title: The "Silent Springs" of Rachel Carson: mass media and the origins of modern environmentalism.
abstract: This essay explores the different meanings of the 1960s' pesticide controversy as conveyed by the multiple representations of Rachel Carsons's Silent Spring (1962). I argue that to understand the impact of Carson's work on a heterogeneous audience in the early '60s, we must move beyond an examination of the book, Silent Spring, to consider its other media manifestations, as a serialization for The New Yorker and as a television exposé for "CBS Reports." Each conveyed a unique message stylized for the audience of that particular media. This analysis demonstrates the problems and opportunities for scholars attempting to gauge the influence of a book on the public understanding of science. This argument also suggests that to understand the transition of environmentalism from a grass-roots movement to near universal consensus, we need to examine carefully the role of media in shaping divergent messages for different audiences--a phenomenon that assisted in transforming local environmental issues into a matter of national concern.
authors.affiliation: Department of History, Plattsburgh State University of New York, USA.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kroll
mesh_terms: D001695:Biology / Q000266:history*; D001877:Books / Q000266:history*; D004777:Environment; D049673:History, 20th Century; D008402:Mass Media / Q000266:history*; D014481:United States