Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies - Volume 2, Issue 2, 2010

This article provides an introduction to, and some motivation for, the themes addressed in the following collection of papers. This special issue was initially conceived as a kind of open-ended dialogue between communication studies and sociology, with the central focus being the conceptualization and practical understanding of the nature of risk communication. In the contemporary world, a technical discourse on risk has, in recent years, assumed the status of a universal basis for governance and administrative practice in both public and private sector spheres. This reframing of pre-existing organizational concerns in terms of risk categories reflects an underlying bureaucratic concern with the formally accountable, controllable and cost-effective management of contingency. During this period, the use of risk communication as a regulatory, policy and operational tool has become increasingly important for institutional attempts to optimize resource allocation, and to inform and influence the behaviour of target audiences. The emergence of this risk management society has occurred during a period of enormous growth in the density and complexity of global media communications, and the saturation of everyday life in an extraordinary diversity of mediated knowledge. Now is the time, we suggest, to re-examine risk communication from the point of view of its reflexive and constitutive dynamics. What are the implications for the nature and characteristics of risk objects and discourses in mediated, twenty-first-century, times? In what ways do the specific properties of risk objects and discourses come to shape the form of communication processes and practices? The following papers attempt to make some progress in responding to these important questions.

Risk communication is emerging as a subformat within institutional formats, including official agency reports (e.g. FBI) and news formats. The latter may draw on the former, while the former virtually never draw on the latter. Claimsmakers may draw on both. The format of risk communication shapes the organization, presentation, emphasis and interpretation of information. And like all formats, risk communication carries with it a context of assumed audience experiences and expectations. The prevailing context of risk communication is fear, or something to be dreaded, avoided and even intervened against in order to keep us safe. Moreover, the information models of risk assessment are built on quantitative platforms with measurable results. This means that they are also built on official information bases that have been constructed by agencies with rather narrow agendas, much of which are self-serving and reflective of their own institutional narratives about efficiency, reliability and validity. Ultimately, then, risk assessment models are subject to all the pitfalls and critiques of official information (Douglas 1967, The Social Meanings of Suicide, Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press; 1970, Deviance and Respectability; The Social Construction of Moral Meanings, New York: Basic Books; 1971, American Social Order; Social Rules in a Pluralistic Society, New York: Free Press; 1972, Research on Deviance, New York: Random House) and the social construction of reality including accounting metrics, various fallacies of commensurability (Espeland and Stevens 1998, Commensuration as a Social Process, 24) and isomorphism (Cicourel 1964, Method and Measurement in Sociology, New York: Free Press of Glencoe), and bureaucratic propaganda (Altheide and Johnson 1980, Bureaucratic Propaganda, Boston: Allyn and Bacon).

Over the last two decades both the landscape of risk and the organization of public communication have been substantially transformed by the intersection of two processes: the digitalization of media systems and the acceleration of marketization. Taken together, these shifts raise a series of conceptual and research issues for work in risk communication. This article sets out to sketch an agenda for discussion by outlining the implications of current changes for five key areas of risk research: public knowledge, public debate; popular participation and mobilization; surveillance and monitoring; and security and safety. It argues that in the current economic and political context digitalized media have contradictory potentials. On the one hand, they can enhance public engagement in information, deliberation and mobilization around risk issues. On the other hand, they also allow for more intensive categorization of selected social groups as sources of risk, and by making the operation of essential infrastructural services increasingly dependent on digital networks, they generate a major new source of economic and social risks.

Risks represent threats to what humans value. The link between risk as a mental concept and reality is forged through the experience of actual harm (the consequence of risk). The invention of risk as a mental construct is contingent upon the belief that human action can prevent or at least mitigate harm. Based on this implicit normative goal it is important to collect the best available knowledge about the sequences that could lead to harm. The major claim of this article is that, in addition to systematic modelling of causes and potential effects revealed by scientific investigations, experiential, tacit and intuitive knowledge can contribute to a better understanding as well as management of risk. Providing platforms for communication between and among the carriers of these four knowledge types, and structuring a mutual learning process should be a major target in the design of risk communication programmes.

Discourses around nuclear waste were, for decades, dominated by techn(ocrat)ic debates. The respective international group of experts can be understood as an epistemic community (Haas 1992), as this community impacts on the way an issue is perceived and discussed. Yet, nuclear waste is not only a technical, but also a so-called socio-technical problem, and hence the discourses have been broadened. Lately, risk communication has become ubiquitous in discussions on the siting of nuclear waste across the globe. Lay knowledge, risk perception, involvement and procedural justice are some of the terms used and negotiated here. Thus, the question can be posed as to whether this trend will lead to the development of a new epistemic community that also includes experts on social scientific aspects. Using a set of different sources, we demonstrate potential difficulties in the mutual understanding of interdisciplinary teams in nuclear waste governance. We conclude by arguing that epistemological differences and structural challenges are so fundamental that it is unlikely that a new epistemic community will be able to develop.

Informing communities who live in the vicinity of dangerous industries has become an established principle of risk policy and management, as demonstrated, for instance, by the EU Seveso Directive and the US Right to Know Act. The underlying postulate is that populations will be better off in accident situations if they are informed beforehand. Or, as Harmon bluntly puts it, populations in an accident situation can be part of the problem or part of the solution (Harmon 2007). Subjacent operational goals suggest that risk information should engage populations to behave responsibly and to take care of themselves, which will lower the workload of emergency forces and health units, while limiting panic and organizational chaos in case of accident (Paton and Johnston 2001). Accident-impacted communities have often been studied from a socio-economic perspective, acknowledging social inequalities in risk exposure (Graham et al. 1999). More recently, the identity of local populations has been shown to be constructed partially through making various accommodations to the presence of the dangerous industrial installation (e.g. social attenuation of risk regarding an accident that, in the vast majority of cases, will never occur; Poumadre 2009). In this article, using French and other European examples, we further these recent analyses through the concepts of minority identity and social representations: minority status designates not only numeric inferiority, but also, more importantly, a different and less powerful position (Mugny 1982, Moscovici 1979). Communities targeted to receive accident risk information do form a numeric minority, as only a fraction of the general population is affected. But they are a minority as well in terms of cognitions, as these local communities find themselves doing what the overall population declares it would never do: live in the neighbourhood of dangerous industries. Our approach to minority communities under the influence of laws and regulations promulgated by a majority should prompt a reassessment of the logic and possible efficiency of risk information in this context. This previously unconsidered aspect of risk policy and management could lead to a better articulation that cuts across the generally established right to know and the more ambivalent wish to know of specific communities. This articulation could engender local empowerment through improvements in quality of life, as defined within each community.

This article, grounded in an empirical study carried out in the Tarragona petrochemical complex (Spain), explores how key actors operating in this specific social and organizational context perceive petrochemical communication activities. Data compiled from a set of interviews with stakeholders and focus group discussions with citizens were analysed from an interpretative perspective in an effort to capture underlying situationally specific logics. The results enabled us to discuss the advantages and limitations of different theoretical models of petrochemical communication, providing elements for a critique of overly simplistic normative models of risk communication. We highlight the potential contribution of interpretative research to the social perception of petrochemical risk and its implication in petrochemical communication processes.

News media play an important role in giving publicity and meaning to global suffering, as it is mainly through media reports that the world perceives international risk situations. This article focuses on natural and technological disasters as part of the contemporary risk society and their (de)construction by Flemish news media. Applying quantitative content analysis, the study reveals that 70.8 per cent of all disasters occurring between 1986 and 2006 are neglected by the newspapers, for the large part disasters in less developed countries. Regarding news coverage, proximity appears to be the guiding principle. Disasters developing in western or high-income countries are well covered while distant crises in the peripheral south are struggling to get attention, unless they affect a huge number of (western) people. In general, this article supports the claim that disasters and other instances of risk are essentially media constructs: they exist only when covered by the media.

Despite movements towards more dialogic and rhetorical models, the field of risk communication remains rooted in foundational commitments regarding ontology, epistemology, authority and practice. In prevailing views of risk communication, risk is the primary phenomenon and communication is a secondary and subordinate process. Applying Heidegger's phenomenological critique of the modern world picture, phenonenologically-grounded communication theory, and Luhmann's model of autopoietic social systems, this essay proposes an alternative view in which communication constitutes, rather than represents, risks and explores the implications of such a view.

Risk communication has evolved in the last few years, from the simple issue of how to translate and present quantitative estimates in such a way that they will speak for themselves, to a more complex view of both risk and its public. In this article I focus on the diversity of approaches emerging from different disciplinary fields with an interest in risk and its communication. It is possible to identify common subjects and convergent conceptualizations applied to case studies of both ordinary and extraordinary risks and their communication. As with the international literature, the research performed on risk communication in Spain reflects the power of the communicative turn. I argue that extending the communicative turn in all its potential would contribute to improving integral risk management.