolate Years, paints

picture of future world plagued by insects after people have

turned away from the use of pesticides.

September 23, 1962:VII, 26 Pesticide defenders argue most problems Carson cites are frommisuse.

September 23, 1962:35 Letter to the editor defending pesticides.

Articles Sending Neutral (Balanced or Indeterminate) Messages about Pesticide Risk

August 30, 1962:10 Presidential news conference where Kennedy informs reporters

that the people in the federal government are examining the

issue of pesticide risks.

August 31, 1962:9 Kennedy asks a committee of the Federal Council of Science and

Technology to study Carsons allegations.


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NEWS AS ELITE PROPAGANDA: THE CONFLICT MODEL

Conflict theory comprises one of the best-articulated and empirically well-documented

sociological models of mass media coverage. A seminal study in this genre is Molotch and

Lesters (1975) analysis of media coverage of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, a technolog-

ical disaster which received extensive national media coverage and galvanized public sup-

port for the nascent environmental movement. The Santa Barbara oil spill began on

January 28, 1969, when a beneath-the-sea-floor casing of an offshore platform in theSanta Barbara channel blew out, eventually leaking 13 million gallons of oil into scenic

California coastal waters (Gramling 1996). Highlighting the damage of the spill and the

risk of outer-continental-shelf (OCS) extraction more generally were national and local

conservation groups, and local officials and residents. Oil companies and the federal gov-

ernment (especially the U.S. Department of the Interior [USDI], which leases the OCS

tracts to the oil companies) aimed to minimize the damage done by the spill, and to reas-

sure the public that proactive measures were being taken to ensure similar problems did

not occur in the future.

Molotch and Lester assessed how successful each side was in getting their interpreta-tion of events disseminated through local (i.e., Santa Barbara New Press

) and extra-local

TABLE 3.

Percent of Articles with Official News Sources

Level of Government Percent

Federal Agencies and Officials 51

State Agencies and Officials 19

Local/County Agencies and Officials 8

One or More, Any Level 69

TABLE 4.

Extent of Coverage of Three Promoters and Three Repudiators of Pesticide Risks in the

New York Times

, July 1962 through December 1964

Claims Maker

Percent of Articles in which Claims

or Actions by Claims Maker Cited

Promoters of Pesticide Risk

Environmentalists/Select Carson 29

Congress/Federal Legislator (Excluding Agriculture) 13

USDI/FWS 11

One or More Promoters of Pesticide Risks 47

Repudiators of Pesticide Risk

USDA 22

Chemical Industry 10

House/Senate Agricultural Committee 2

One or More Repudiators of Risk 29


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Valerie J. Gunter

TABLE 5.

Headlines and Brief Summaries of the New York Times

Editorials on Pesticides, July

1962 through December 1964

Rachel Carons Warning

Editor predicts few will read The New Yorker

extracts ofSilent Spring

without a chill. Their topic isthe controversial one of our increasing use of chemical poisons to eliminate insect pests and theextent to which we are, in the process, subjecting ourselves to the hazards of slow poisoningthrough the pollution of the environment. The editor concludes with the hope that enoughpublic concern will be aroused that the government will undertake adequate controls, evenagainst the objection of industry. (July 2, 1962:28)

Warning on Pesticides

Editor endorses the findings of the just-released report by the Presidents Science AdvisoryCommittee (PSAC). The report leaves no doubt that some of these chemicals, even whenproperly used, have killed large numbers of birds, fish, and other useful living organisms, thusupsetting the ecological balance. Furthermore, there is still much scientists do not know aboutthe long-term consequences of exposure to even small quantities of these substances. The editor

concludes by arguing changes in public policy are needed. Public control over the use of thesepotent substances is inadequate at present. The division of responsibility and power amongexisting agencies can no longer be accepted. (May 17, 1963:32)

The Pesticide Danger

A four-year search for the cause of millions of fish deaths in the lower Mississippi River has locateda likely culprit: very small quantities of agricultural pesticides. If this cause is confirmed, whatimplications does it have for humans who drink Mississippi River water or eat fish from it? PSACreport warned readers of dangers of pesticides; while progress has been made in carrying aboutPSAC recommendations, fish death indicates a need for still more stringent control. The U.S.Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been particularly recalcitrant in implementing morestringent government oversight. (March 29, 1964:IV, 8)

For Action on Pesticides

The evidence indicates minute amounts of synthetic insecticides were responsible for killingmillions of fish in the Mississippi River. This evidence may be enough to overcome thebureaucratic apathy prevailing in the pesticide field. The problem is caused by the potency andlong-term persistence of these substances, which do not break down once put into theenvironment but rather enter the food chain. (April 13, 1964:28)

Rachel CarsonEditor eulogizes Rachel Carson following her death from breast cancer. (April 16, 1964:36)

A Minimal Pesticides BillEditor supports passage of the DingellNeuberger bill that would require printing warnings of

potential danger to wildlife on pesticide labels. The editor argues this bill deserves passage as aminimal protective measure. (April 29, 1964:40)

Time to Quit Using DDT

Editor criticizes New York Citys decision to spray 6,500 acres of marsh with DDT in an effort tocontrol mosquitoes. PSAC recommendations that use of persistent synthetic chemicals beeliminated except in emergencies are reiterated. (May 27, 1964:38)

Alternatives to DDTEditor responds to New York Health Commissioners claim that use of DDT is necessary to control

mosquitoes, which the public wants. The editor argues that alternatives to DDT do exist, andshould be used to prevent poisoning of underground and surface water. (June 9, 1964:34)

Changing Pest Control PoliciesEditor supports Interior Secretary Stewart Udalls virtual banning of residual pesticides on public

lands. The editor criticizes the USDA for not following suit, contending that County Agricul-tural Extension Agents are still distributing government farm bulletins that recommend the per-sistence poisons for almost every minor and major insect problem that besets the farmer and

gardener. (October 6, 1964:34)


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(e.g.,New York Times

, Boston Globe

, Des Moines Register

) newspapers. They found limited

coverage of the claims of conservationists and local residents and officials outside the

Santa Barbara area, while the oil companies and spokespeople for the federal government

received considerable coverage in extra-local newspapers. Furthermore, activities favor-able to the interests of the oil companies and their federal allies, such as the introduction

of tough new regulatory standards, received considerable coverage outside the local area.

Claims by conservationists and local officials that these tough new regulatory standards

were not being enforced (that is, they were purely symbolic gestures) received limited

extra-local coverage. In this case, outside the Santa Barbara area, the claims of those who

wanted to minimize the risk posed by the spill, and by OCS extraction more generally,

were triumphant.

Molotch and Lester explain these findings with the conflict model, which posits a

tight confluence of interests and influence between corporate elites, government elites,

and mass media organizations (see also Molotch 1970; Molotch and Lester 1974; Loganand Molotch 1987). Corporate and media interests are aligned through corporate owner-

ship of mass media organizations, as well as through media reliance on corporate adver-

tising dollars (Herman and Chomsky 1988; Bagdikian 1990). Whether through editorial

policy or fear of giving offense to an important source of revenue, mass media outlets shy

away from stories critical of the capitalist system, particular industries and corporations,

and specific business practices.

Reporters extensive reliance on government officials as generators of newsworthy

events is another mechanism by which news coverage favorable to corporate interests is

generated (Tuchman 1978; Gans 1979; Herman and Chomksy 1988). Conflict theoristsview the state as a handmaiden to corporate interests (Mills 1956; Marger 1987; Domhoff

1998), and accordingly expect that state officials will use their access to the media to

come to the defense of any threatened company or industry. States, however, act as more

than just a sideline defender. Official responsibility to promote capital accumulation

(OConnor 1973) leads to direct state involvement in the creation, promotion, and/or

deployment of a number of hazardous technologies, including nuclear energy (Campbell

1985), offshore oil extraction (Gramling 1996), and pesticides (van den Bosch 1978;

Perkins 1978; Dunlap 1981). When government officials and agencies offer reassuring

claims in the face of concerns raised about these technologies, they are doing more than

defending corporate owners and operators; they are also defending themselves.Because they highlight possible dangers to the general welfare, technological disasters

and exposs have the potential to escalate into full-blown legitimation crises (OConnor

1973; see also Cable and Cable 1995). When a substantial number of citizens become con-

vinced that the government has allowed the needs of corporate capitalism to take prece-

dence over protecting the public, it may take more than reassuring words to win back

their confidence. Actions may be necessary, but conflict theory would postulate that the

majority of these actions would be symbolic in nature. In the realm of technological haz-

ards, symbolic policies are ones that change existing programs, practices, and regulatory

oversight in ways that look significant to outsiders, but in actuality produce few or no

discernible modifications in the way promoters, producers, and/or users of a particular


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Valerie J. Gunter

technology go about their business. Symbolic policies are a desirable response option

because they allow government officials to simultaneously reassure the public and

protect

corporate interests by creating the appearance

of substantial change (Edelman 1964). Pro-

mulgating tough new regulatory standards that are then not enforced, or creatingnew programs that are underfunded, are examples of the kinds of symbolic actions

government undertakes.

Coverage of Pesticides: Did theNew York Times

Downplay Risks?

The empirical findings of Molotch and Lesters (1975) study of newspaper coverage of the

Santa Barbara oil spill, and the explanatory framework of conflict theory, suggest the fol-

lowing pattern of media coverage in the aftermath of technological-focusing events. First,

the most prominent message in the media will be one that downplays risks. Second, gov-

ernment agencies and officials will be the most frequently cited news source. Third, these

agencies and officials will be a major source of the reassuring messages reported in thearticle. Fourth, any government action taken to redress technological hazards will be

symbolic in nature. In this section I assess the extent to which theNew York Times cover-

age of pesticides in the aftermath of Silent Springconform to the expectations of this

model.

One of the best ways to get a general sense of the message a newspaper is sending

about risks is to analyze headlines (Weart 1988; Baumgartner and Jones 1993). Such an

analysis provides an indication of the impression readers just skimming the newspaper

would receive about a subject. I classified headlines into three categories based on

whether they (1) highlighted the risks of pesticides, or in other ways offered support ofCarson (for example, by reporting on awards she had won. These are included because

they lend legitimacy to Carsons risk claims); (2) downplayed pesticide risks, highlighted

the benefits of pesticide use, or highlighted the risks ofnotusing pesticides (for example,

threats to food supply or public health); or (3) sent a neutral or irrelevant message about

pesticide risks (the former category includes unimpassioned calls for further study; the

latter category includes cases where articles were largely about other topics, but which

contained a paragraph or two pertaining to pesticides).

The results of this analysis are provided in Table 1. In contrast to the expectations of

conflict theory, headlines that repudiated pesticide risks or extolled the virtues of pesti-

cide use were in the clear minority (less than 20 percent of all headlines). The most prev-alent headline theme, constituting slightly more than half of the 144 examined articles,

presented alarming messages about pesticide risk or in other ways offered support for

Rachel Carson.

Headlines, of course, do not tell the whole story. Indeed, because they are meant to be

attention grabbers, and may not even be composed by the same individuals who write

the article, headlines may present a less-than-accurate portrayal of the body of the text. To

check whether such a divergence occurred in this case, I selected a subset of articles

those published during the first six months of coverage following the Silent Spring New

Yorkerexcerptsfor textual analysis. I chose this time frame for two reasons. First, it cap-

tured the period of intense scrutiny afforded pesticides in the immediate aftermath of the


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681

publics exposure to Carsons critique (see Figure 1). Second, preliminary readings of the

articles suggested this was the period when pesticide defenders had been most

successful

in getting their claims across.

Articles were coded as highlighting risks when more than half of the claims andactions recounted in the article accentuated the risks of pesticide use, and/or extolled

Rachel Carson. Articles were classified as downplaying risks when more than half the

claims and actions recounted in the article repudiated risks, highlighted the benefits of

pesticide use, and/or highlighted the risks ofnot

using pesticides. In most cases, the major

thrust of an article was clearly toward highlighting or downplaying risks, though often

with a few token statements from the other side. Articles were classified as neutral

when they either presented a balanced treatment of competing risk claims, or when they

did not take any stance on the issue, for example, presenting arguments that further

research was needed before we could assess the real risks of pesticide use.

Of the 21 articles on pesticides published during this six-month period, 57 percenthighlighted risks, 33 percent downplayed risks, and two were neutral. While pesticide

defenders display a higher rate of success here than in the headline analysis, their message

is still in the minority, a pattern once again at odds with the conflict model. On the other

hand, messages highlighting risks hover consistently around the 57 percent mark in both

the headline and textual analysis. In order to provide readers with a flavor of theNew York

Times

coverage, a brief summary of the 21 articles published between July and December

1962 is given in Table 2.

Media coverage in this case, then, did not match the first pattern predicted by the con-

flict model. With respect to the second pattern, analysis showed government agencies andofficials dominated media coverage in the aftermath ofSilent Spring

. Almost 70 percent

of the examined articles contained at least one official news source from either the local/

county, state, and/or federal level (see Table 3). Fifty-one percent of these articles con-

tained at least one federal agency or official as a news source. In addition, the peak periods

of coverage for federal claims makers track closely with the peak periods of coverage more

generally (see Figure 1). Official domination of the news by government representatives

matches the pattern predicted by the conflict model.

The picture becomes more complicated when we turn our attention to the third task,

that of assessing whether official sources repudiated pesticide risks. In line with the expec-

tations of the conflict model, one of the leading federal defenders of pesticidesthe U.S.Department of Agriculture (USDA)did receive extensive coverage. An analysis of

claims makers not reported in this article shows the USDA cited as a news source in 22

percent of the articles examined (Gunter 1994). While this initially appears an impressive

level of coverage, it should not be interpreted as conveying that the USDA occupied a

hegemonic vantage point. Rather than setting the contours of the debate, the USDA is on

the defensive. Furthermore, as the discussion below illustrates, much of the rearguard

action being waged by the USDA is against other federal officials and agencies.

We begin to get a sense of this with a follow-up analysis of headlines I conducted on

the subset of 46 articles which contained one or more federal claims makers in the head-

line or which were followed by WASHINGTON in the byline. An example of the first kind


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682


News Media and Technological Risks Valerie J. Gunter

of headline is, President Signs a Pesticide Bill (Finney 1964b:49); an example of the lat-

ter kind of headline is, Pesticide Inquiry Ordered in Louisiana Fish Deaths, followed

immediately by WASHINGTON March 26 (UPI) (New York Times March 27, 1964a:48).

The designation of WASHINGTON locates it as a story originating from governmentsources, while its presence at the start of the article in capital letters makes those federal

origins apparent even to a reader skimming headlines.

The purpose of this analysis was to assess the impression someone just skimming the

headlines would get about the messages federal agencies and officials were sending about

pesticide risks. As can be seen in Table 1, almost 60 percent of articles with a federal

claimsmaker in the headline or WASHINGTON in the byline highlighted pesticide risks,

a figure consistent with the entire sample of articles. On the other hand, only 13 percent

of this subset of articles downplayed pesticide risks, a figure 5 percent lower than the

entire data set of articles. The New York Times headlines did not portray a federal

government engaged in a massive campaign to reassure the public about the safety ofpesticides.

Another means I used to empirically examine this issue was to analyze the alarming

or reassuring nature of highly visible official claims and actions. The most visible govern-

ment actions were those that (1) occurred during peak periods of coverage and (2) were

the subject of several related articles published during the duration of peak coverage, and

perhaps afterward as well. Key official activity at the three periods of peak coverage shown

in Figure 1 include (1) AugustSeptember 1962: President Kennedys appointment of the

Presidents Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) to investigate the validity of Carsons

claims; (2) AprilJune 1963: the release of the PSAC report and the convening of the hear-ings of the Senate Committee Operations Subcommittee on Reorganization and Inter-

national Organization (known as the Ribicoff Hearings); and (3) MarchMay 1964:

passage of the 1964 amendments to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide

Act (FIFRA).

As seen in Table 2, President Kennedys appointment of the PSAC to investigate

Carsons concerns about synthetic organic pesticides qualifies as a neutral activity. In

contrast, the tone set by the activities of the PSAC report and the Ribicoff hearings is fairly

alarming. The PSAC report provided government-sponsored vindication of many,

though not all, of Carsons concerns (Waddell 2000b). TheNew York Times coverage of

the Ribicoff hearings included testimony of Jerome B. Wiesner, head of the PSAC, andRachel Carson. Senator Abraham Ribicoff reconvened these committee hearings in mid-

February 1964, following the widespread publicity of the U.S. Public Health Services

attribution of massive fish kills in the lower Mississippi River to two chlorinated hydro-

carbon pesticides, aldrin and dieldrin.

The third peak of coverage, which followed the passage of the 1964 FIFRA amend-

ments, combined messages of threat and reassurance. Threat came in the form of claims

stressing the need for these amendments, claims that asserted that the existing law was not

adequately protecting the public welfare. Yet passage of these amendments is presented as

a substantial solution that effectively annihilates the danger. Following passage of these

amendments, theNew York Times coverage of pesticides drops drastically (see Figure 1).


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Valerie J. Gunter News Media and Technological Risks


The passage of the 1964 FIFRA amendments provides a clear match with the fourth

pattern predicted by the conflict model, that any action undertaken by the government is

likely to be symbolic in nature. While overall the conflict model fared poorly in this case,

the symbolic nature of this policy response, combined with its central role in removingthe pesticide issue from a prominent place on the media agenda, figure prominently in

further efforts to develop a theoretical model that accounts for the nature of media cov-

erage in this case. For this reason, I defer detailed discussion of why these amendments

qualify as symbolic in nature to a later section of the article.

NEWS AS DRAMATIC PRESENTATIONS OF DANGER:

THE SENSATIONALIST MODEL

At this juncture, a new foray into the literature seemed warranted. Specifically, I sought to

determine whether any other sociological research reported a pattern of media coveragesimilar to the one I had found. The result of this search led me to the work of Alan Mazur,

another leading scholar in this area. Mazurs work allows us to examine media coverage

of another technological-focusing event critical in the development of the contemporary

environmental movement, in this case, the late 1970s revelation of residential exposure

to chemical contaminants from an abandoned hazardous waste dump at Love Canal,

New York.

The Love Canal case pitted a local housewife, Lois Gibbs, and the Love Canal Home-

owners Association (LCHA), the grassroots group with which she was affiliated, against

the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the New York Department of Health, the Nia-gara Falls School Board (which had built an elementary school on top of the contami-

nated site), and Hooker Chemical Company, the producer of the chemicals (Levine 1982;

Szasz 1994; Mazur 1998). The dispute that raged between LCHA and the state health and

federal environmental agencies was over the degree of danger posed to residents of houses

located more than a block from where the wastes were buried. Officials maintained that

while contaminants posed a severe threat to residents of the 239 homes in the immediate

vicinity of the site (known as the inner-ring homes), chemicals had not migrated far

enough off-site to present a substantial threat to individuals residing in slightly more

distant residences (the outer-ring homes). While state and federal officials supported a

government buyout of inner-ring homes, they opposed such a buyout for outer-ringresidences. This recalcitrance outraged LCHA members who claimed outer-ring resi-

dents had already experienced dangerous levels of chemical exposure.

In his analysis of theNew York Times coverage of the Love Canal issue, Mazur found

the Love Canal Homeowners Association cited as a news source more often than any

other person or organization, whether in government or business (1988:134). Further-

more, coverage of the LCHA and its major spokesperson Lois Gibbs was predominantly

favorable. In addition, events supportive of LCHAs claims and concerns were more

extensively covered than events supportive of officials contention that the residents of the

outer-ring homes faced minimal risk. For example, the release of an epidemiological

study showing chromosomal damage among Love Canal residents was featured


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684 The Sociological Quarterly 46 (2005) 671698 2005 Midwest Sociological Society


prominently in the media. Subsequent scientific questioning of this study, including crit-

icisms of its lack of a control group, received little media visibility. Overall, claims makers

trying to send reassuring messages about risk fared less well in the media than those high-

lighting the dangers of the chemical exposure at Love Canal.This convergence on an empirical pattern similar to the one I had found in theNew

York Times coverage of pesticides in the aftermath ofSilent Springwas encouraging. In

my effort to develop a theoretical accounting ofwhynews media would favor messages

that highlight technological risks, however, I had to extend my reach further than Mazurs

work. Indeed, in contrast with my experiences with conflict theory, where I worked with

a long-established, readily recognizable, and tightly articulated set of concepts and prop-

ositions, my conceptual labors at this juncture took the form of a melding of ideas from a

variety of sources to flesh out a basic theoretical framework. Indeed, the designative term

sensationalist model is my own, as is the choice of which works to include under this

rubric.Conflict theory selectively highlights certain aspects of technological disasters and

exposs, specifically, the threat they pose to the interests of powerful elites. Cast within a

broader portrayal of news as elite propaganda, this model generates the expectation of a

story that downplays risk. To change our expectations about the kinds of stories media

will tell, we must shift our understanding about the fundamental nature of news. If news

is about something other thanor something more thanprotecting elite privilege,

then we have to apply otheror additionalcriteria to the question of which events

become newsworthy. The aspects of technological-focusing events that matter, at least

when it comes to questions of media coverage, may be quite different from those high-lighted by the conflict model.

One body of literature which presents a very different take on the fundamental nature

of news is the conservative critics charge that mass media organizations in the contem-

porary United States are controlled by a liberal establishment. This control can be seen

in news coverage that displays a decidedly liberal bias by castigating business and promot-

ing deviant lifestyles (for a critical overview see MacDougal 1981; Schudson 2003). In the

case of technological disasters and exposs, the expectation is that those claims makers

highlighting risks will have the advantage, while businesses and their allies will have a

hard time getting an equitable and sympathetic airing of their messages in mass media

sources. Intentional political bias has been institutionalized in the opinion column andeditorial pages, whose very purpose is to interpret, analyze, and persuade (Schudson

2003:34).

There is another reading on the fundamental nature of the news that is potentially rel-

evant here, one that draws attention to its entertainment value (Fishman 1980; Fishman

and Cavender 1998). While not necessarily incompatible with the liberal bias model, as

explained below, it does move us in a different explanatory direction. If news is con-

structed with an eye toward entertaining audiences, then the stories most likely to be

selected for coverage are ones that are eye-catching, unusual, suspenseful, and/or melo-

dramatic (or at least lend themselves to being told in a melodramatic fashion). Techno-

logical-focusing events display all of these elements. Looming danger and unfolding


15/28



developments provide built-in suspense. There are heroic struggles against great odds,

possibilities for human-interest angles, clear-cut victims, and perhaps even clear-cut

villains (cf. Hannigan 1995; Loseke 2003).

Political commitments of those who assemble the news could very well furtherencourage this portrayal. It is a framing that fits well with a liberal outlook, celebrating

the struggles of the ordinary Jane and John Q. Public against powerful, but unscrupulous,

corporations. Yet it is not clear that such commitments are essential. A far more crass

motivation for use of the entertainment format is suggested by Glassner (1999): sensa-

tionalism sells. In media organizations driven by the profit motive, the mantra will be to

generate news that appeals to the broadest audience. As the growing popularity of tabloid

television testifies, the news that fits this requirement is sensationalist in nature (Langer

1998).

Coverage of Pesticides: Did theNew York Times Highlight Risks?The empirical findings of Mazurs (1998) study of newspaper coverage of Love Canal, and

my own efforts to elaborate an explanatory framework of sensationalist media coverage,

suggest the following pattern of media coverage in the aftermath of technological-focus-

ing events. First, the most prominent message in the media will be one that highlights

risk. Second, environmental organizations and other risk promoters will be the most fre-

quently cited news source. Third, industry spokespeople and their supporters (those try-

ing to downplay risks) will fare poorly in the media. Fourth, editorials will highlight

technological risk, serving as an imperfect indicator of organizational bias.

The findings reported in Tables 1 and 2, as well as the general discussion of the pre-ceding section, match the first expectation of the sensationalist model. Examining expec-

tations two and three from the above list required further refinements of the coding

categories. Using the inductive coding strategy discussed in the methods section, I had

originally identified a group of 22 distinct claims maker categories (Gunter 1994). At this

juncture, however, I was interested in seeing whether theNew York Times gave divergent

coverage to promoters or repudiators of pesticide risk, and there were few claims maker

categories on this list which could be clearly cast in one or the other of these roles. In the

initial coding process I had generated a set of more inclusive claims-maker categories

based on functional similarityfor example, groupings such as state government or

university scientists. While these categorical groupings had seemed sensible in the earlystages of the research project, they now proved inadequate to the analytical and empirical

task of pattern matching using the sensationalist model. This inadequacy stemmed from

the fact that many of these categories incorporated both promoters and repudiators of

risk.

Rather than examine the entire array of claims makers recorded in the New York

Times, I decided to single out six for more focused examination. Because the sensational-

ist model sets out clear expectations for differential patterns of coverage of environmen-

talists and industry, I began there. The category chemical industry includes particular

companies like Monsanto, trade associations like the National Agricultural Chemical

Association, and industry spokespeople like Dr. Robert White-Stevens. The category


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environmentalists/select Carson was created by collapsing together what had initially

been two distinct claims-making categories: Environmental Organizations/Conserva-

tionists and Rachel Carson. The creation of this new category was also accompanied by

a more refined coding of Carson as a news source. It is tricky trying to count the newscitations of the author of a book that anchors an entire conflict. Because the controversy

is about Silent Spring, the book and its author are constantly evoked in articles, just like

articles on the Santa Barbara oil spill must constantly make reference to that focusing

event. Counting every mention of Carson and her work therefore runs the risk of overin-

flating the pro-environmental coverage in this case, creating a pattern match with sen-

sationalism stemming from a methodological artifact. A decision was therefore made to

err on the side of caution, and count Carson as a news source only in those cases where

she herself appears as a claims maker (for example, as a witness at a Congressional hear-

ing), or where her claims are presented in a way which indicate endorsement of her posi-

tion. Carson is not counted as a news source in those cases where her arguments arebrought up because they are the focal point of controversy, even if such articles present a

substantial summary of her claims. Since environmentalists echoed Silent Springs criti-

cisms of pesticides, the selective coding of Carson just described is combined into a single

category with claims and actions by such groups as the Audubon Society and the Izaak

Walton League, as well as individual naturalists like Robert Cushion Murphy.

I added to these two claims makers two of the most visible promoters of pesticide risk

in theNew York Times, the USDI/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USDI/FWS) and Con-

gress/Federal Legislator (Excluding Agriculture). The USDA was the most visible repudi-

ator of risk, and provided a match with the USDI/FWS, allowing for comparison of twoof the leading federal agencies in the dispute. I also included the House and Senate

Agricultural Committee as a match to my third risk promoter category (Congress/Federal

Legislator, Excluding Agriculture). The Agricultural Committees formed an important

part of the powerful farm bloc, and were consistent supporters of policies and programs

designed to facilitate farmers access to pesticides (Bosso 1987; Hansen 1991).

The findings reported in Table 4 report general, though for the most part hardly over-

whelming, support for the second and third patterns predicated by the sensationalist

model. Even with the conservative counting scheme described above, Environmentalists/

Select Carson were still the most frequently cited news source. The USDA did come in sec-

ond, appearing in slightly more than one-fifth of all articles. The chemical industry faredrelatively poorly, cited in 10 percent of articles, and the House/Senate Agricultural Com-

mittees came in last among these examined groups, cited in only 2 percent of articles.

Congress/Federal Legislator (Excluding Agriculture) and USDI/FWS did not have

impressive showings, but both did garner slightly higher coverage than the chemical

industry. Risk promoters fared best in the summary measures of articles that contained

one or more of these three risk promoters or one or more of these three risk repudiators,

where they have an almost 20 percent advantage over the repudiators.

The final pattern match with the sensationalist model I examined was the portrayal of

pesticide risks in editorials. These editorials were classified as to whether they highlighted,

downplayed, or presented a neutral image of risks according to the same criteria


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recounted above for the classification of articles published in the first six months follow-

ing the publication ofSilent Spring. All nine editorials on pesticides published during the

two-and-a-half-year period following the publication ofSilent Springhighlighted pesti-

cide risks; a brief summary of each of these editorials is provided in Table 5. Whether ornot one wants to interpret that finding as indicative of a liberal bias (which, admittedly,

some readers might well regard as a good thing), it does seem reflective of a general out-

look of those assembling news on pesticides at the time, at least at this particular news

organization. When combined with findings previously reported, we end up with a

strong set of evidence that the dominant message of the New York Times during this

period highlighted the risks of pesticide use.

NEWS AS POLITICAL SPECTACLE: THE PROBLEM FRAME MODEL

It might seem at this point that the time had come to close up shop and go home. I wasnot, however, ready to do this. While the sensationalist model provided a better overall

match with the pattern of media coverage in theNew York Times than the conflict model,

it did not, in my estimation, provide a fully satisfactory accounting of this coverage. I

was especially dissatisfied with the model on the following four counts. First, the sensa-

tionalist model as I developed it contained no clear expectation for or explanation of

government actions. In the conflict model such an explanation was central, but this

model was rejected when the findings failed to support the expectation that state repre-

sentatives downplayed risks. Yet there is more going on here than simple failure of gov-

ernment officials to fulfill expected roles: it is not just that they are sitting thecontroversies out, but rather actively participating in a way antithetical to the expecta-

tions of conflict theory. An explanation of how some federal claims makers came to be

lead promoters of pesticide risks seemed to me absolutely essential to any robust theo-

retical accounting of this case.

Second, the more I immersed myself in this particular case the more apparent it

became that framing the inquiry as an effort to determine whether the media highlighted

or downplayed risks missed one of the most important components of the story. Over the

two-and-a-half-year period following the publication ofSilent Spring, theNew York Times

did not send a consistent message about pesticide risk, but rather one that moved through

a cycle that began with an extensive period of accentuating danger but ended with a mes-sage of reassurance that the danger had been effectively eliminated. This is a more com-

plicated story than suggested by theoretical models that posit media convergence on a

consistent message of risk, and one that raises political implications about the question of

media bias.

Indeed, my third dissatisfaction with the sensationalist model reflects my political

discomfort on this front. If I had not initially gone through the exercise of pattern match-

ing with the conflict modelif, in other words, all I had examined in my media analysis

were the four sensationalist questions presented at the beginning of the previous sec-

tionthe findings would have left an inaccurate sense of clear winners and losers in the

newspapers portrayal of pesticide risks. Specifically, the findings reported in the last


18/28



section seem to document a marked bias in favor of risk promoters; were I a spokesperson

for the chemical industry I would probably look at these findings and go, See! We were

treated unfairly! We did get a raw deal from the media! What is missing here is a consid-

eration of the one area the conflict model performed well, that is, explicit attention tosymbolic policy measures.

Fourth, the cumulation of findings discussed thus far point to inadequacies in both

the conflict and sensationalist models, yet both models provided a sufficient match with

some of the patterns of media coverage to mitigate against their wholesale rejection. In

other words, both of these models got some things wrong, but they also both got some

things right. At this point I decided what was needed was a theoretical model that brought

together elements of both the sensationalist and conflict models that fit with the specifics

of this particular case, plus explained the rather unexpected role of government agencies

and officials as risk promoters.

Returning again to the literature, I found likely candidates for this theoretical task inEdelmans (1988) work on the political spectacle and Altheides (1997; 2002) work on the

problem frame. For both authors, news is produced as a result of a joint construction

process on the part of media organizations and claimsmakers, especially government offi-

cials, and it takes the form of an endless parade of problems and resolutions. Altheide, for

example, argues that over the last several decades news coverage has increasingly con-

verged on a problem format that promotes a discourse of fear that may be defined as the

pervasive communication, symbolic awareness and expectation that danger and risk are a

central feature of the effective environment (1997:648 [emphasis in original]). For Edel-

man, news coverage from the time of World War II to the present has taken the form of apolitical spectacle which continuously constructs and reconstructs social problems, cri-

ses, enemies, and leaders, and so creates a succession of threats and reassurances

(1988:1). In the motivations which drive this construction process, both those of media

organizations and of the claims makers which actively court media attention, as well as in

the general pattern of threat (highlighting danger) and reassurance (downplaying dan-

ger), we find elements consistent with aspects of both the conflict and sensationalist

models.

The very notion that much of news reporting is riveted not only on problems but also

on disasters, calamities, and crisis situations that dramatically encapsulate problems car-

ries forward basic assumptions from the sensationalist model. Also in line with thatmodel, the assumption here is that media organizations produce news in this particular

format for underlying pecuniary reasons. Media organizations are out to turn a profit,

with the extent of that profit largely determined by audience shares. Media organizations

are thus motivated to produce news in a format that they believe will appeal to the

broadest audience, which today means an entertainment format that highlights drama

and suspense (Fishman 1980). Edelman adds an additional factor here, one that moves

beyond the specifics of any particular story to the cumulative effect of an unending stream

of stories that highlight problems: spectacle is unpredictable and fragmented so that

individuals are always vulnerable and usually can do little more than react, chiefly by

keeping abreast of the news that concerns them (Edelman 1988:123).


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One place where we see connections with conflict theory is when we turn our attention

to the claims makers seeking access to media outlets. Following in the broad contours of

conflict theory, public officials are seen to have an especially tight relationship with media

organizations: much of what qualifies as news is actually reports on official action, pro-viding government representatives an unrivaled level of access to media venues. To return

to the idea of joint construction, it is public officials who feed reporters and journalists

much of the information and happenings that are subsequently translated into news.

At the same time, the connection between public officials, media organizations, and

corporate interests are not wound so tightly here as in the conflict model. Public officials

routinely feed media personnel information about problems and crises; it is in their inter-

ests to do so. Elected officials want to portray themselves as leaders who effectively deal

with problems, as this helps them with their reelection bids (or perhaps even their seeking

higher office), but in order to do this they must first draw attention to the problems they

want to address. Government agencies may also find it beneficial to highlight problems,as this may result in increased resources to combat the problem, expanded forms of juris-

dictional authority, or a new legitimacy to trespass on a rival agencys bureaucratic turf.

Of course, simply because public officials find it beneficial to highlight problems does not

necessarily mean they will pursue actions harmful to corporate interests. Indeed, there

are many opportunities here for simultaneously meeting the needs of media organiza-

tions, government agencies and officials, and corporate interests; probably much of what

passes as news in this society does precisely this. Yet there is nothing inevitable about

this configuration, and the needs of both media organizations and political officials to

present this unending parade of crises is likely at times to work against corporate interests,as some of the problems identified through this process will implicate particular compa-

nies or business practices (Schudson 2003).

A second point of connection with the conflict model is the resolution phase of

news stories. Again, it is in the interests of both media organizations and public officials

to eventually present some resolution to the crises they themselves have promoted. Poli-

ticians want to use spectacle as a vehicle for showcasing leadership, to demonstrate their

timely confrontation of problems and efficacious action on behalf of the public welfare.

An endless parade of threats without any resolution would not accomplish this goal;

indeed, this would make public officials look decidedly ineffective. Likewise, if all the

media portrayed was a world filled with endless dangers that were never abated orresolved in any fashion, news coverage would likely engender in most audience members

an overwhelming sense of helplessness and despair. Rather than encouraging readers

and viewers to keep abreast of the news, such a pattern of coverage would likely generate

audience burnout (Edelman 1988; see also Downs 1972).

In any particular story, then, we can expect a clear and unambiguous point at which

the condition that inspired fear will be resolved (Altheide 1997:652). Indeed, Altheide

contends that conditions only tend to be turned into problems for media and public con-

sumption when there is an up front clear sense of what needs to be done to correct

them, solutions that generally require some kind of government action. It is not necessary

that these solutions be symbolic in nature, but given the challenges of securing substan-


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tive changes there is a good chance they will be (Edelman 1964). Furthermore, even if the

solution is symbolic it will be publicly presented as substantial, as this is the portrayal that

is needed to send messages of effective leadership and reassurance that the danger has

abated. The considerable room here for symbolic policy responses creates another pointof connection with conflict theory, one which has important implications for how we

evaluate the political fallout of media coverage of controversial issues like technological-

focusing events, since the fundamental appearance of change created by symbolic

responses operates, intentionally or not, to protect the status quo.

Coverage of Pesticides: Did theNew York Times and Public Officials Jointly Construct a

Story that First Highlighted, Then Downplayed, Pesticide Risks?

The explanatory framework of the political spectacle/problem frame model suggests the

following pattern of media coverage in the aftermath of technological-focusing events.

First, the dominant message during the initial stages of coverage will be one of crises andpanic; the dominant message during the end stages of coverage will be one of reassurance.

Second, public officials will play a leading role in highlighting the risks associated with a

technology that has come under public scrutiny as a result of a disaster or an expos.

Third, at some point public officials will undertake action that will be presented as resolv-

ing the crisis that they themselves helped promote; even if this action is strictly symbolic

in nature, it will be publicly presented as a substantive solution. Fourth, this end-stage

action, and the messages of reassurance it sends, will effectively remove the technological-

focusing event from the media agenda.

The previous sections have provided empirical documentation for the first half of one(the dominant message throughout most of the duration of coverage highlighted pesticide

risks), as well as for two (government agencies and officials played a leading role in high-

lighting the risks of pesticide use). In this section I concentrate on findings that address

the third and fourth patterns outlined above and, by extension, the second half of the first

pattern. To accomplish this task, I take an in-depth examination of the Ribicoff hearings.

I do this for two reasons. First, it allows me to empirically flesh out the concepts of political

spectacle and joint construction of the news by illustrating the kinds of strategic posturing

and maneuvering officials use to attract media attention. Second, it is in the context of

these hearings that Senator Ribicoff first introduces the symbolic policy response, what

will become the 1964 FIFRA amendments, whose eventual passage brings this controversyto an end. The bulk of my attention in this section will be on these amendments.

Senator Ribicoff timed his subcommittee hearings to coincide with two well-

publicized events: (1) the April 3, 1963, airing of CBS Reports: The Silent Springof Rachel

Carson and (2) the May 15, 1963, release of the PSAC report on pesticide risks. These

hearings also occurred during one of the peak periods of theNew York Times coverage

more generally (see Figure 1), a time when intense media and public attention was being

brought to bear on the pesticide question. Among those testifying at the hearings were

two notable public figures, Jerome B. Wiesner (head of the PSAC committee), and Rachel

Carson, further ensuring media attention. Indeed, Carsons appearance at the hearings is

the subject of three separate articles in theNew York Times (Toth 1963a; June 5, 1963a,


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June 7, 1963b:38). Public appearances by Carson at this time were quite rare, as she was

weakened by her ongoing battle with breast cancer (she would die the following year),

thus making her testimony at the Ribicoff hearings even more noteworthy than it other-

wise might have been.It is through the venue of these hearings that Ribicoff introduces legislation that will

eventually become the 1964 FIFRA amendments. This is announced in the New York

Times in the form of the attention-grabbing headline: Insecticide Cited in Death of Girl,

8: Ribicoff Seeks Ban on Items U.S. Thought Hazardous but Had to Register. Law Held

Inadequate: Senator Suggests a Return to Fly Swatter in Fighting Pests in the Home (Toth

1963b:33). The article goes on to describe how the death of the girl was attributed to a pes-

ticide vaporizer being marketed under the protest provisions of the FIFRA. At this time,

federal regulation of pesticides took place under the auspices of the FIFRA, passed in

1947. The FIFRA implemented a registration process, conducted by the USDA, which

required demonstrations of a products safety and efficacy. A provision written into theact, however, allowed for protest registration, that is, products could be marketed

under protest even if the USDA had failed to register the product (Bosso 1987). While

technically the USDA could pursue court action to stop the sale of pesticides sold under

protest, such action was time-consuming and the burden of proof fell on the USDA to

demonstrate the lack of safety and/or efficacy. Furthermore, there were no notifications

on product labels showing registration, so consumers had no way of knowing particular

products were being sold under protest.

Over the next several months, the elimination of protest registration becomes con-

structed as the solution to the pesticide menace. Several points are relevant. First, protestregistration is presented as a serious loophole in federal regulation of pesticides. The

availability of these products is portrayed as a serious threat to public welfare, a threat

encapsulated in the most nefarious of failures: the death of a child. Second, despite a long

list of recommendations provided in the PSAC report, there is very little coverage of

policy developments on these fronts. Essentially everything but the need to end protest

registration simply drops off the radar screen, at least as far as the New York Times

coverage is concerned.

Third, and in stark contrast to the coverage fate of other possible solutions, the news-

paper tracks rather closely the fate of the FIFRA amendmentsfrom the initial, atten-

tion-grabbing headline; through its approval by (1) the Senate Agricultural Committee(New York Times October 17, 1963c:22), (2) the House Agricultural Committee (New

York Times November 15, 1963d:21; January 29, 1964b:16), and (3) the full Senate

(Finney, 1964a:64); finally ending with President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the amend-

ments into law in a May 1964 ceremony attended by Congressional sponsors of the leg-

islation and other Government officials (Finney 1964b:49). The New York Times

announced this event in an article headlined, President Johnson Signs a Pesticide Bill:

Legislation Tightens Control over Sales of Chemicals: Rachel Carson Praised (Finney

1964b:49). Fourth, there is a substantial decrease in coverage of pesticides following the

passage of the FIFRA amendments (see Figure 1), thus conveying the sense that amend-

ments have solved the problem, and that no further action is needed.


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We see here a clear match with the several expectations of the political spectacle/

problem frame model: (1) that public officials will undertake action which produces a

clear point at which the danger appears to have been effectively neutralized; (2) that this

appearance of neutralization occurs because this policy response is publicly portrayed asbeing substantive in nature; (3) that this resolution sends out a message of reassurance;

and (4) that the combination of the response and the reassurances it provides results in

the removal of the issue from the media agenda. The final expectation we need to examine

is whether this public portrayal of a substantive policy response occurred even in the con-

text of a policy that was actually symbolic in nature.

To return to a definition presented in the section on conflict theory, in the realm of

technological hazards, symbolic policies are ones that change existing programs, prac-

tices, and regulatory oversight in ways that look significant to outsiders, but in actuality

produce few or no discernible modifications in the way promoters, producers, and/or

users of a particular technology go about their business. To get a sense of the symbolicnature of the FIFRA amendments, we must turn our attention from the way they are por-

trayed in popular media sources like theNew York Times to the way this policy change is

interpreted on the ground by those who will be most directly affected. Perhaps the best

single indicator of the symbolic nature of this policy response is industrys support of the

amendments: The bill (S 1605) is described in industry quarters as a good bill (Oil,

Paint and Drug Reporter1963:13). Industry had no problem supporting this bill, because

it would produce little disruption in existing business practices.

As a matter of fact no basic manufacturer of pesticides has ever so registered a prod-

uct. A check has revealed (and Secretary Orville Freeman [of the USDA] so testified)that out of over 55,000 registrations made by USDA the Protest Registration device

had been utilized 27 times. Such registrations have always concerned consumer prod-

ucts, usually short-lived. (Farm Chemicals 1963:24)

Far from being the widespread menace to public welfare portrayed by backers of the

FIFRA amendments, the existence of protest registration hardly constituted the primary

source of pesticide risks confronting the American people. Indeed, it was a fairly minus-

cule problem, paling beside such practices as massive spray campaigns and inadequate

testing of chronic and synergistic health effects, as environmentalists at the time well

understood.

There are indications that the Department of Agriculture would be content to settlefor this one correction in the present inept procedures with respect to

pesticides. . . . The public must be not lulled into thinking pesticide registrars and

promoters have reformed, and all dangers removed, if protest registrations are elimi-

nated. This loophole should be closed, and promptly. But . . . it is only a small part of

the total problem. (Audubon Magazine 1963:289)

CONCLUSIONS

The research project reported in this article used a combination of inductive and deduc-

tive techniques to develop a robust theoretical model of theNew York Times coverage of


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pesticide risk in the immediate aftermath ofSilent Spring. The term robust is not being

used here as a synonym for exhaustive. There is no claim being made that every facet of

coverage has been explored or that the theoretical model as developed incorporates all

possible explanatory avenues. Following the logic of grounded theory, the goal was todevelop an analytic model that hugged close to the specifics of interest in this particular

case. I could have started with other foci of interestsuch as the use of gendered language

and imageryand developed an analytical accounting of other aspects of media

coverage.

The theoretical model developed in this case does not lose its viability simply by the

fact that additional sociological accountings can be advanced; indeed, to the extent that

additional models complement the findings and analysis reported here, offering insight

into facets of coverage that I did not explore, then they enrich our collective understand-

ing of this technological-focusing event. Viability is only threatened in the context of con-

tradictory explanations, ones that take the form of instead of rather than in additionto. Robustness is achieved when the analyst believes she has developed a theoretical

model that will withstand this kind of assault, a conviction which grows out of a recursive

research approach which uses real-world events to continuously interrogate the applica-

bility and explanatory reach of theoretical concepts and propositions. As this article illus-

trates, much that was originally regarded as potentially useful was rejected along the way;

the analytic model that finally emerges from this process is one that has already withstood

intense empirical scrutiny.

Importantly, however, this still leaves the in addition to route open. If the pattern of

coverage reported in this article is not universal, then additional theoretical work remainsto be done. If media coverage of technological-focusing events differsacross media out-

lets, across time, across different hazard profiles and disaster characteristics, across cul-

turesthen the theoretical model presented here needs to be expanded to explain these

differences. This is a more abstract move, one that requires looking beyond the specifics

of any particular case to careful comparative analysis.

Indeed, we know from research on the Santa Barbara oil spill (Molotch and Lester

1975) and Love Canal (Mazur 1998) that divergent patterns of risk coverage do exist.

Existing literature also identifies variations from the pattern of coverage set out in the

conflict, sensationalist, and problem frame models. Downs (1972) issue-attention

cycle and McComas and Shanahans (1999) narrative extensive of the issue-attentioncycle present elements in common with the problem frame model, notably that media

coverage of environmental controversies will move through a cycle of alarm followed by

reassurance.

Other elements of these authors work differ from that model, as well as from the spe-

cifics of the case examined in this study. Downs (1972), for example, argues that an

important factor in moving an issue into the downside of the issue-attention cycle is the

publics increasing recognition of the real costs of addressing environmental hazards.

This is a substantially different explanation from one that posits media and public atten-

tion decline in the aftermath of symbolic policies that create the appearance of change but

few real-world costs. McComas and Shanahan (1999) found in their media analysis of


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global climate change that once the initial stage of alarm had been passed, the media high-

lighted disagreements between scientists to maintain a dramatic sense to the controversy.

This is different than the case reported here, where politicians performed this role.

One important step in additional theoretical development, then, is continued docu-mentation of pattern variations. The other important step is to explain why particular

patterns of coverage appear in the time and places they do. This task lies considerably

beyond the purview of the present article; here, I attempt only to provide one example of

the kind of analytic work that is needed to move in that direction.

The facility with which different claims maker groups are able to assemble and

present claims (Hannigan 1995), and the legitimacy with which they are regarded by

journalists change over time (Gans 1979; Schudson 2003). The contemporary environ-

mental movement was still in its infancy in the early 1960s, and many in the conservation

organizations that existed at the time were uncomfortable with politicalization of what

had essentially hitherto been nature clubs. In contrast, the mid-20th century was thetime when journalism had come into its own as a profession, and exhibited especially

close and uncritical ties with public officials. Both Vietnam and Watergate would change

this equation, introducing greater journalistic cynicism toward the motives and scruples

of public officials (Schudson 2003). These historical developments may partially explain

the difference between the New York Times coverage of pesticides in the aftermath of

Silent Spring, which focused on the political spectacle of public officials first dramatiz-

ing, then solving, a threatening problem, and this same newspapers coverage of Love

Canal a decade-and-a-half later, which highlighted grassroots environmental activists

cla

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