Environmental Activism Revisited: The Changing Nature of Communication through Organizational Public Relations, Special Interest Groups and the Mass Media. Monographs in Environmental Education and Environmental Studies, Volume V.

The environmental movement of the 1960's and early 1970's resulted in unprecedented attention to environmental issues both in the mass media and in the scholarly literature. Interest has waned in recent years, with a concomitant erosion of coverage of what many consider enduring problems--particularly in water and air pollution and nuclear power. This monograph brings together both an historical perspective and a current picture of one critical element in the environmental-movement dynamic: the clash between environmental activists and their target organizations. Each chapter focuses on a different actor in that conflict--pressure groups, the media that cover them, governmental agencies with the power to regulate their opponents or the public relations practitioners employed by the organizations they oppose. All the chapters emphasize the role that communication plays in disputes between organizations and activists. Included are: (1) "Community Pluralism and Newspaper Coverage of a High-Level Nuclear Waste Siting Issue" (Sharon Dunwoody and Marshel Rossow); (2) "Media and Protest" (C. N. Olien, P. J. Tichenor, and G. A. Donohue); (3) "Today's College Youth--A Generation at Rest" (Mark A. Larson); (4) "A Situational Theory of Environmental Issues, Publics, and Activists" (James E. Grunig); and (5) "Activism in the Northwest: Surveying the Effects of Public Relations on Conflict Resolution" (Larissa A. Grunig). (CW)