ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses more closely upon the relationship between news sources and the news media. In April 1988 a large number of common seals around the coast of Denmark were found to be dying from a mystery disease that affected their immune systems. Later, in July and August 1988, the disease was discovered to be affecting great numbers of common seals along the Norfolk coast in Britain. Between April and December 1988 18,000 seals around the coasts of Northern Europe were discovered dead. One reason why the seal plague attracted so much media coverage during August 1988 was that it was during this month that the first affected seals in Britain were discovered to be dying in large numbers along the Norfolk coast; this constituted a key news "event" for the British media. The process by which the seal virus was transformed from being viewed as a purely scientific issue into being seen as a “political” issue was complex.
