Results of a National Symposium on Risk Communication: Next Steps for Government Agencies |
| |
Authors: | Caron Chess Kandice L. Salomone Billie Jo Hance Alex Saville |
| |
Affiliation: | Center for Environmental Communication, Rutgers University, Cook College, P.O. Box 231, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903. |
| |
Abstract: | A national symposium of risk communication practitioners and researchers was held in 1994 to discuss next steps to improve government agencies'risk communication practices. The symposium focused on three issues which a survey of researchers and practitioners indicated were priorities for risk communication research: integrating outside concerns into agency decision-making; communicating with communities of different races, ethnic backgrounds and incomes; and evaluation of risk communication. There are indications that the working assumptions underlying these issues are shifting in several distinctive ways. For example, a shift from simply communicating risk to forging partnerships with communities was clearly evident throughout the symposium. Communicating with different social, ethnic, and racial groups gained recognition as a vital component of the risk communication research agenda. Agencies themselves should be the subject of study, according to many symposium participants who were concerned less about the so-called irrationality of the public and more about the reluctance of agencies to encourage risk communication. |
| |
Keywords: | Risk communication evaluation organization government public participation |
|
|