Creating shared realities through communication: Exploring the agenda-building role of the media and its sources in the E. coli contamination of a Canadian public drinking water supply

Journal of Risk Research

Volumn 11, Issue 1-2, 2008, Pages 23-40

  Driedger, S Michelle ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA   (Canada)

Author keywords

Agenda building; Media analysis; Risk communication; Sources; Walkerton

Indexed keywords

ESCHERICHIA COLI; POTABLE WATER; PROBLEM SOLVING; RISK MANAGEMENT; WATER POLLUTION;

AGENDA-BUILDING; MEDIA ANALYSIS; RISK COMMUNICATION; WALKERTON;

HEALTH RISKS;

EID: 42249088918     PISSN: 13669877     EISSN: 14664461     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13669870701521297     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. Anderson, A. 1997. Media, culture and the environment. London: UCL Press.
2. Bennett, P. 1999. Understanding responses to risk: Some basic findings. In Risk communication and public health, ed. P. Bennett and K. Calman, 3-19. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3. Bourette, S. 2000. Walkerton water chief to speak up: Neighbours, friends, reporters await Koebel's account of E. coli tragedy. The Globe and Mail, December 18, A3.
4. CBC- The National. June 29, 2001. Host: Brian Stewart.
5. CTV National News. June 2, 2000. Host: Tom Clark.
6. _. June 26, 2001. Host: Lloyd Robertson.
7. Cohen, B.C. 1963. The press, the public and foreign policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
8. Croteau, D., and W. Hoynes. 2003. Media society: Industries, images, and audiences. 3rd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
9. Denham, B.E. 2004. Sports Illustrated, the mainstream press and the enactment of drug policy in Major League Baseball. Journalism 5: 51-68.
10. Donsbach, W. 2004. Psychology of news decisions: Factors behind journalists' professional behaviors. Journalism 5: 131-57.
11. Downs, A. 1972. Up and down with ecology: The 'issue attention cycle'. Public Interest, 38-50.
12. Driedger, S.M. 2004. Perception of equivocal health risk: Drinking water in a post-Walkerton climate. Research Grant funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, 2004-2007.
13. _. 2007. Risk, the media, and public perceptions: A comparison of print and televised news stories of Walkerton, Ontario's E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in drinking water. Risk Analysis 27, no. 3: 775-89.
14. Driedger, S.M., and J. Eyles. 2003. Different frames, different fears: Communicating about chlorinated drinking water and cancer in the Canadian media. Social Science & Medicine 56: 1279-93.
15. Entman, R. 1993. Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication 43: 51-8.
16. Ericson, R.V., P.M. Baranek, and J.B.L. Chan. 1989. Negotiating control: A study of news sources. Toronto: Toronto University Press.
17. Fleras, A. 2003. Mass media communication in Canada. Scarborough, ON: Thomson-Nelson.
18. Gamson, W.A., D. Croteau, W. Hoynes, and T. Sasson. 1992. Media images and the social construction of reality. Annual Review of Sociology 18: 373-93.
19. Gillis, C. 2000. Walkerton outbreak traced to its roots: Manure from cattle farm: Medical officer fears it may happen again. National Post, October 11, A1.
20. Hall, S., C. Critcher, T. Jefferson, J. Clarke, and B. Roberts. 1978. Policing the crisis: Mugging, the state, and law and order. London: Methuen.
21. Hardin, C.D., and E.T. Higgins. 1996. Shared reality: How social verification makes the subjective objective. In Handbook of motivation and cognition, ed. R.M. Sorrentino and E.T. Higgins, vol. 3, 28-84. New York: Guilford.
22. Hrudey, S.E., P. Payment, P.M. Huck, R.W. Gillham, and E.J. Hrudey. 2002. Walkerton: Lessons learned in comparison with waterborne outbreaks in the developed world. Journal of Environmental Engineering Science 1: 397-407.
23. _. 2003. A fatal waterborne disease epidemic in Walkerton, Ontario: Comparison with other waterborne outbreaks in the developed world. Water Science and Technology 47: 7-14.
24. Jardine, C.G., N. Gibson, and S.E. Hrudey. 1999. Detection of odour and health risk perception of drinking water. Water Science & Technology 40: 91-8.
25. Kellner, D. 1995. Media culture: Cultural studies, identity, and politics between the modern and the postmodern. London: Routledge.
26. Lang, G.E., and K. Lang. 1981. Watergate: An exploration of the agenda-building process. In Mass communication review yearbook, ed. G.C. Wilhoit and H. de Bock, vol. 2, 447-68. London: Sage.
27. _. 1983. The battle for public opinion: The president, the press, and the polls during Watergate. New York: Columbia University Press.
28. Lippmann, W. 1922. Public opinion. New York: Free Press.
29. Lorimer, R., and M. Gasher. 2004. Mass communication in Canada. 5th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
30. Mander, M.S., ed. 1999. Framing friction: Media and social conflict. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press.
31. Mathes, R., and B. Pfetsch. 1991. The role of alternative press in the agenda-building process: Spill-over effects and media opinion leadership, European Journal of Communication 6: 33-62.
32. McCombs, M.E., and D.L. Shaw. 1972. The agenda-setting function of mass media. Public Opinion Quarterly 36: 176-87.
33. _. 1993. The evolution of agenda-setting research: Twenty-five years in the marketplace of ideas. Journal of Communication 43: 58-67.
34. McLaughlin, T. 2000. NDP denied standing at inquiry Walkerton judge wants to avoid politicizing tainted-water hearing. Globe and Mail, September 13, A12.
35. Menashe, C.L., and M. Siegel. 1998. The power of a frame: An analysis of newspaper coverage of tobacco issues - United States, 1985-1996. Journal of Health Communication 3: 307-25.
36. Mistry, B. 2006. Risk and drinking water: A media analysis of drinking water risk perception in Ontario, post-Walkerton. MA thesis, Department of Geography, University of Ottawa.
37. Mistry, B., and S.M. Driedger. 2005. Canadian media presentations of Walkerton, Ontario's E. coli O157:H7 contamination of drinking water supplies: An examination of language and discourse of televised news coverage. Paper presented at Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, June, in London, Ontario.
38. Newig, J. 2004. Public attention, political action: The example of environmental regulation. Rationality and Society 16: 149-90.
39. O'Connor, D.R. 2002a. Part one report of the Walkerton commission of inquiry. Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General. Queen's Printer for Ontario. http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/about/pubs/walkerton/.
40. _. 2002b. Part two report of the Walkerton commission of inquiry. Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General. Queen's Printer for Ontario. http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/about/pubs/walkerton/.
41. Parr, J. 2005. Local water diversely known: Walkerton, Ontario, 2000 and after. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 23: 251-71.
42. Patterson, T.E., and W. Donsbach. 1996. News decisions: Journalists as partisan actors. Political Communication 13: 455-68.
43. Perkel, C. 2002. Well of lies: The Walkerton water tragedy. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
44. Prudham, S. 2004. Poisoning the well: Neoliberalism and contamination of municipal water in Walkerton, Ontario. Geoforum 35: 343-59.
45. Pynn, L. 2001. B.C. health officer fears 'shades of Walkerton': Kootenay town refuses to chlorinate its drinking water. National Post, January 3, A4.
46. Rogers, E.M., and J.W. Dearing. 1988. Agenda-setting research: Where has it been? Where is it going? In Communication yearbook 11 (555-594), ed. J.A. Anderson. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
47. Schlesinger, P., and H. Tumber. 1999. Reporting crime: The media politics of criminal justice. Oxford: Clarendon Press [excerpted in H. Tumber, ed. News: A reader, 257-66. Oxford: Oxford University Press].
48. Stone, D. 1997. Policy paradox: The art of political decision making. New York: W. W. Norton.
49. Tanner, A.H. 2004. Agenda building, source selection and health news at local television stations. Science Communication 25: 350-63.
50. Tate, E.D., and K. McConnell. 2001. The mass media and violence. In Communications in Canadian society, ed. C. McKie and B. Singer. 5th edn. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing Inc.
51. Tuchman, G. 1973. Making news by doing work: Routinizing the unexpected. American Journal of Sociology 79: 110-31.
52. _. 1978. Making news: a study in the construction of reality. New York: Free Press.
53. Vallis, M. 2000. E. coli under control in Walkerton: health officer: Spate of new cases: Certain number of infections expected in summer. National Post, August 15, A6.