Understanding amplification of complex risk issues: the risk story model applied to the EMF case

Wiedemann, Peter M.; Clauberg, Martin; Schütz, Holger

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511550461.013

Cited by 27 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Social studies have shown that experts generally perceive risks in quantitative terms, whereas the general public perceives risk in more qualitative or narrative terms (cf. also [54]). As a result, there is a real chance of miscommunication between these two parties.…”

Section: Consequentialist Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 87%

Nano-ethics as NEST-ethics: Patterns of Moral Argumentation About New and Emerging Science and Technology

2007

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There might not be a specific nano-ethics, but there definitely is an ethics of new & emerging science and technology (NEST), with characteristic tropes and patterns of moral argumentation. Ethical discussion in and around nanoscience and technology reflects such NEST-ethics. We offer an inventory of the arguments, and show patterns in their evolution, in arenas full of proponents and opponents. We also show that there are some nano-specific issues: in how size matters, and when agency is delegated to smart devices. Our overall approach is a pragmatist ethics, and we conclude that struggle (and learning) might be more productive than models emphasizing consensus.

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Section: Consequentialist Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 87%

Nano-ethics as NEST-ethics: Patterns of Moral Argumentation About New and Emerging Science and Technology

2007

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“…In previous experiments we and our colleagues have shown that identical risk information can provoke different risk judgments, depending on the "emotional coloring" of the social context in which the risk event is embedded (Spangenberg, 2003;Wiedemann et al, 2003). In these experiments, two versions of a risk story have been constructed that describe an objectively identical damage event.…”

Section: Hypothesis 2: Risk Perception Of Nanotechnology Is Influencementioning

confidence: 99%

Framing effects on risk perception of nanotechnology

Schütz¹,

Wiedemann²

2008

Public Underst Sci

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How do people judge nanotechnology risks that are completely unfamiliar to them? Drawing on results of previous studies on framing and risk perception, two hypotheses about potential influences on nanotechnology risk perception were examined in an experimental study: 1) Risk perception of nanotechnology is influenced by its benefit perception. 2) Risk perception of nanotechnology is influenced by the context in which nanotechnology is embedded, specifically by the characteristics of the enterprises that profit from nanotechnology: large multinational enterprises versus small and medium-sized enterprises. In contrast to findings for other new technologies, e.g. biotechnology, the different types of benefit did not affect risk perceptions in our study. However, we found that characterizing the enterprises as large multinational versus small or mediumsized leads to differences in risk perception. One can speculate that when personal knowledge about a technology is lacking, people use more familiar aspects from the social context as cues for their risk evaluation.

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“…This is because the issue might involve a set of “symbolic tangles” (Horlick‐Jones et al , 2003, p. 284). Wiedemann et al (2003) stress a narrative structure, arguing that laypersons see risks “primarily in a social and relationship‐oriented context … based on common patterns for interpreting events, which are heavily influenced by the media, such as scandal stories, investigative exposes, tragedies, and disaster reports” (Wiedemann et al , 2003, p. 289). At the heart of such narratives is a range of regularities, they argue.…”

Section: Learning About Risk: Circulating Images Of Crime and Devimentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing Fear of Crime to Risk Research

Jackson

2006

Risk Analysis

170

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This paper introduces the fear of crime to risk research, noting a number of areas for future interdisciplinary study. First, the paper analyses the career of the concept of fear of crime and the politics of fear. Second, it considers research and theory on the psychology of risk, and particularly a risk as image perspective and interplay between emotion and cognition. Third, it speculates how people learn about risk and suggests how to customise a Social Amplification of Risk Framework to fear of crime. Finally, the paper argues that fear of crime may be an individual response to community social order and a generalised attitude toward the moral trajectory of society. Each of these areas of discussion has implications for future theoretical developments within risk research; each highlights how risk research can contribute to the social scientific understanding of an important issue of the day. Key wordsRisk perception; fear of crime; emotion and cognition; image of crime; social amplification of risk; expressive function of risk perception 2 IntroductionThis paper introduces public perceptions of crime to the risk literature, and sketches out new directions for interdisciplinary research on this topic. The fear of crime is widely recognised as a pressing concern among citizens of the US (Ferraro, 1995), Europe (Hale, 1996) and wider (van Kesteren et al. 2000). Such widespread anxieties have negative effects for the individual and for society (Hale, 1996). They may exacerbate the impact of crime by damaging an individual's quality of life. They may affect the community by deteriorating a shared sense of trust, cohesion and social control, thus potentially contributing to the incidence of crime itself. And in the political climate, in issues such as border controls, asylum and immigration policy, public fears exert force on policy that balances security against liberty.Public perceptions of crime also influence specific Government policies. Anxieties about crime make themselves felt through public demands on the police to manage crime and its concomitant causes and effects. Clamour for more police, increasing calls for the Government to tackle anti-social behaviour, the seeming refusal of many people to believe that crime rates are not rising -all these evidence the influence of public perceptions of risk. And Governments respond: witness popular punitive Law and Order sloganeering, police strategies of reassurance, and community policing of incivilities and 'quality of life' issues. In some instances public perceptions of risk have encouraged the police to focus on reassurance at the expense of actual risk reduction.This topic is thus a fascinating field of enquiry for risk research. But more than this, it speaks to basic ideas in the social sciences. In sociology, public attitudes toward crime raise fundamental sociological problems but with a twist -public perceptions of deviance, social order and social control. In psychology and social psychology, public attitudes disclose issues of (a) cognition,...

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Understanding amplification of complex risk issues: the risk story model applied to the EMF case

Cited by 27 publications

References 0 publications

Nano-ethics as NEST-ethics: Patterns of Moral Argumentation About New and Emerging Science and Technology

Nano-ethics as NEST-ethics: Patterns of Moral Argumentation About New and Emerging Science and Technology

Framing effects on risk perception of nanotechnology

Introducing Fear of Crime to Risk Research

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