New perspectives on risk communication: uncertainty in a complex society

摘要

Risk communication is a point of intersection of social communication, practical management and policy-making. It covers such diverse activities as to inform and educate the public about risk, and risk management in order to influence attitudes and behaviour, to act in situations of emergency or crises, to aid in decision-making and to assist in conflict resolution. Communication has grown into a major concern in current risk governance based on network co-ordinated management of public affairs conducted by authorities and companies (Swyngedouw 2005) and is recognized as a key component in the government of risk (Hood, Rothstein, and Baldwin 2004). This is especially salient in policy fields relating to environmental planning and resource management, urban planning, chemical and food regulation, or infrastructure planning, development and maintenance. Polarization between the perceptions of lay publics on the one hand, and regulators, scientific experts and project proponents on the other has been a key issue in risk communication research (Petts and Brooks 2006). The field involves several distinctions, including that between expert and laymen, between those affected by decision and those who make the decisions, between conflict and co-operation, between facts and values, and between inclusion and exclusion in decision processes (for a recent overview of the field see Palencher and Heath 2007).