Reflexive Modernization at the Source: Local Media Coverage of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in Rural Alberta

Abstract

The potential for reflexive modernization is defined by multiple factors, but the acknowledgment of risk is crucial, particularly among social groups that play a key role in risk minimization. This study offers an examination of the role of local media in response to the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in beef-producing communities in rural Alberta. BSE is one of several global risk issues that reflexive modernization theorists argue have the potential to trigger a transformation toward a critically reflexive society in which such risks are minimized. Content analysis of newspapers in beef-producing regions in Alberta, however, shows how local media framed BSE in a manner that maximized community cohesion and protection of local culture. This selective coverage of BSE in rural Alberta is quite likely to have contributed to, or at least reinforced, support for the current institutional structure of Canadian agriculture in beef-producing regions, through the constriction of discourse.

Environmental Risks in Newspaper Coverage: A Framing Analysis of Investigative Reports on Environmental Problems in 10 Chinese Newspapers

“…Preventing and minimising risks requires the construction of a social understanding of the nature of risk, such as its causes, consequences, and solutions and whether a risk issue is actually a crisis (Davidson & Bogdan, 2010;Beck, 1992). Media become primary actors in negotiating the definition of a risk issue as well as the principal source of information for the public to gain knowledge of risk (Beck, 1992).…”

Newspaper Reports on BSE around the Time of the Japan-US Trade Conflicts: Content Analysis of Japanese and US Dailies from 2002 to 2006

“…Media reports on health risks reflect the social implications of those risks and, therefore, the configuration of social interests and their powers in which they operate (Davidson & Bogdan, 2010). Discussion in the media about the acceptance and aversion of health risks and what policy measures are desirable are also associated with them.…”

Practicing Food Anxiety: Making Australian Mothers Responsible for Their Families’ Dietary Decisions

“…Further, heightened anxieties, for example, about food risks, may provide the occasion for drawing public attention to the factors that contribute to those anxieties, such as the existence of certain risks and or the failure to annihilate those risks. For example, in recent years, various food anxieties, such as associated with BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy) ('mad cow disease') in the UK, Canada, and elsewhere in the late 1980s and early 1990s, focused media attention on the health risks posed by modern industrial cattle-farming, especially the use of introduced ingredients, including protein supplements 45,46 .…”