The Discourses of the Prisoners' Dilemma: The Role of the Local Press in Environmental Policy

This article explores the role that the local press plays in relation to environmental policy at the local authority level. It seeks to examine the inter-connections between the policy agenda established in local newspapers and the factors influencing collective action on environmental problems at the local scale. Theoretically it follows the call of Udehn [1996] to supplement the insights of an institutional rational choice approach with a sensitivity to the importance of discourse and particularly the media. The research shows how the incentives structures, which shape both the nature of the environmental policy problems and the range of potential solutions to these problems, may be influenced by the character of discussion in the local press.