News Media and Technological Risks

News Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Oxford, UK and Malden, USATSQThe Sociological Quarterly0038-02532005 Midwest Sociological Society2005464671698THE NEWS MEDIA ON WAR, TERROR, AND RISK Media and Technological RisksValerie J. Gunter
The Sociological Quarterly ISSN 0038-0253
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 ndings. Three models of media coverage are examined: conict theory, sensationalism, and problem frame. These models are employed chronologically as analysis revealed a complicated pattern of coverage which rst 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 frequently widespread scrutiny is brought to bear on a particular technology via an especially 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 synthetic organic pesticides, paying particular attention to the best known of these products, Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (DDT). She sought to shift public and ofcial attention from the obvious benets 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 benecial animal and insect species such as honey bees; (4) their deleterious effects on the reproductive success of birds of prey; and (5) their ability to pose long-term, chronic human health problems stemming from, among other things, their mutagenic, teratogenic, and carcinogenic potential. Carson was not the rst to raise concerns about these substances (Perkins 1978; Dunlap 1981; Gunter and Harris 1998). She was, however, the rst to assemble the various threads of evidence from disparate scientic elds, translate mountains of complex scientic 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;
*Direct all correspondence to Valerie J. Gunter, Department of Sociology, University of New Orleans, 365 Liberal Arts, New Orleans, LA 70148, 504/280-3962; e-mail: vgunter@uno.edu
The Sociological Quarterly 46 (2005) 671698 2005 Midwest Sociological Society
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Waddell 2000a). The publics rst 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 quickly became 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 particular 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 constitutes both a theoretical and empirical contribution to this literature. Empirically, it 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 two-and-a-half years following the publication of Silent Spring. Theoretically, it articulates three distinct models of media coverage of technological controversies offering divergent expectations about the propensity 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 combined 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 specically directed toward eld research, they apply equally well to qualitative content analysis. It is not possible to separate deduction and induction in the way that has been suggested, particularly as regard to eld research. . . . [T]he inductive and deductive models of research can never be disentangled. . . . Theoretical analysis is not something that occurs only before entering the eld or after one has been in the eld, but is a continuing and recursive process. . . . Researchers should always be engaged in theory buildingbefore, during, and after the gathering of ethnographic data. (Fine 2004: 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 the New York Times between July 1962 (the month immediately following publication of the New
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Articles Federal Claims Makers

30
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0 Mar 1963 Mar 1964 Mar 1965 Sep 1962 Sep 1963 Sep 1964 Sep 1965 Dec 1962 Dec 1963 Dec 1964 date Dec 1965 Mar 1966 Jun 1963 Jun 1964 Jun 1965
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.
Yorker Silent Spring excerpts, and the rst month during which the New York Times published articles responding to Carsons work) and December 1964 (seven months after pesticides near displacement from the media agenda). Counts of published articles were made through June 1966 to ensure that apparent displacement was a sustained one (see Figure 1. [The second component of this gure, frequency of appearance of federal claims makers, will be discussed at a later point]). Compilation of this data set aimed to be inclusive 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 as Audubon 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) article coding 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 constructionist 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
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DDT, ranging from It kills benecial insects to It only poses a risk when it is used improperly. As the project progressed, my focus shifted from the exact content of particular claims to the more general question of whether claims highlighted or downplayed pesticide risks. Some additional illustrations of this process of category renement are provided 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 overview 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 eld 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 ndings 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 reexive move between induction and deduction 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 so focused 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 patternmatching logic. Such a logic compares an empirically based pattern with a predicted one (or with several alternative predictions) (Yin 1989:109). The following two sections are organized to reect the deductive ow of a pattern-matching approach. Each section opens with a brief summary of ndings from research on media coverage of technological-focusing events, the rst with the Santa Barbara oil spill and the second with the discovery of chemical contamination at Love Canal, New York. Like the publication of Silent 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 ndings (in the rst section, conict 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 rst to the second theoretical model. My initial expectation was that conict theory would
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provide a viable explanatory framework for the ndings in this case; when it did not, I went on to elaborate an alternative theoretical model that seemed to provide a better t with the ndings. While an improvement, this second model failed to meet the criteria of theoretical robustness; it did provide a match with some key ndings but left other important components of the case unexamined or unexplained. Continuing the reexive move between inductive and deductive theorizing, I proceeded to identify a third model that provides a more robust accounting of this case. In this nal 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 t between these expectations and my ndings. A word of warning: this is not a strict deductive, theory-testing exercise. By this time I have done sufcient analysis on the case to know these patterns will, indeed, match. My purpose in listing these four expectations in the nal section is to articulate theory, to make this particular model of media coverage more accessible for future research. Specic information about coding and data analysis decisions is discussed in the body of the text, in conjunction with relevant ndings. This violates the usual placement of this material in the Methods section, but provides much richer insight into the recursive strategy 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 difcult to subject to the same kind of reliability checks found in quantitative work. Qualitative researchers are more prone to talk about things like trustworthiness of the analysis (Lincoln and Guba 1985; Creswell 1994:157); hopefully my repeated failures, documented below, to nd 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 ndings reported below. Using a systematic sample of one quarter of the articles included in the data set, two coders did reliability checks on the ndings reported in Tables 15. Intercoder agreement was high (kappa = .83).
TABLE 1. Distribution of the New 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 Highlights Pesticide Risks/Supports Carson Neutral Message about Risk Downplays Pesticide Risks/Highlights Benets of Use TOTAL (Percent) NUMBER (Base) All Articles (Percent) 57 24 18 100 144 Federal Claims Maker (Percent) 59 28 13 100 46
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TABLE 2. Brief Summary of the New 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 of pesticides. 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 of Silent Spring by their concern over bird deaths because of pesticides. September 23, 1962:35 Favorable review of Silent Spring. Articles Downplaying Pesticide Risks, Highlighting the Benets 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 Spring is called one-sided. Pesticides are needed to maintain food supply. September 22, 1962:28 Monsantos parody of Silent 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 from misuse. 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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TABLE 3. Percent of Articles with Ofcial News Sources Level of Government Federal Agencies and Ofcials State Agencies and Ofcials Local/County Agencies and Ofcials One or More, Any Level Percent 51 19 8 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 Promoters of Pesticide Risk Environmentalists/Select Carson Congress/Federal Legislator (Excluding Agriculture) USDI/FWS One or More Promoters of Pesticide Risks Repudiators of Pesticide Risk USDA Chemical Industry House/Senate Agricultural Committee One or More Repudiators of Risk Percent of Articles in which Claims or Actions by Claims Maker Cited 29 13 11 47 22 10 2 29
NEWS AS ELITE PROPAGANDA: THE CONFLICT MODEL Conict 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 technological disaster which received extensive national media coverage and galvanized public support for the nascent environmental movement. The Santa Barbara oil spill began on January 28, 1969, when a beneath-the-sea-oor casing of an offshore platform in the Santa 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 ofcials and residents. Oil companies and the federal government (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 reassure 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 interpretation of events disseminated through local (i.e., Santa Barbara New Press) and extra-local
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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 of Silent Spring without a chill. Their topic is the controversial one of our increasing use of chemical poisons to eliminate insect pests and the extent to which we are, in the process, subjecting ourselves to the hazards of slow poisoning through the pollution of the environment. The editor concludes with the hope that enough public concern will be aroused that the government will undertake adequate controls, even against the objection of industry. (July 2, 1962:28) Warning on Pesticides Editor endorses the ndings of the just-released report by the Presidents Science Advisory Committee (PSAC). The report leaves no doubt that some of these chemicals, even when properly used, have killed large numbers of birds, sh, and other useful living organisms, thus upsetting the ecological balance. Furthermore, there is still much scientists do not know about the 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 these potent substances is inadequate at present. The division of responsibility and power among existing agencies can no longer be accepted. (May 17, 1963:32) The Pesticide Danger A four-year search for the cause of millions of sh deaths in the lower Mississippi River has located a likely culprit: very small quantities of agricultural pesticides. If this cause is conrmed, what implications does it have for humans who drink Mississippi River water or eat sh from it? PSAC report warned readers of dangers of pesticides; while progress has been made in carrying about PSAC recommendations, sh death indicates a need for still more stringent control. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been particularly recalcitrant in implementing more stringent government oversight. (March 29, 1964:IV, 8) For Action on Pesticides The evidence indicates minute amounts of synthetic insecticides were responsible for killing millions of sh in the Mississippi River. This evidence may be enough to overcome the bureaucratic apathy prevailing in the pesticide eld. The problem is caused by the potency and long-term persistence of these substances, which do not break down once put into the environment but rather enter the food chain. (April 13, 1964:28) Rachel Carson Editor eulogizes Rachel Carson following her death from breast cancer. (April 16, 1964:36) A Minimal Pesticides Bill Editor 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 a minimal 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 to control mosquitoes. PSAC recommendations that use of persistent synthetic chemicals be eliminated except in emergencies are reiterated. (May 27, 1964:38) Alternatives to DDT Editor 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, and should be used to prevent poisoning of underground and surface water. (June 9, 1964:34) Changing Pest Control Policies Editor 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 Agricultural Extension Agents are still distributing government farm bulletins that recommend the persistence 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 ofcials outside the Santa Barbara area, while the oil companies and spokespeople for the federal government received considerable coverage in extra-local newspapers. Furthermore, activities favorable 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 ofcials 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 ndings with the conict model, which posits a tight conuence of interests and inuence between corporate elites, government elites, and mass media organizations (see also Molotch 1970; Molotch and Lester 1974; Logan and Molotch 1987). Corporate and media interests are aligned through corporate ownership of mass media organizations, as well as through media reliance on corporate advertising 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 specic business practices. Reporters extensive reliance on government ofcials 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). Conict theorists view the state as a handmaiden to corporate interests (Mills 1956; Marger 1987; Domhoff 1998), and accordingly expect that state ofcials 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. Ofcial 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 ofcials 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 convinced that the government has allowed the needs of corporate capitalism to take precedence over protecting the public, it may take more than reassuring words to win back their condence. Actions may be necessary, but conict theory would postulate that the majority of these actions would be symbolic in nature. In the realm of technological hazards, symbolic policies are ones that change existing programs, practices, and regulatory oversight in ways that look signicant to outsiders, but in actuality produce few or no discernible modications in the way promoters, producers, and/or users of a particular
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technology go about their business. Symbolic policies are a desirable response option because they allow government ofcials to simultaneously reassure the public and protect corporate interests by creating the appearance of substantial change (Edelman 1964). Promulgating tough new regulatory standards that are then not enforced, or creating new programs that are underfunded, are examples of the kinds of symbolic actions government undertakes. Coverage of Pesticides: Did the New York Times Downplay Risks? The empirical ndings of Molotch and Lesters (1975) study of newspaper coverage of the Santa Barbara oil spill, and the explanatory framework of conict theory, suggest the following 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, government agencies and ofcials will be the most frequently cited news source. Third, these agencies and ofcials will be a major source of the reassuring messages reported in the article. Fourth, any government action taken to redress technological hazards will be symbolic in nature. In this section I assess the extent to which the New York Times coverage of pesticides in the aftermath of Silent Spring conform 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 classied headlines into three categories based on whether they (1) highlighted the risks of pesticides, or in other ways offered support of Carson (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 benets of pesticide use, or highlighted the risks of not using 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 conict theory, headlines that repudiated pesticide risks or extolled the virtues of pesticide use were in the clear minority (less than 20 percent of all headlines). The most prevalent 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 rst six months of coverage following the Silent Spring New Yorker excerptsfor textual analysis. I chose this time frame for two reasons. First, it captured the period of intense scrutiny afforded pesticides in the immediate aftermath of the
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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 and actions recounted in the article accentuated the risks of pesticide use, and/or extolled Rachel Carson. Articles were classied as downplaying risks when more than half the claims and actions recounted in the article repudiated risks, highlighted the benets of pesticide use, and/or highlighted the risks of not 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 classied 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 percent highlighted 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 conict 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 avor of the New 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 rst pattern predicted by the conict model. With respect to the second pattern, analysis showed government agencies and ofcials dominated media coverage in the aftermath of Silent Spring. Almost 70 percent of the examined articles contained at least one ofcial news source from either the local/ county, state, and/or federal level (see Table 3). Fifty-one percent of these articles contained at least one federal agency or ofcial 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). Ofcial domination of the news by government representatives matches the pattern predicted by the conict model. The picture becomes more complicated when we turn our attention to the third task, that of assessing whether ofcial sources repudiated pesticide risks. In line with the expectations of the conict 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 ofcials 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 headline or which were followed by WASHINGTON in the byline. An example of the rst kind
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of headline is, President Signs a Pesticide Bill (Finney 1964b:49); an example of the latter 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 government sources, 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 ofcials 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 gure consistent with the entire sample of articles. On the other hand, only 13 percent of this subset of articles downplayed pesticide risks, a gure 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 of pesticides. Another means I used to empirically examine this issue was to analyze the alarming or reassuring nature of highly visible ofcial claims and actions. The most visible government 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 ofcial 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 hearings of the Senate Committee Operations Subcommittee on Reorganization and International 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 qualies 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). The New York Times coverage of the Ribicoff hearings included testimony of Jerome B. Wiesner, head of the PSAC, and Rachel Carson. Senator Abraham Ribicoff reconvened these committee hearings in midFebruary 1964, following the widespread publicity of the U.S. Public Health Services attribution of massive sh kills in the lower Mississippi River to two chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides, aldrin and dieldrin. The third peak of coverage, which followed the passage of the 1964 FIFRA amendments, 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, the New York Times coverage of pesticides drops drastically (see Figure 1).
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The passage of the 1964 FIFRA amendments provides a clear match with the fourth pattern predicted by the conict model, that any action undertaken by the government is likely to be symbolic in nature. While overall the conict model fared poorly in this case, the symbolic nature of this policy response, combined with its central role in removing the pesticide issue from a prominent place on the media agenda, gure prominently in further efforts to develop a theoretical model that accounts for the nature of media coverage 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. Specically, I sought to determine whether any other sociological research reported a pattern of media coverage similar 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 Homeowners Association (LCHA), the grassroots group with which she was afliated, against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the New York Department of Health, the Niagara Falls School Board (which had built an elementary school on top of the contaminated 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. Ofcials 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 ofcials supported a government buyout of inner-ring homes, they opposed such a buyout for outer-ring residences. This recalcitrance outraged LCHA members who claimed outer-ring residents had already experienced dangerous levels of chemical exposure. In his analysis of the New 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). Furthermore, 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 ofcials 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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prominently in the media. Subsequent scientic questioning of this study, including criticisms 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 highlighting the dangers of the chemical exposure at Love Canal. This convergence on an empirical pattern similar to the one I had found in the New York Times coverage of pesticides in the aftermath of Silent Spring was encouraging. In my effort to develop a theoretical accounting of why news 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 conict theory, where I worked with a long-established, readily recognizable, and tightly articulated set of concepts and propositions, my conceptual labors at this juncture took the form of a melding of ideas from a variety of sources to esh 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. Conict theory selectively highlights certain aspects of technological disasters and exposs, specically, 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 highlighted by the conict 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 contemporary 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 promoting 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 and editorial 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 relevant 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 constructed 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 melodramatic (or at least lend themselves to being told in a melodramatic fashion). Technological-focusing events display all of these elements. Looming danger and unfolding
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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 further encourage this portrayal. It is a framing that ts 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): sensationalism sells. In media organizations driven by the prot motive, the mantra will be to generate news that appeals to the broadest audience. As the growing popularity of tabloid television testies, the news that ts this requirement is sensationalist in nature (Langer 1998). Coverage of Pesticides: Did the New York Times Highlight Risks? The empirical ndings 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-focusing 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 frequently cited news source. Third, industry spokespeople and their supporters (those trying to downplay risks) will fare poorly in the media. Fourth, editorials will highlight technological risk, serving as an imperfect indicator of organizational bias. The ndings reported in Tables 1 and 2, as well as the general discussion of the preceding section, match the rst expectation of the sensationalist model. Examining expectations two and three from the above list required further renements of the coding categories. Using the inductive coding strategy discussed in the methods section, I had originally identied a group of 22 distinct claims maker categories (Gunter 1994). At this juncture, however, I was interested in seeing whether the New 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 early stages 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 sensationalist model sets out clear expectations for differential patterns of coverage of environmentalists 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/Conservationists and Rachel Carson. The creation of this new category was also accompanied by a more rened coding of Carson as a news source. It is tricky trying to count the news citations of the author of a book that anchors an entire conict. 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 overinating the pro-environmental coverage in this case, creating a pattern match with sensationalism 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 hearing), or where her claims are presented in a way which indicate endorsement of her position. Carson is not counted as a news source in those cases where her arguments are brought 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 criticisms 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 the New York Times, the USDI/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USDI/FWS) and Congress/Federal Legislator (Excluding Agriculture). The USDA was the most visible repudiator of risk, and provided a match with the USDI/FWS, allowing for comparison of two of 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 ndings reported in Table 4 report general, though for the most part hardly overwhelming, 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 second, appearing in slightly more than one-fth of all articles. The chemical industry fared relatively poorly, cited in 10 percent of articles, and the House/Senate Agricultural Committees 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 nal pattern match with the sensationalist model I examined was the portrayal of pesticide risks in editorials. These editorials were classied 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 classication of articles published in the rst six months following the publication of Silent Spring. All nine editorials on pesticides published during the two-and-a-half-year period following the publication of Silent Spring highlighted pesticide risks; a brief summary of each of these editorials is provided in Table 5. Whether or not one wants to interpret that nding as indicative of a liberal bias (which, admittedly, some readers might well regard as a good thing), it does seem reective of a general outlook of those assembling news on pesticides at the time, at least at this particular news organization. When combined with ndings 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 was not, however, ready to do this. While the sensationalist model provided a better overall match with the pattern of media coverage in the New York Times than the conict model, it did not, in my estimation, provide a fully satisfactory accounting of this coverage. I was especially dissatised with the model on the following four counts. First, the sensationalist model as I developed it contained no clear expectation for or explanation of government actions. In the conict model such an explanation was central, but this model was rejected when the ndings failed to support the expectation that state representatives downplayed risks. Yet there is more going on here than simple failure of government ofcials to fulll expected roles: it is not just that they are sitting the controversies out, but rather actively participating in a way antithetical to the expectations of conict 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 theoretical 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 of Silent Spring, the New 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 message of reassurance that the danger had been effectively eliminated. This is a more complicated 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 reects my political discomfort on this front. If I had not initially gone through the exercise of pattern matching with the conict modelif, in other words, all I had examined in my media analysis were the four sensationalist questions presented at the beginning of the previous sectionthe ndings would have left an inaccurate sense of clear winners and losers in the newspapers portrayal of pesticide risks. Specically, the ndings reported in the last
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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 ndings and go, See! We were treated unfairly! We did get a raw deal from the media! What is missing here is a consideration of the one area the conict model performed well, that is, explicit attention to symbolic policy measures. Fourth, the cumulation of ndings discussed thus far point to inadequacies in both the conict and sensationalist models, yet both models provided a sufcient 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 conict models that t with the specics of this particular case, plus explained the rather unexpected role of government agencies and ofcials as risk promoters. Returning again to the literature, I found likely candidates for this theoretical task in Edelmans (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 ofcials, 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 converged on a problem format that promotes a discourse of fear that may be dened 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 Edelman, news coverage from the time of World War II to the present has taken the form of a political spectacle which continuously constructs and reconstructs social problems, crises, 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 danger), we nd elements consistent with aspects of both the conict 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 carries forward basic assumptions from the sensationalist model. Also in line with that model, the assumption here is that media organizations produce news in this particular format for underlying pecuniary reasons. Media organizations are out to turn a prot, with the extent of that prot 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 specics 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, chiey by keeping abreast of the news that concerns them (Edelman 1988:123).
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One place where we see connections with conict theory is when we turn our attention to the claims makers seeking access to media outlets. Following in the broad contours of conict theory, public ofcials are seen to have an especially tight relationship with media organizations: much of what qualies as news is actually reports on ofcial action, providing government representatives an unrivaled level of access to media venues. To return to the idea of joint construction, it is public ofcials 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 ofcials, media organizations, and corporate interests are not wound so tightly here as in the conict model. Public ofcials routinely feed media personnel information about problems and crises; it is in their interests to do so. Elected ofcials 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 ofce), but in order to do this they must rst draw attention to the problems they want to address. Government agencies may also nd it benecial to highlight problems, as this may result in increased resources to combat the problem, expanded forms of jurisdictional authority, or a new legitimacy to trespass on a rival agencys bureaucratic turf. Of course, simply because public ofcials nd it benecial 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 organizations, government agencies and ofcials, and corporate interests; probably much of what passes as news in this society does precisely this. Yet there is nothing inevitable about this conguration, and the needs of both media organizations and political ofcials to present this unending parade of crises is likely at times to work against corporate interests, as some of the problems identied through this process will implicate particular companies or business practices (Schudson 2003). A second point of connection with the conict model is the resolution phase of news stories. Again, it is in the interests of both media organizations and public ofcials to eventually present some resolution to the crises they themselves have promoted. Politicians want to use spectacle as a vehicle for showcasing leadership, to demonstrate their timely confrontation of problems and efcacious 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 ofcials look decidedly ineffective. Likewise, if all the media portrayed was a world lled with endless dangers that were never abated or resolved 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 consumption 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 substanThe Sociological Quarterly 46 (2005) 671698 2005 Midwest Sociological Society
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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 point of connection with conict theory, one which has important implications for how we evaluate the political fallout of media coverage of controversial issues like technologicalfocusing events, since the fundamental appearance of change created by symbolic responses operates, intentionally or not, to protect the status quo. Coverage of Pesticides: Did the New York Times and Public Ofcials 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 and panic; the dominant message during the end stages of coverage will be one of reassurance. Second, public ofcials 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 ofcials will undertake action that will be presented as resolving 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 technologicalfocusing event from the media agenda. The previous sections have provided empirical documentation for the rst half of one (the dominant message throughout most of the duration of coverage highlighted pesticide risks), as well as for two (government agencies and ofcials played a leading role in highlighting the risks of pesticide use). In this section I concentrate on ndings that address the third and fourth patterns outlined above and, by extension, the second half of the rst 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 esh out the concepts of political spectacle and joint construction of the news by illustrating the kinds of strategic posturing and maneuvering ofcials use to attract media attention. Second, it is in the context of these hearings that Senator Ribicoff rst introduces the symbolic policy response, what will become the 1964 FIFRA amendments, whose eventual passage brings this controversy to 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 wellpublicized events: (1) the April 3, 1963, airing of CBS Reports: The Silent Spring of 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 the New 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 gures, 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 the New 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 otherwise 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 pesticide 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 efcacy. A provision written into the act, 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 efcacy. Furthermore, there were no notications 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 constructed as the solution to the pesticide menace. Several points are relevant. First, protest registration 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 newspaper tracks rather closely the fate of the FIFRA amendmentsfrom the initial, attention-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); nally ending with President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the amendments into law in a May 1964 ceremony attended by Congressional sponsors of the legislation and other Government ofcials (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 amendments 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 ofcials 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 as being 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 nal expectation we need to examine is whether this public portrayal of a substantive policy response occurred even in the context of a policy that was actually symbolic in nature. To return to a denition presented in the section on conict theory, in the realm of technological hazards, symbolic policies are ones that change existing programs, practices, and regulatory oversight in ways that look signicant to outsiders, but in actuality produce few or no discernible modications in the way promoters, producers, and/or users of a particular technology go about their business. To get a sense of the symbolic nature of the FIFRA amendments, we must turn our attention from the way they are portrayed in popular media sources like the New 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 Reporter 1963:13). 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 product. A check has revealed (and Secretary Orville Freeman [of the USDA] so testied) 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 products, 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 minuscule 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 settle for 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 eliminated. 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 deductive techniques to develop a robust theoretical model of the New York Times coverage of
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pesticide risk in the immediate aftermath of Silent 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 to develop an analytic model that hugged close to the specics 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 ndings and analysis reported here, offering insight into facets of coverage that I did not explore, then they enrich our collective understanding of this technological-focusing event. Viability is only threatened in the context of contradictory explanations, ones that take the form of instead of rather than in addition to. 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 applicability and explanatory reach of theoretical concepts and propositions. As this article illustrates, much that was originally regarded as potentially useful was rejected along the way; the analytic model that nally 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 remains to be done. If media coverage of technological-focusing events differsacross media outlets, across time, across different hazard proles and disaster characteristics, across culturesthen 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 specics 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 identies variations from the pattern of coverage set out in the conict, sensationalist, and problem frame models. Downs (1972) issue-attention cycle and McComas and Shanahans (1999) narrative extensive of the issue-attention cycle 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 specics 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 attention 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 highlighted 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 documentation 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 environmental 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 the time when journalism had come into its own as a profession, and exhibited especially close and uncritical ties with public ofcials. Both Vietnam and Watergate would change this equation, introducing greater journalistic cynicism toward the motives and scruples of public ofcials (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 ofcials rst dramatizing, then solving, a threatening problem, and this same newspapers coverage of Love Canal a decade-and-a-half later, which highlighted grassroots environmental activists claims of danger (Mazur 1998). Set against this call for the development of more complex theoretical models of media coverage of technological-focusing events we can expect to see continued concern with the question of bias of media coverage. These concerns rest on the assumption that media distorts the real risks, either over- or underplaying them, and in the process harms particular claims makers as well as the broader public. Fixation on bias rests, I believe, on an underlying pragmatic orientation toward real-world goals of either removing risks or protecting the interests of technology users; media analysis is undertaken to assess whether coverage contributes to or obstructs one or the other of these goals. These are important questions, but they are not the only questions we should ask. This insight comes from the theoretical journey I took over the course of this project, one that began with a narrow focus on bias but over time developed into a more complicated story. The very notion of bias rests on the assumption that there are clear winners and clear losers in the way particular media stories are being portrayed. To what extent can we make such a determination when media coverage shifts over time from highlighting to downplaying risks, and when symbolic policy actions are passed off as substantive solutions? There are no sweeping indictments to be made here, no sense in which I can defend a claim that the New York Times clearly favored either repudiators or promoters of pesticide risks. This does not mean celebration of coverage as the best imaginable, but it does require that I recognize the difference between my own evaluative standards and taking media coverage seriously on its own terms. If there are any lessons to be learned here,
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perhaps it is the one set out by Schudson (2003): it is time for sociologists to move from being media critics to being media analysts. The research presented in this articlesuggesting an approach combining deductive pattern matching with inductive approaches that encourage researchers to see beyond the expectations of extant theoriesis a valuable tool in achieving this goal. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author wishes to thank Vern Baxter, Steve Kroll-Smith, Susan Mann, Brian Azonca, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of this article. REFERENCES
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