Book: History of Media and the Environment, pre 1960

Neuzil, Mark, and William Kovarkik. 1996. Mass Media & Environmental Conflict: America’s Green Crusades. Sage Publications, Inc: Thousand Oaks, California.

I found Neuzil’s book in the MSU library yesterday, along with another one which I’ll write about later. I didn’t realize they were both written by the same guy until I had brought them home. The author must be a journalism professor who works in green media.

Books on the topics of environment and mass media will help my research because they will provide background on how the public has and does receive messages. This book also has a chapter about trees called “The Media and Social Change: I. Mother of the Forest.” I’ll have to wait to read that until winter break. Right now I have deadlines for this prospectus looming (tomorrow night) and many papers to grade.

In the introduction to his book, Neuzil says it is about “environmental conflict and the mass media in American history before the 1960s” (xi). I appreciate this because there is much written about the post-‘60s environmental movement. He mentions the explosion of interest in the environment at that time was a result of several leading factors built up over time (from the 1850s to the 1960s). But several current statistics he states could benefit my research as well.

Neuzil mentions that by 1988, 7 million people were involved in an organization benefiting the environment (ix) and cites Udall, 1988. I could find out the population of the US at that time and create a percentage of the population involved. After that, I could find a current estimate and generate a percentage. I could then create a chart or graph to represent the difference from 20 years. Such a graph could help me estimate the percentage of the population who would be willing to pay for remediation for their trees in the Mankato area.

Later in the intro, Neuzil describes a theory of social control by Denis McQuail. The theory provides three ways to view media. One is the media as supporting important community values because of audience pressure. A more neutral way is that the media “supports the status quo” because of converging business and social pressure. A stronger view is that the media are a tool used to suppress the masses. However, Neuzil does mention that many scholars don’t believe the media moves any social change (xii). Then he gets into social theory and why people value certain things as opposed to others.

I’m excited to read more in this work.