Week 6

1
Week 6

• Risk Perceptions
• Factors Influencing Risk Perceptions
• Social Amplification of Risk

2
Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky, and the Social
and Cultural construction of risk

• Some risks are selected for attention and others
  are ignored.
• Social and cultural factors influencing risk
  perceptions
• Social networks
• Industry-dependent communities
• Credibility and trustworthiness of institutions

3
Case Study Lead Contamination in Broken Hill,
Australia
4
Lead contamination - background
5
Public perceptions of risk

• Variation in risk perceptions.
• Some felt that risk was acceptable.
• Social influence on risk perceptions.
• Living and working in a mining town affected risk
  perceptions.
• Influence of government on risk perceptions.

6
Social Amplification of Risk Framework (Kasperson
et al 1988)
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Social amplification of risk

• Starts with a risk or risk event

8
Information

• Personal experience or receive information
• Processed by amplification stations
• Dissemination
• via communication channels.

9
Interpretation and response

• Information recipients also amplify or attenuate.
• Decision-making and actions

10
Secondary impacts

• Stigma
• Local impacts
• Physical nature of risk
• Changes for training, education or qualifications
  
• Social disorder
• Changes in risk monitoring/regulation
• Trust

11
Summary

• Individual factors availability heuristic,
  perceived benefits, gender, affect.
• Risk factors voluntary, chronic, etc., internal
  vs. external sources.
• Social/cultural social networks, industry
  dependence, credibility trustworthiness.
• Social Amplification of Risk Experience/Informat
  ion processing, and how this is translated into
  decision-making, actions, and secondary impacts.