Abstract

The 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring prompted a vigorous public debate. In this study, the public career of Silent Spring is used as case history to investigate the function of books within the media system. The conduct of the debate is examined sequentially from the points of view of the several participants in it: the author and her agent; her two publishers and editors; the opposition; the media itself; and those individual members of the public who participated publicly through writing letters. Exploration of the participants' roles includes identification of their motivations and risks in entering the debate. Perceived differences and relationships between the book and other media are discussed.

A primary finding was that even though Silent Spring appeared first in magazine article form, the book was universally considered the medium of record. Further, the organized opposition's creation of an active debate about the book's message allowed the media to present sustained news coverage of a potentially complex issue. At a broader level, almost all those studied believed themselves to be active participants in the debate, not passive observers or recipients of information. Concerning the book form specifically, the analysis suggested that a book—at least in this form of journalistic nonfiction—may have the related abilities to confer probity or weight on an issue and to contain a form of intellectual capital that can underwrite credible public exchange of ideas. Moreover, the strong suggestion was that because of the digest of the issues created by media coverage, a book can possess these abilities whether or not it is actually read by more than a core group of influential readers. The study ends with a consideration of whether or not a book could again prompt the same sort of media-borne public debate.