Mass Media and Environmental Conflict

This is a good treatment of a very timely topic. The historical detail the authors amass here is impressive and the case studies are both interesting and instructive. The strengths of the book are its interesting and original documentation of the role of different interest groups and their relationship with the media, and the contextual treatment of the evidence presented in the book. K. Viswanath, School of Journalism, The Ohio State University Throughout the history of the environmental movement--from the mid-19th century to Rachel Carson in the 1960s--the mass media, the environmentalists, the government, and various power groups have interacted on many levels to effect social change. In Mass Media and Environmental Conflict, the authors emphasize these interactions using a series of case studies of environmental conflicts that have occurred in American history. This innovative new text explores the role of books, magazines, newspaper articles, and other media and the ways they have created both regional and national communities of environmental understanding. Authors Mark Neuzil and William Kovarik fold together early environmental groups, the mass media, the bureaucratic power structure, and the social system of each period, examining battles over public land, wild animals, clean air, and workplace hazards. Other topics covered in the book include Yosemite, Yellowstone, and America's national parks; species depletion and the evolution of hunting regulations; muckrakers and the great Alaskan land fraud; Hetch Hetchy and the first big dam controversy; the 1920's ethyl gasoline debate; and workplace toxins and the Radium Girls. Focusing on the growth of the environmental movement and its not so silent partner--the media, Mass Media and Environmental Conflict is an important work that will interest students and researchers in communication, media studies, environmental studies, public policy, sociology, and political science.