Global Warming

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Updated May 1, 1998.

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_____, New Mellman poll shows overwhelming public support for international efforts to halt global warming: Americans expect politicians, business and technology to solve threat. The National Resources Defense Council's Policy.com global warming section, including the article cited, can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.policy.com/issuewk/97/1006/100697b.html.

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Wilson, G.R., and Crandon, P. (1998). News framing of dioxin as an environmental health risk: when the New York Times downplayed the threat. A paper presented at the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium, New Orleans: March 13-14.

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End Notes

1. Media analysts are experimenting with push technologies for a variety of purposes, including the search for a good way to spot emerging issues. To date, however, I am unaware of any notable successes.

2. This might make an interesting agenda-setting study in and of itself. Do the environmental issues considered most important by the public correspond in number to the quantitative amount of national press coverage of those issues?

3. It would be of interest to systematically analyze stakeholder claims and messages and media coverage of global warming during this period to test the extent of stakeholder influence on media coverage, and media influence on the public agenda.

4. This provides an interesting gap in the research. If it is true that the more information reported about a risk leads to more anxiety about it, what if the information is presented more skeptically for a period of time, making it appear that scientists are divided? This could lead to counterintuitive findings, and provide the key to knowing when the public will support government measures to solve environmental problems. It may also be the key to learning the threshold of reasonable doubt in the court of public opinion. If industry can create enough doubt, much of the public support may dissipate. On the other hand, if environmental groups can generate enough press coverage, anxiety may stem the tide. This is the essential push-pull of environmental politics, the force that moves the pendulum of public opinion from left to right, and vice versa.

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Copyright © Glynn R. Wilson, 1998.
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