Nuclear Autumn, Nuclear Winter:Media Representations of Disaster in the Fall of 1983

This essay seeks to trace the contours of American nuclear anxiety as it changed, evolved and ultimately waned in the early 1980s, focusing primarily on two media events which occurred during the autumn of 1983: the announcement of the "nuclear winter" hypothesis and the airing of the television movie "The Day After." I use these events as points of departure from which to investigate the relationship between mass media, political agency and the emotional response of despair. This analysis is supplemented by an exploration of polling data from the latter part of the Cold War, through which I highlight the changing nature of the the American relationship to nuclear fear as a highly mediated one. Wholly informed by contemporary concerns around climate change, this thesis ultimately aims to address the relationship between apocalyptic visions of disaster and the ability of an individual to effect meaningful change in a time of crisis.