IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jriskr/v19y2016i10p1220-1230.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risk communication: against the Gods or against all odds? Problems and prospects of accounting for Black Swans

Author

Listed:
  • Jamie K. Wardman
  • Gabe Mythen

Abstract

Recent academic and policy preoccupations with ‘Black Swans’ underscore the predicament of capturing and communicating risk events when information is absent, partial, incomplete or contingent. In this article, we wish to articulate some key thematic and theoretical points of concurrence around which academic and practitioner interests in risk communication under conditions of ‘high uncertainty’ intersect. We outline the historical context and recent debate concerning the limits to ‘risk thinking’ spurred by Black Swans, and in particular how this calls for a more holistic approach to risk communication. In order to support a more critical foresight agenda, we suggest incorporating ‘adaptive governance’ principles to decentre focal risk communication concerns on the mitigation of short-term security threats, which critics argue can also lead to other unforeseen dangers. Finally, we welcome further interdisciplinary inquiry into the constitution and use of risk communication under high uncertainty.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:jriskr:v:19:y:2016:i:10:p:1220-1230
    DOI: 10.1080/13669877.2016.1262002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13669877.2016.1262002
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13669877.2016.1262002?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nick Pidgeon, 2014. "Complexity, uncertainty and future risks," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(10), pages 1269-1271, November.
    2. Åsa Boholm & Hervé Corvellec, 2011. "A relational theory of risk," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 175-190, February.
    3. Patrick R. Brown & Anna Olofsson, 2014. "Risk, uncertainty and policy: towards a social-dialectical understanding," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 425-434, April.
    4. Marjolein B.. A. van Asselt & Ellen Vos, 2006. "The Precautionary Principle and the Uncertainty Paradox," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 313-336, June.
    5. Ortwin Renn, 1998. "Three decades of risk research: accomplishments and new challenges," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(1), pages 49-71, January.
    6. Marjolein B. A. van Asselt & Ellen Vos, 2008. "Wrestling with uncertain risks: EU regulation of GMOs and the uncertainty paradox," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1-2), pages 281-300, January.
    7. Roger Kasperson, 2014. "Four questions for risk communication," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(10), pages 1233-1239, November.
    8. Jamie K. Wardman, 2014. "Sociocultural vectors of effective risk communication," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(10), pages 1251-1257, November.
    9. Katherine A. McComas, 2014. "Perspective on ‘Four Questions for Risk Communication’," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(10), pages 1273-1276, November.
    10. Ragnar Lofstedt, 2014. "A possible way forward for evidence-based and risk-informed policy-making in Europe: a personal view," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(9), pages 1089-1108, October.
    11. Stern, Jessica & Wiener, Jonathan B., 2006. "Precaution against Terrorism," Working Paper Series rwp06-019, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    12. Aven, Terje, 2015. "Implications of black swans to the foundations and practice of risk assessment and management," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 83-91.
    13. Terje Aven & Ortwin Renn, 2009. "On risk defined as an event where the outcome is uncertain," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, January.
    14. Ragnar Lofstedt & Frederic Bouder & Jamie Wardman & Sweta Chakraborty, 2011. "The changing nature of communication and regulation of risk in Europe," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 409-429, April.
    15. Andreas Klinke & Ortwin Renn, 2012. "Adaptive and integrative governance on risk and uncertainty," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 273-292, March.
    16. Eugene A. Rosa, 1998. "Metatheoretical foundations for post-normal risk," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(1), pages 15-44, January.
    17. Jessica Stern & Jonathan B. Wiener, 2006. "Precaution Against Terrorism," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 393-447, June.
    18. 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.
    19. Ragnar E. V. Löfstedt & Jamie K. Wardman, 2016. "State of the art transparency: lessons from Europe and North America," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(9), pages 1079-1081, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Kovic, Marko & Kristiansen, Silje, 2016. "The gambler's fallacy fallacy (fallacy)," SocArXiv xdsxg, Center for Open Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dominic Balog‐Way & Katherine McComas & John Besley, 2020. "The Evolving Field of Risk Communication," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(S1), pages 2240-2262, November.
    2. Laura N. Rickard, 2021. "Pragmatic and (or) Constitutive? On the Foundations of Contemporary Risk Communication Research," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 466-479, March.
    3. Yanwei Li & Araz Taeihagh & Martin de Jong & Andreas Klinke, 2021. "Toward a Commonly Shared Public Policy Perspective for Analyzing Risk Coping Strategies," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 519-532, March.
    4. Aven, Terje, 2013. "Practical implications of the new risk perspectives," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 136-145.
    5. Aven, Terje, 2018. "How the integration of System 1-System 2 thinking and recent risk perspectives can improve risk assessment and management," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 237-244.
    6. Javier Cano & Alessandro Pollini & Lorenzo Falciani & Uğur Turhan, 2016. "Modeling current and emerging threats in the airport domain through adversarial risk analysis," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(7), pages 894-912, August.
    7. Max Boholm & Niklas Möller & Sven Ove Hansson, 2016. "The Concepts of Risk, Safety, and Security: Applications in Everyday Language," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(2), pages 320-338, February.
    8. Chabane Mazri, 2017. "(Re) Defining Emerging Risks," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(11), pages 2053-2065, November.
    9. Aven, Terje, 2011. "Selective critique of risk assessments with recommendations for improving methodology and practise," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 96(5), pages 509-514.
    10. Åsa Boholm, 2019. "Risk Communication as Government Agency Organizational Practice," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(8), pages 1695-1707, August.
    11. John D. Graham & Jonathan B. Wiener, 2008. "The precautionary principle and risk--risk tradeoffs: a comment," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(4), pages 465-474, June.
    12. Terje Aven, 2012. "Foundational Issues in Risk Assessment and Risk Management," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(10), pages 1647-1656, October.
    13. Aven, Terje, 2011. "On the new ISO guide on risk management terminology," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 96(7), pages 719-726.
    14. Goerlandt, Floris & Montewka, Jakub, 2015. "Maritime transportation risk analysis: Review and analysis in light of some foundational issues," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 115-134.
    15. Abby Muricho Onencan & Lian Ena Liu & Bartel Van de Walle, 2020. "Design for Societal Resilience: The Risk Evaluation Diversity-Aiding Approach (RED-A)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-28, July.
    16. Domenico Tosini, 2021. "Social immunology: A theory of the immune processes of social systems," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 50-60, January.
    17. Sujan, Mark A. & Habli, Ibrahim & Kelly, Tim P. & Gühnemann, Astrid & Pozzi, Simone & Johnson, Christopher W., 2017. "How can health care organisations make and justify decisions about risk reduction? Lessons from a cross-industry review and a health care stakeholder consensus development process," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 1-11.
    18. Veland, H. & Aven, T., 2013. "Risk communication in the light of different risk perspectives," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 34-40.
    19. Behnam Taebi & Jan H. Kwakkel & Céline Kermisch, 2020. "Governing climate risks in the face of normative uncertainties," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(5), September.
    20. Thomas Webler & Seth Tuler, 2021. "Four Decades of Public Participation in Risk Decision Making," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 503-518, March.

    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:19:y:2016:i:10:p:1220-1230. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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.