Communicating about Environmental Risks: How the Public Uses and Perceives Information Sources

McCallum, David; Hammond, Sharon Lee; Covello, Vincent T.

doi:10.1177/109019819101800307

Cited by 126 publications

(75 citation statements)

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“…How much information these secondary sources originally receive from media stories has not yet been determined. Further research is on-going in this area (Atman et al 1994;Bostrom et al 1994;Frewer and Shepherd 1994;McCallum et al 1991). Communicating uncertainty is also the focus of more recent research.…”

Section: The Role Of the Media In Risk Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food safety and the consumer – perils of poor risk communication

Powell

2000

Can. J. Anim. Sci.

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Powell, D. A. 2000. Food safety and the consumer -perils of poor risk communication. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 80: 393-404. The potential for stigmatisation of food is enormous. Well-publicised outbreaks of foodborne pathogens and the furore over agricultural biotechnology are but two current examples of the interactions between science, policy and public perception. Current risk management research indicates that it is essential for risk managers to show that they are reducing, mitigating or minimising a particular risk. Those responsible must be able to effectively communicate their efforts and must be able to prove they are actually reducing levels of risk.The components for managing the stigma associated with any food safety issue involve the following factors: • effective and rapid surveillance systems;• effective communication about the nature of risk; • a credible, open and responsive regulatory system; • demonstrable efforts to reduce levels of uncertainty and risk; and, • evidence that actions match words.Appropriate risk management strategies, such as on-farm food safety programs, are essential to demonstrate to consumers and others in the farm-to-fork supply chain that producers and regulators are cognisant of their concerns about food safety. • autrement dit qu'on ne se contente pas de promesse. Des stratégies effectives de gestion des risques comme les programmes de sécurité alimentaire à la ferme sont essentielles si l'on veut montrer aux consommateurs et aux autres intéressés dans la chaîne d'approvisionnement que les producteurs et les pouvoirs de réglementation sont conscients de leurs préoccupations en matière de sécurité des aliments. Mots clés:Biotechnologie agricole, sécurité microbienne des aliments, aliments génétiquement modifiés, perception des risques, gestion des risques, transmission de l'information sur les risques Risk communication, the science of understanding scientific and technological risk and how it is communicated within a socio-political structure, is a relatively new scientific endeavour. Starr's 1969 paper was the first attempt to offer a scientific basis for thresholds of risk which were accepted by the public. As public concerns regarding nuclear power gained prominence in the 1970s, investigators tried to establish general principles of public risk acceptability. This was usually based on mortality statistics and the de minimis risk principle, which argued that if a risk can be effectively lowered to less than one additional fatality per million citizens, the risk is effectively zero (US National Research Council 1989). Such a morbid approach was uniformly unsuccessful. In the 1980s, several groups developed models that incorpo-393

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Section: The Role Of the Media In Risk Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food safety and the consumer – perils of poor risk communication

Powell

2000

Can. J. Anim. Sci.

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“…One may feel that government is not very competent in the risk area, that the interests of certain private sector organizations in½uence governmental decisionmaking too much, or that government, for political or strategic reasons, is very much inclined to implement speci¼c technologies without the public's consent. On the other hand, the public may perceive a private company as a competent source regarding their speci¼c technology and the risks involved, but nevertheless do not trust their risk communication e¬orts (see, for example, McCallum et al, 1991). The public may argue that in most private companies economic interests preponderate, and therefore they may suspect that the company's communication activities are aimed at improving its economic goals, for instance by trying to silence the opposition.…”

Section: The Consequences Of a Rationalistic Communication Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Current views on risk communication and their implications for crisis and reputation management

Gutteling

2001

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Organizations prepare for crisis communication by designing, implementing, and evaluating procedures, scenarios, and emergency measures. In addition to crisis communication, risk communication is a concern for many organizations as well. Risk communication is viewed as an interactive, multi-actor democratic process. Traditionally, risk communication is seen as a linear, top-down, elitist, expert-to-public approach. In this paper, the relation between crisis communication and risk communication is described. In addition, a model is presented based on the notion that crisis communication should be proactive, and focusing on the management of the relation between the organization and its relevant stakeholders or the organization's reputation. The new thinking on the risk communication process is essential for an organization's crisis and reputation management. IntroductionOrganizations prepare for crises by designing, implementing, and evaluating procedures, scenarios, and emergency measures. Usually, this includes working on the content, structure, and style of particular documents. This preparatory process is part of the crisis control or crisis manageJan M. Gutteling Current views on risk communication and their implications for crisis and reputation managementment. In the process of crisis management the communication function is an important determinant of its success or failure. Traditionally, the quality of the crisis communication plan is seen as the most important determinant of the success of the crisis communication. However, on reviewing several crisis communication cases, Marra (1998) advocates that organizations become less dependent on crisis communication plans. He argues that most plans have the unlikely premise that every crisis will manifest itself in a way similar to a previous crisis. This also implies that crisis management strategies are built on these inadequate and rather in½exible scenarios. Marra describes several examples of good planning eventually turning into poor crisis communication. A well-known example is that of the American space agency NASA, which adopted a sophisticated crisis communication plan with a maximum response time of 20 minutes. In spite of this plan, it took NASA almost 6 hours to come with a public statement after the Challenger disaster in 1986. The American oil company Exxon had implemented an elaborate crisis communication plan when the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred. It took Exxon no less that 6 days to formulate a public statement on the situation.In addition to crisis communication, risk communication is a concern for many organizations as well. Risk communication focuses on the ½ow of information between various actors on the probability of the occurrence of negative consequences of activities, events, or processes. These consequences include the whole spectrum of threats to indi-237 Current views on risk communication vidual or societal safety, health, and well-

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“…In fact, newspapers are the main source of public information concerning environmental issues (McCallum et al 1991). Therefore, news and media have been used in different research works and studies in the last 15 years.…”

Section: Current Statementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Penker (2009) Among the different methods available to detect and characterize attitudes among the population, the analysis of mass media allows to determine the social impact of natural resource management from a global and inclusive perspective, without incurring high survey costs. In fact, newspapers are the main source of public information concerning environmental issues (McCallum et al 1991). Therefore, news and media have been used in different research works and studies in the last 15 years.…”

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confidence: 99%

Does higher owner participation increase conflicts over common land? An analysis of communal forests in Galicia (Spain)

Pérez¹,

Díaz-Varela²,

Calvo-González³

2015

iForest

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© iForest -Biogeosciences and Forestry IntroductionIn a modern sense, public participation in devising forest management is voluntary. Within public participation processes, people, individually or in organized groups, can exchange information, express opinions and articulate interests with the aim of influencing the final result in decision making (ILO 2000, Aasetre 2006, Atmis et al. 2007. It is both an opportunity and a need for today's society, as it is a useful tool to avoid conflicts, share information and encourage good relations with the planning team (Hellström 2001, Kangas & Store 2003, Santos et al. 2006, Janse & Konijnendijk 2007, Hiltunen et al. 2009, Cantiani 2012. Public participation contributes to democratization through the reinforcement of transparency in decision making: it increases plurality of aims, encourages mutual learning and increases the awareness of collective responsibility for natural resource management questions (Elsasser 2002, Kangas et al. 2010, Lennox et al. 2011).According to Ostrom & Nagendra (2006), sustainable governance of natural resources is a challenging task, in which "major debates occur over what types of policy interventions best protect forests, with choices of property and land tenure systems being central issues" and natural resource management can be approached from different views. There are regional differences in practical approaches to biodiversity conflict management because the social, political and economic characteristics of a culture influence the type of conflicts and the response to them (Hellström 2001). In this context, conflicts are confrontations between opposing values and objectives of the stakeholders in the sustainable management of natural resources (Bojórquez-Tapia et al. 2004), often caused by different perceptions of the initial situation of the resources discussed (Gritten et al. 2009). Following Skutsch (2000, conflicts over biodiversity should be regarded as inherent in social participation, reinforcing the ideas of Hellström (2001), which are seen as an important part of the decisionmaking process on how to use the natural resources.Conflicts usually have negative effects on forest management (Druckman 2005). However, the key to understanding and to the new social demands in forest areas (Hellström 2001) lies in the nature of conflicts. Many authors have analyzed conflicts in forest areas (Elands et al. 2004, Maskey et al. 2006, Djamhuri 2008, Schlueter 2008. White et al. (2009) developed a new and innovative framework aimed at improving the conceptual understanding of biodiversity conflicts. This method is based on the analysis of ecological, economic and social factors that affect the behavior of the biodiversity actors responsible for the conflict. This system is useful in developing strategic models to improve the understanding of general conflict dynamics.The aim of the study is to classify in groups the parishes with communal forest land of the Montes Vecinales en Mano Común (MVMC), to analyze the different management levels an...

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Communicating about Environmental Risks: How the Public Uses and Perceives Information Sources

Cited by 126 publications

References 1 publication

Food safety and the consumer – perils of poor risk communication

Food safety and the consumer – perils of poor risk communication

Current views on risk communication and their implications for crisis and reputation management

Does higher owner participation increase conflicts over common land? An analysis of communal forests in Galicia (Spain)

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