5.1. News media
The regression coefficients of the importance of
news media were significantly different from zero at
a 1% significance level and positive in the regressions
for attitudes about all environmental effects of agricultural
chemicals except for injury to wildlife. Thus, the
more important the respondent considered news media
as a source of information, the more concern the
respondent exhibited about both general environmental
problems associated with agriculture (fertilizer and
pesticide pollution of waterways) and human health
problems associated with pesticides specifically. This
pattern suggests that information from news media
tends to accentuate agriculture’s role in creating environmental
problems, but that injury to wildlife has
not received widespread coverage in recent years. It is
consistent with the beliefs of the farmers surveyed by
Sandoz Agro (1993), as noted above.