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The Growth of the Environment as a Political Issue in Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

S. K. Brookes ,
A. G. Jordan ,
R. H. Kimber  and
J. J. Richardson
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Extract

Various commentators have expressed their subjective impressions that ‘the environment’ emerged suddenly as a political issue. That the number of groups, journals and books relating to ‘the environment’ has dramatically increased is indisputable. What is not clear, however, is whether the increase has been in the awareness of relationships between problems which could then be subsumed under the general heading ‘the environment’ or whether increased attention has been paid to the component problems. It is possible that the interest in issues such as water pollution, resource conservation and air pollution was of long standing and that the only change was a growing popularization of the label ‘environmental’ by those who wrote about the subject in the press. The object of this study is to test the latter hypothesis by means of a content analysis of The Times.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , April 1976 , pp. 245 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

1 For example, see Allaby, M., The Eco Activists – Youth Fights for the Environment (London: Charles Knight, 1971).Google Scholar

2 Directors of the Top 500 – A Study of Attitudes and Readership among the Directors of the Largest 500 Companies in Britain (London: Research Services Ltd., October 1972), pp. 28–37.Google Scholar

3 Directors of the Top 500, p. 32.Google Scholar

4 See Budel, Richard W., ‘U.S. News in the Press Down Under’, Public Opinion Quarterly, XXVIII (1964), 37–57Google Scholar, and Hatchen, William A., ‘The Changing U.S. Sunday Newspaper’, Journalism Quarterly, XXXVIII (1961), 281–8.Google Scholar

5 Ses Kimber, R. H., Richardson, J. J., Brookes, S. K. and Jordan, A. G., ‘Parliamentary Questions and the Allocation of Departmental Responsibilities’, Parliamentary Affairs, XXVII (1973–1974), 287–93.Google Scholar

6 See Stempel, Guido H. III, ‘Sample Size for Classifying Subject Matter in Dailies’, Journalism Quarterly, XXIX (1952), 333–4.Google Scholar

7 See Royal Commission on the Press – Appendix VII – ‘Investigations into the Content of Newspapers and their Method of Presenting News in the Period 1927–1947’ (London: HMSO, Cmnd. 7700, 1949).Google Scholar

8 For example, see Budel, , ‘U.S. News in the Press Down Under’, p. 41.Google Scholar

9 In fact companies listed are asked to place a certain minimum amount of advertising in the paper during the course of a year.

10 While we followed G. H. Stempel in selecting a sample size of twelve copies per annum and were persuaded by his argument that increasing the sample size may be a poor investment of the researchers' time, it must be noted that his experimental category of subject matter was large (averaging 207·4 column inches daily). Furthermore it can be argued that his selected category (photographs) appear more regularly than most. Consequently it is still possible that in examining a less extensive category, a sample larger than twelve will be worthwhile. And certainly we have more confidence in our total environmental column than in the columns for component issues where the daily average is much lower. We recognize that our analysis was fairly crude in using a four-year interval and twelve copies per annum: for example the air pollution category missed the debate on, and the implementation of, smokeless zones in the 1950s.

11 Even as early as May 1957, however, there was an article entitled ‘Village protest at night lorry traffic’, and the term ‘juggernaut’ was first used in connection with heavy lorries in April 1965.

12 Letters included Times Business News letters and ‘points from letters’. (A section of earlier issues of The Times was devoted to letters not reprinted in full.) Letters were categorized as environmental even when they dealt only in part with environmental topics. However, only that proportion relating to the environment was measured as environmental space.

13 The increase in the number of letters confirms the general assumptions regarding the increase in press interest in the environment.

14 Moloney, J. C. and Slovonsky, L., ‘The Pollution Issue: A Survey of Editorial Judgments’ in Roos, L. L., ed., The Politics of Ecosuicide (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), pp. 64–78.Google Scholar

15 See Environmental Communicators Organization, Information Leaflet.

16 For a similar view of the process by which environmental issues have emerged see Solesbury, William, Issues and Innovations in Environmental Policy, unpublished paper (London: Department of the Environment, 1974).Google Scholar

17 If one examines Table 3, it is apparent that the less tangible topics such as Food and Population are poorly covered compared with (say) Road Transport, Water Pollution or Urban/Rural Landscape and Amenity. The latter type of issue is kept to the forefront by continued recurrent events – new by-pass, complaints of road noise, opening of new motorway, etc. Even if issues such as Population and Food are subjectively felt to be more fundamental and important than others, they clearly lack this ‘event news’ quality. Of course for this reason proponents of a population policy have to conjure ‘pseudo-event news’ in the form of World Population Day, demonstrations etc. These provide occasions for media coverage for a topic which even though thought important is otherwise difficult to justify in ‘news’ terms.