Ten years after the Chernobyl accident: reporting on nuclear and other hazards in six Swedish newspapers

摘要

A European Commission sponsored study (RISKPERCOM) involving France, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the UK, is concerned with surveying public perceptions of radiation related and other risks. This was partly done by distributing a questionnaire in each country at three different times in 1996: before, during and after the expected media attention given to the tenth anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. A selection of print media were analyzed, during a period of eight weeks - four weeks before the anniversary, and four weeks after - making it possible to contrast any changes between the three waves of the questionnaire with the results of the media study. The present report aims at providing a picture of the Swedish media coverage of different kinds of risks during the period referred to above. The purpose of the analysis is thus primarily of a descriptive nature; explanatory factors are only considered in an ad hoc manner while discussing the results and their possible implications. Naturally, the findings arising from this study cannot alone serve as a basis for making statements about the effects of risk related content on the Swedish newspaper readers. The risk stories included in the analysis were those dealing with one or more of the twenty different hazard items referred to in several of the questions in the RISKPERCOM questionnaire. Radiation and nuclear power energy were not the only issues of concern. The selection covered a wide range of other hazards as well, in order to provide for a wide risk panorama, thus making it possible to compare specific risk qualities etc., as these were presented in the media 70 refs, 40 refs