Media coverage in the US of transportation issues focuses primarily on the causes and consequences of airline crashes. In the era of the 24-hour news cycle, coverage of airline crashes is immediate and widespread, as is speculation regarding the cause. Politicians with affected constituencies often propose legislation or initiate regulatory rulemaking in response to a particular incident, but meaningful change often does not occur. Political pressure to determine the causes of crashes, along with the conflicting missions of the federal agencies charged with investigating them, deflects attention from areas of aviation safety unrelated to a specific accident. In this text, Cobb and Primo examine the impact of high-visibility plane crashes on airline policy. The authors describe the typical responses of various players - elected officials, investigative agencies, airlines and the media. Looking at all airline crashes in the 1990s, they examine how particular features of an accident correspond to the level of media attention it receives, as well as how airline disasters affect public policy.
Roger W. Cobb is professor of political science at Brown University. David M. Primo is assistant professor of political science at the University of Rochester.
"Air travel is very safe, yet major policy changes are driven by media frenzies over the occasional crash. Rather than solely critique the regulation of air safety, Cobb and Primo focus on the consequences of agenda-setting for policymaking. The resulting general lesson --that the fundamental structure of policymaking is deeply affected by dramatic, visible, frightening events --has so far escaped policy analysts. THE PLANE TRUTH is must reading for both students and practitioners." --Bryan D. Jones, University of Washington-Seattle, 3/15/2003
"Airline travel is the safest mode of travel in a statistical sense, and yet airline crashes can generate hundreds of newspaper stories and intense political pressure to improve safety in the skies. Is each unfortunate accident the catalyst for improvement in public safety? Cobb and Primo show that the answer, unfortunately, is no. This book deserves wide attention from those involved in transportation policy and from those interested in agenda-setting, problem definition, and the policy process. We have a lot to learn." -Frank R. Baumgartner, Professor and head of the department of political science, Pennsylvania State University, 3/15/2003 |"Cobb and Primo's book is the first to describe how spectacular airline crashes, accompanied by heavy media attention, can distort decisionmaking relating to safety and security. Cobb and Primo do so without writing a polemic of the sort that characterizes most recent work in this field. This is a must-read book for students and policymakers in this area, and in any other area where risk, media attention, and government policy affect policy outcomes." -Thomas A. Birkland, University at Albany, SUNY, 3/15/2003 |"This book is fascinating and relentlessly intelligent. Perhaps its most intriguing message is that, while much is wrong with the aviation safety system, the system works astoundingly well. USAir 427, ValuJet 592, and TWA 800 were horrible tragedies, but dozens of millions of flights later, no similar disasters have followed. And the same might well prove true of September 11." -Arnold Barnett, George Eastman Professor of Management Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 3/15/2003 |"Readable look at major aircraft accidents and post-accident policy development.... This book is a must read for scholars and students of aviation policy and safety management." -William R. Caldwell, Perspectives on Political Science, 3/1/2004 |"... a quick and readable look at major aircraft accidents and post-accident policy development, I recommend Roger Cobb and David Primo's The Plane Truth: Airline Crashes, the Media, and Transportation Policy.... The book is a must read for scholars and students of aviation policy and safety management." -William R. Caldwell, Central Missouri State University, Perspectives on Political Science, 3/1/2004 |"Cobb and Primo... examine how airline crashes made highly visible by media coverage can distort air transport policymaking.... Carefully researched and written.... Three fine chapters detail mini case-studies of media coverage and policy reactions to three major 1990's crashes.... The book will interest communication scholars who study risk or agenda setting, providing ideas for theoretically driven projects. And journalists covering air transportation will find here an alert to numerous missed stories-if they can be patient readers of clear but ultra-careful writing." -Carol Reese Dykers, Salem College, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 4/1/2004 |"Air travel is very safe, yet major policy changes are driven by media frenzies over the occasional crash. Rather than solely critique the regulation of air safety, Cobb and Primo focus on the consequences of agenda-setting for policymaking. The resulting general lesson -that the fundamental structure of policymaking is deeply affected by dramatic, visible, frightening events -has so far escaped policy analysts. THE PLANE TRUTH is must reading for both students and practitioners." -Bryan D. Jones, University of Washington-Seattle, 3/15/2003
