IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v18y1998i6p715-725.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risk, Media, and Stigma at Rocky Flats

Author

Listed:
  • James Flynn
  • Ellen Peters
  • C. K. Mertz
  • Paul Slovid

Abstract

Public responses to nuclear technologies are often strongly negative. Events, such as accidents or evidence of unsafe conditions at nuclear facilities, receive extensive and dramatic coverage by the news media. These news stories affect public perceptions of nuclear risks and the geographic areas near nuclear facilities. One result of these perceptions, avoidance behavior, is a form of “technological stigma” that leads to losses in property values near nuclear facilities. The social amplification of risk is a conceptual framework that attempts to explain how stigma is created through media transmission of information about hazardous places and public perceptions and decisions. This paper examines stigma associated with the U.S. Department of Energy's Rocky Flats facility, a major production plant in the nation's nuclear weapons complex, located near Denver, Colorado. This study, based upon newspaper analyses and a survey of Denver area residents, finds that the social amplification theory provides a reasonable framework for understanding the events and public responses that took place in regard to Rocky Flats during a 6‐year period, beginning with an FBI raid of the facility in 1989.

Suggested Citation

  • James Flynn & Ellen Peters & C. K. Mertz & Paul Slovid, 1998. "Risk, Media, and Stigma at Rocky Flats," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(6), pages 715-725, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:18:y:1998:i:6:p:715-725
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1998.tb01115.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1998.tb01115.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1998.tb01115.x?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
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Jill J. McCluskey & Gordon C. Rausser, 2001. "Estimation of Perceived Risk and Its Effect on Property Values," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 77(1), pages 42-55.
    2. Frederic Bouder & Dominic Way & Ragnar Löfstedt & Darrick Evensen, 2015. "Transparency in Europe: A Quantitative Study," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(7), pages 1210-1229, July.
    3. Novak, Jiri & Bilinski, Pawel, 2018. "Social stigma and executive compensation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 169-184.
    4. Christopher D. Wirz & Michael A. Xenos & Dominique Brossard & Dietram Scheufele & Jennifer H. Chung & Luisa Massarani, 2018. "Rethinking Social Amplification of Risk: Social Media and Zika in Three Languages," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(12), pages 2599-2624, December.
    5. Li, Xuelian & Dong, Liang & Kot, Hung Wan & Liu, Ming, 2024. "Regulatory investigations, media coverage, and audit opinions," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    6. Patrick Gourley, 2019. "Social Stigma and Asset Value," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(3), pages 919-938, January.
    7. Kuhika Gupta & Joseph T. Ripberger & Hank C. Jenkins‐Smith & Carol L. Silva, 2020. "Exploring Aggregate vs. Relative Public Trust in Administrative Agencies that Manage Spent Nuclear Fuel in the United States," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 37(4), pages 491-510, July.

    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:wly:riskan:v:18:y:1998:i:6:p:715-725. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    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.