Framing, agenda setting, and response: A case study on the organizational amplification and attenuation of risk.

摘要

In 1988, researchers at Clark University and Decision Research proposed the framework of social amplification of risk to describe and explain societal responses to risk (Kasperson, R. E., O. Renn, P. Slovic, H. Brown, J. Emel, R. Goble, J. X. Kasperson, and S. J. Ratick. 1988. The social amplification of risk: A conceptual framework. Risk Analysis 8(2): 177–191). The main thesis of the framework is that informational processes, individual and organizational responses, and institutional structures shape the social experience of risk thereby contributing to risk consequences. The framework has been applied to numerous risks and risk events for describing amplification and attenuation at the individual level, but relatively little research has been conducted at the group and organizational level. The central question of this dissertation is: How do organizations amplify or attenuate risks? To address this central question, a literature review was conducted in fields such as social movement theory, trust and risk management, organizational information processing and decision making, and agenda setting. A conceptual framework of organizational amplification and attenuation of risk was developed from this literature review. This framework was applied to an empirical case study on the proposed siting of a solid-waste landfill in Douglas, Massachusetts. Two organizations involved in this proposed siting, a citizen group and an environmental regulatory agency, were selected for in-depth study and comparison. The major conclusion of this dissertation is that organizational amplification of risk is an important component of social amplification of risk and plays a key role in shaping social controversy over risk. The study also concludes that different types of organizations are likely to be associated with different types of risk amplification and attenuation processes. For example, amplification of risk associated with the citizen group occurred through the framing of risk events associated with the proposed landfill. On the other hand, amplification of risk associated with the environmental regulatory agency can be described through an agenda setting model proposed by John Kingdon.