Population growth,environmental awareness,and policy direction

Many policy analysts, commentators, and researchers claim that the issue of human population growth no longer receives the attention and concern it once enjoyed in both the popular and specialized media. Other commentators state that scientists and decision-makers are held captive by media-savvy environmentalists who seek to fulfill a political agenda by limiting population expansion. I investigated the change in media coverage of population issues by tallying the number of population-related articles listed during 1967–1989 in 3 periodical index services. Media coverage has declined sharply since the early 1970's. Possible causes of the decline are discussed in the context of the larger debate between population pessimists and population optimists.