A developing body of literature argues that workplace safety is increasingly becoming the responsibility of employees who are the potential victims of hazards. Although interaction is an integral part of enacting and justifying these responsibilization processes, previous research has not provided detailed analysis of organizational talk in this regard. Following Brownlie’s (2004) ‘analytic bridging’ of Foucault and close discourse analysis, this study centres on a safety committee meeting, and demonstrates how governmentality is exercised as senior managers seek the consent of other employees for behavioural-safety implementation. Three discursive strategies are analysed in detail, examining the construction and invocation of: 1) an equal partnership through collaborative and vague talk; 2) hierarchy through directives and declaratives; 3) competitiveness by the establishment of a factory-versus-factory contest. In sum, these discursive strategies forcefully combine constructions of reciprocal relations together with disciplinary discourse that mandates compliance with program implementation.

The literature on social media use in risk and crisis communication is growing fast, and it is time to take stock before looking forward. A review of 200 empirical studies in the area shows how the literature is indeed increasing and focusing on particular social media plat forms, users, and phases from risk to crisis relief. However, although spanning 40 countries, a large proportion of the world’s social media users are under-represented in the research. In addition, little attention is given to the question of who is actually reached through social media, and the effects of the digital divide are rarely discussed. This article suggests that more attention is given to the questions of equal access to information and ICTs, complementary media channels, and cultural diversity.

This article proposes and examines gender and life-stage factors as determinants of public worry and risk avoidance in a nuclear fallout scenario. Drawing on a survey (N 2,291) conducted in Sweden, the article demonstrates statistically significant results that women as well as parents with children at home are more likely to express high levels of worry for radiation exposure and have a preference to move away from a fallout area despite assurance of successful remediation. Moreover, a negative relationship is shown between age and both worry for radiation exposure and preference to move. These novel results from Northern Europe thus support a life-stage framing of public risk attitudes. As radiation physicists develop new methods showing that women and children are at higher risk of cancer than other groups at the same radiation exposure, we may actually see the precaution among women and parents as a regulating mechanism for the higher objective risk they face. The results are moreover in agreement with studies of public risk reactions in Japan, creating a strong knowledge base that human-induced radiation pollution is largely an intolerable risk to the public. Considering the public opinion, managing an intolerable risk through risk mitigation by remediation alone is likely insufficient in many cases. A viable strategy would offer a range of social support options that enable individual decision-making and the protection of risk groups.

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