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Changing Issue Representation among Major United States Environmental Movement Organizations *
Author(s) -
Johnson Erik
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
rural sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.083
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1549-0831
pISSN - 0036-0112
DOI - 10.1526/003601106777789800
Subject(s) - environmental movement , salience (neuroscience) , environmental change , resource mobilization , movement (music) , political science , environmental pollution , wildlife , environmental planning , environmental resource management , social movement , geography , environmental protection , psychology , climate change , ecology , environmental science , law , philosophy , politics , cognitive psychology , biology , aesthetics
Histories of the environmental movement have emphasized the importance of a shift in focus from those issues traditionally associated with the movement, such as resource and wildlife protection, towards “new” quality of life issues, such as environmental pollution and its human health effects. Here, time‐series data between 1970 and 2000 on the issue agendas of fifty leading environmental movement organizations (EMOs) are used to empirically assess the veracity of this hypothesized shift. Results indicate that while there is dramatic growth in the salience of new environmental issues, those issues traditionally associated with the environmental movement continue to dominate the collective agendas of major EMOs. Further, new environmental issues are most likely to be represented in organizational fields composed of smaller EMOs on average.