User:Owen.douth/Anti-nuclear movement

Impact on news media
For decades both anti-nuclear and pro-nuclear movements have used news media outlets to disseminate their ideologies onto the public. During the Cold War era, an emphasis on a prevention of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union existed within news media coverage in the United States, focusing on issues of nuclear security and its potential breakdown. The nuclear energy debate used news media as their battleground, contributing both anti and pro nuclear stances via news headlines, stories, television segments, and even political cartoons. Pro-nuclear stances tended to highlight the technological potential nuclear power had for the future of humanity, and relied heavily on technical jargon. An analysis of studies across the United States in the 1970s discovered that antinuclear content was more prevalent than pronuclear content at the time. While public support for nuclear energy did show more positive outlooks toward nuclear power, nuclear accidents in later years such as Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima reignited antinuclear concerns in the media. After the Fukushima disaster, both media coverage and public opinion trended negatively towards an anti-nuclear stance. This trend is consistent with many widely reported nuclear accidents, whereby newspaper media reporting following nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were portrayed in a negative manner. Many studies of nuclear power’s representation in news media highlights a focus on safety concerns, and potential accidents and disasters.