EXTERNAL PUBLICATIONS
HSE CRR 329/2001
Social amplification of risk: the media and the public
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SUMMARY
This report presents the findings of a project to examine the role of the media in the amplification of risk issues amongst the lay public. The project has generated a unique database and analysis of UK newspaper and television reporting of risk during the first half of 1999. It presents new findings in relation to how the lay public interpret risk issues and respond to the media.
The findings refute any suggestion that lay publics are passive recipients of expert risk knowledge. In rationalising risk they draw upon multiple information sources and understanding - personal experience, grounded knowledge and mediated information. Furthermore, risk issues possess specific ‘signatures’ in terms of their capacity to engender patterns of lay understanding. The analyses of media reporting show the media as dynamic interpreters and mediators of risk information. They seek to respond to, and reflect, social preferences and concerns. In turn the public are sophisticated users of the media.
The report concludes that the social amplification of risk framework presented by researchers in the late 1980s, while useful in raising research questions, fails to provide a coherent and full understanding of the impacts of the plural media and the symbolic information systems they represent and their relationship with their consumers. Drawing on evidence collected, the report presents recommendations for best practice risk communication by Government departments and agencies. These recommendations stress that the media must be seen as an opportunity rather than a problem.
This report and the work it describes are part of a set of research projects funded by the Cabinet Office, Civil Aviation Authority, Economic and Social Research Council, Environment Agency, Food Standards Agency, Department of Health, Health and Safety Executive, and the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland. Its contents, including any opinions and/or conclusions expressed, are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the policies or views of sponsoring Departments.
This report and the work it describes were funded by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Its contents, including any opinions and/or conclusions expressed, are those of the author(s) alone and do not necessarily reflect HSE policy
