IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jriskr/v17y2014i10p1245-1249.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The end of risk communication as we know it

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph Árvai

Abstract

According to the US National Research Council, risk communication ought to be viewed as a dialogue among people conducted to help facilitate a more accurate understanding of risks and, related, the decisions they may make to manage them. But, in spite of this widely accepted perspective on risk communication, there is often a disconnect between how it is defined and how it is practiced. Rather than focusing on a true dialogue aimed at improving risk assessments and risk management decisions, risk communication is often viewed as means of simply educating people about existing risk assessments so that, on their own, they might make (or contribute to) better risk management decisions. More worrisome, risk communication is still often seen as a means of ‘correcting’ misconceptions about, or perceptions of, risk; in other words, risk communication is used as a vehicle for attempting to align lay perceptions with their expertly assessed severity. In this paper, I argue that risk communication must become more decision-focused if it is to meet the objectives set forth – in 1989 – by the US National Research Council.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph Árvai, 2014. "The end of risk communication as we know it," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(10), pages 1245-1249, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jriskr:v:17:y:2014:i:10:p:1245-1249
    DOI: 10.1080/13669877.2014.919519
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13669877.2014.919519
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13669877.2014.919519?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Åsa Boholm, 2019. "Risk Communication as Government Agency Organizational Practice," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(8), pages 1695-1707, August.
    2. Jamie K. Wardman & Gabe Mythen, 2016. "Risk communication: against the Gods or against all odds? Problems and prospects of accounting for Black Swans," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(10), pages 1220-1230, November.
    3. Michael Siegrist & Joseph Árvai, 2020. "Risk Perception: Reflections on 40 Years of Research," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(S1), pages 2191-2206, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jriskr:v:17:y:2014:i:10:p:1245-1249. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJRR20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.