http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Risk-Communication A listing of the most recently indexed works about Articles and Risk Communication in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Risk-Communication http://tc.eserver.org/35724.html http://tc.eserver.org/35724.html There is a significant risk of being quoted out of context during media interviews. This risk can fall anywhere along a spectrum that ranges from mild to severe. Mild risk occurs when the information included in a media story appears to be less than accurate. If you’ve ever heard a spokesperson complain that reporters never get it right, you’ve probably witnessed this type of risk firsthand. Severe risk occurs when a portion of what the spokesperson says is twisted or turned, then included in a story to deliberately fan the flames of a smoldering fire. If this occurs, an organization may need to exercise damage control, and there may be significant risk to its reputation. http://tc.eserver.org/35245.html http://tc.eserver.org/35245.html This article reminds us that risk needs to be identified before it can be quantified. It points out that risk models are only as good as the people who devised them and the basic assumption needs to be frequently re-examined. http://tc.eserver.org/35003.html http://tc.eserver.org/35003.html This article uses theories of space and findability to analyze a public information center as an example of multi-modal risk communication. The Yucca Mountain Information Center is an informational space created by the Department of Energy to inform the public about the proposed nuclear waste repository planned for Yucca Mountain, Nevada. As a public space, the Center uses fact sheets, posters, and three-dimensional displays to make arguments about the storage of nuclear waste; we argue that the physical space, text, displays, and online space are all elements of risk communication. We offer a new way to read these elements of risk communication and suggest potential opportunities for public agency. http://tc.eserver.org/34395.html http://tc.eserver.org/34395.html Research on risk communication relates basic risk perception studies to the formulation of policies, the currently evolving legislation dealing with hazards, the key issues of public involvement, the risk and environmental management. Risk communication is a relatively new field based on a sociological approach. The discipline comes from risk perception studies (psychological approach), which try to investigate how the public is influenced by certain variables in perceiving risk as "acceptable" or not. Risk communication involves some aspects of risk analysis methodology, since it results that also the technical analysis is influenced by the co-operation between the actors involved. http://tc.eserver.org/34279.html http://tc.eserver.org/34279.html Every decision involves an analysis of possible future events (costs, outcomes, markets, etc.) and selection of a choice among competing alternatives. Making a decision is making a selection. This white paper will provide you with an outline of how to judge the quality of decisions by exploring how effectively the risks associated with various options have been analyzed. http://tc.eserver.org/31777.html http://tc.eserver.org/31777.html In the aircraft industry, a number of factors have converged to highlight the importance of maintenance manuals. http://tc.eserver.org/31725.html http://tc.eserver.org/31725.html All too often, companies either rely upon personal knowledge and skill to recover from emergency situations, or they write a multi-volume encyclopedia of recovery procedures. When disaster strikes, neither approach lends itself to rapid response. http://tc.eserver.org/31675.html http://tc.eserver.org/31675.html The authors report on a 3-year action-research project designed to facilitate public involvement in the planned dredging of a canal and subsequent disposal of the dredged sediments. Their study reveals ways that community members struggle to define the problem and work together as they gather, share, and understand data relevant to that problem. The authors argue that the primary goal of action research related to environmental risk should be to identify and support the strategies used by community members rather than to educate the public. The authors maintain that this approach must be supported by a thorough investigation of basic rhetorical issues (audience, genre, stases, invention), and they illustrate how they used this approach in their study. http://tc.eserver.org/31476.html http://tc.eserver.org/31476.html In the past, business continuity and crisis management focused on tangible assets, especially post-crisis recovery of systems and data and reestablishment of facilities and services. This all changed in the aftermath of 9/11, when it became obvious that the human factor was as critical as the technology and the buildings. Watching the suffering of the people affected by the Madrid bombings has reinforced the need to ensure your contingency plans address the people involved. http://tc.eserver.org/31478.html http://tc.eserver.org/31478.html All businesses are vulnerable to crises. You can't serve any population without being subjected to situations involving lawsuits, accusations of impropriety, sudden changes in company ownership or management and other volatile situations on which your audiences—and the media that serves them—often focus. The cheapest way to turn experience into future profits is to learn from others' mistakes. With that in mind, the following examples of inappropriate crisis communication policies, culled from real-life situations, will provide a tongue-in-cheek guide about what not to do when your organization faces a crisis. http://tc.eserver.org/31310.html http://tc.eserver.org/31310.html Most people have already heard a little about bird flu. But people face a host of other problems, and except for public health officials and poultry farmers, few are gearing up for action about H5N1 [the virus that causes the flu]. Yet. http://tc.eserver.org/31311.html http://tc.eserver.org/31311.html We are all well aware of the importance of a crisis communication plan. But many of us don't realize the necessity of conducting actual simulations to test and evaluate these plans. Whether you are on the corporate or agency side, there are countless forms of crisis that could interrupt business continuity for you and your client. http://tc.eserver.org/31342.html http://tc.eserver.org/31342.html The terms risk communication, crisis communication and risk management are often used interchangeably. Crisis communication we understand to mean communicating once the crisis has hit. Risk management entails ensuring as far as possible that risks do not become a reality. Risk communication is part of risk management—informing responsibly on the extent of risk. http://tc.eserver.org/31313.html http://tc.eserver.org/31313.html In May, I had the pleasure of participating in the IABC Newfoundland & Labrador 20/20 Visionary Communications conference. Jo-Anne Polak of Hill & Knowlton, while presenting her thoughts about contemporary crisis communication, made a comment that I haven’t stopped thinking about since her presentation. Jo-Anne pointed out that after September 11th, journalists have had to become more competitive and aggressive because media sources have exploded in number, and technology has provided immediate electronic delivery. http://tc.eserver.org/31344.html http://tc.eserver.org/31344.html Little of existing risk communication advice addresses the management of the communication function during a crisis as opposed to before a crisis. Drawing from my own career experiences, I think it important to address the former. http://tc.eserver.org/31309.html http://tc.eserver.org/31309.html In the past few weeks, articles appeared on the inside pages of The New York Times and other news sources, with reports from Indonesia of human-to-human infection by avian flu, such as Elisabeth Rosenthal's article "Human-to-Human Infection by Bird Flu Virus Is Confirmed." Another article by Donald McNeil in the Times reported that mortality rates for avian flu are higher in young people, which was also the case in the devastating Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. http://tc.eserver.org/31343.html http://tc.eserver.org/31343.html Having been deployed as a crisis communicator to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, immediately after the New Orleans levees failed last year, I am frequently asked to talk about the experience and my opinion of why so much went wrong so quickly in the aftermath. My quick response is "Too little too late." http://tc.eserver.org/31345.html http://tc.eserver.org/31345.html The recent Sago Mine and Firestone tire debacles, while different in nature, were both smoldering crises. Good risk management would have likely prevented both from destroying lives, damaging reputations and costing companies millions of dollars. The Institute for Crisis Management (ICM) defines a smoldering crisis as a problem or issue that starts out small and often internally, and that is ignored or not recognized until it blows up into a public crisis. http://tc.eserver.org/31312.html http://tc.eserver.org/31312.html If your crisis communication mantra is "What, Me Worry?" you are not alone. In fact, a third of IABC members who took the IABC Research Foundation crisis communication survey last December said they had no formal crisis communication plan in place prior to last year's many natural disasters and organizational crises. http://tc.eserver.org/31248.html http://tc.eserver.org/31248.html In the wake of the tragic Virginia Tech shootings, it is time to ask a few serious and potentially life-saving questions about crisis communication and the plans that either exist, or don't exist, where we work. http://tc.eserver.org/31247.html http://tc.eserver.org/31247.html In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy, university leaders—indeed all organizational leaders—are evaluating their crisis preparedness. Those leaders who actively seek to employ a comprehensive, all-hazard preparedness plan—not just one that deals with a troubled-turned-violent-person—will emerge best equipped to safeguard their students, employees and others. http://tc.eserver.org/31014.html http://tc.eserver.org/31014.html This study examines whether companies report risk-relevant information to prospective investors. While corporate risk communication is important for the well-functioning of capital markets, our current understanding of risk reporting practices is limited. The sample consists of Dutch companies raising capital on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange in the late 1990s. In this setting, companies had much discretion in writing the risk section of the prospectus. After a detailed content analysis of the risk sections, the author demonstrates that a measure of risk extracted from these texts successfully predicts the volatility of companies' future stock prices, the sensitivity of future stock prices to market-wide fluctuations, as well as severe declines in future stock prices. Overall, these results support the view that prospectuses of Dutch companies provide adequate information about material investment risks. http://tc.eserver.org/30384.html http://tc.eserver.org/30384.html Risk communication is usually defined as an interactive process of exchanging information and opinions among individuals, groups, and institutions or agencies concerning a risk or potential risk to human health, safety, or the environment. It draws from established principles of sociology and psychology to communicate with hostile or frightened audiences about sensitive issues. The demonstration illustrates the most important principles of risk communication as they are applied to a fictitious community. http://tc.eserver.org/30303.html http://tc.eserver.org/30303.html Principles of usability can apply to everything, not just physical objects. When using or creating graphics, documents, symbols or logos, stop and try to think about whether or not the item is usable. http://tc.eserver.org/29803.html http://tc.eserver.org/29803.html This study examines a paradox in findings regarding the effects of media literacy training on adolescents' decision making about tobacco use. Recent experiments have found that media literacy training successfully reduced participants' beliefs associated with risky behavior, whereas at the same time, their positive affect toward individuals portrayed in advertising increased. Study results confirm the hypothesis that media literacy training changes the way individuals think about the desirability of portrayals in the media. Although desirability usually represents individuals' affect toward portrayals, reports gathered after media literacy training also appear to reflect participants' increased awareness of the efforts made by advertisers to produce attractive portrayals designed to sell products and services. This awareness reduces or eliminates the impact that positive affect otherwise would have on decision making. Because this analysis suggests that individuals may respond to survey questions differently depending on their level of skill or involvement, the results raise important issues regarding issues of reliability and validity that may extend well beyond tests of this theoretical model or particular evaluation. http://tc.eserver.org/29740.html http://tc.eserver.org/29740.html Many of the memoranda and letters related to the Chicago flood, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters that warned of impending disasters went unheeded. The reason: the writers failed to properly use various rhetorical features and conventions. They failed to include necessary information, omitted unnecessary detail, placed important information in inappropriate locations, used qualifiers to reduce perceptions of the consequences of actions, and failed to follow organizational conventions related to transmission of information. Their lack of knowledge of rhetorical strategies exacerbated the problems associated with the contexts in which the various documents were written, resulting in misunderstandings. http://tc.eserver.org/29695.html http://tc.eserver.org/29695.html Technical communicators may be asked to design and develop safety information for a product manual. During this process, technical communicators can add value to the presentation of safety information. In addition to adhering to a manufacturer’s internal guideline for the content and formatting of safety information, other factors can be considered as well. This paper presents the following factors: (1) an overview of common failure-to-warn allegations, (2) an analysis of current practices in automotive owner’s manuals for presenting safety information, and (3) an update on a new ANSI Z535 consensus standard for the presentation of safety information in product manuals. http://tc.eserver.org/29194.html http://tc.eserver.org/29194.html A look at the importance of science writing in helping the public to understand issues that affect our daily lives so that we can make informed decisions concerning risk. http://tc.eserver.org/27905.html http://tc.eserver.org/27905.html Safety and warning notices form the most important elements of user information wherever safety and [product liability are concerned. A carefully thought out and systematic process is required in developing safety-relevant information, in order to increase the completeness and comprehensibility of product safety. This will also disarm any suspicion of gross negligence in internal documentation in case of missing safety notices and it will ensure traceability. http://tc.eserver.org/27128.html http://tc.eserver.org/27128.html One of the best established principles in the risk perception and risk communication field is that awareness of other people's outrage increases one's own outrage. http://tc.eserver.org/26737.html http://tc.eserver.org/26737.html Plain and simple, the value proposition for enterprise agility is rooted firmly in risk management. The purpose of agility is to maintain both reactive and proactive response options in the face of uncertainty. http://tc.eserver.org/26611.html http://tc.eserver.org/26611.html Hurricane Katrina illuminated UPA's sense of community this past month when the UPA Board of Directors acted quickly to attempt to contact our members who are/were located in the significantly affected regions of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. We received responses from several. http://tc.eserver.org/26462.html http://tc.eserver.org/26462.html On the morning of 29 August, Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama with winds clocked at 140 miles (225 km) per hour and more than a foot (30 cm) of rain. Although the hurricane spared New Orleans, the major population center of the area, a direct blow, the storm surge caused several of the cityï¿s levees to fail, flooding 80% of the city with up to 20 feet (6 m) of water fouled by sewage, oil, and other pollutants. It will be many years before the coastal areas of southeast Asia and the U.S. Gulf Coast have rebuilt and recovered from this year's disasters. Likewise, it will take time for us to create better disaster plans and disseminate them to the public, and for the value of those plans to be perceived. Neither of these facts makes the rebuilding, recovery, and planning any less necessary. We must do all we can to ensure that they happen as quickly as possible. We should see clearly that we can't afford to do any less. http://tc.eserver.org/24654.html http://tc.eserver.org/24654.html With government getting more involved with healthcare and organizations collecting information about the risks of some diseases, there is a plethora of information about heath risk that must be made accessible to the general public. http://tc.eserver.org/24582.html http://tc.eserver.org/24582.html This article compares three rhetorical approaches to accident analysis: materialist, classical,and constructivist. The focal points for comparison are the two accident reportsissued by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)—reports that attempted(and failed) to persuade the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) to change a problematicpolicy about rail communication alongside its technology for rail communication. Thecentral question the article asks is, How can rhetorical theory help explain the CTA'sinaction, which ultimately led to property damage, injury, and death? Classical andconstructivist approaches, emphasizing rational deliberation between equals, on onehand, and the social construction of technical knowledge between professionals, on theother, offer plausible explanations for what went wrong. But only the materialistapproach appears capable of discerning the ideological nature of the CTA's resistance tothe NTSB's recommendations. http://tc.eserver.org/24585.html http://tc.eserver.org/24585.html This article explores approaches to crisis communication and the application of those approaches by organizations responding to a disaster. The authors conducted a survey of 107 state government agencies to learn about government efforts in situations requiringcrisis communication. Generally, the survey results suggest that although state agenciesenjoy a positive relationship with the media, they have little proactive communicationwith the media, and less than half have a written crisis communication plan. Significantassociations were found between the variables under study, including size of the organization,roles in crisis situations, media relationships, and preparation of a crisis communicationplan. Case studies and additional evaluations of communication resources areneeded to help determine the ability of the public sector to respond effectively to crises.This article considers the needs of state agencies and proposes a conceptual approach thatsynthesizes a crisis communication process designed for the public sector. http://tc.eserver.org/24417.html http://tc.eserver.org/24417.html A crisis communication plan details how a company will operate in a crisis. It should include sections on potential crises and strategies for managing a crisis using a crisis management team. The plan should include details on the team's functions, training for the team members and the company spokesperson, and use of a crisis management center and a media center. The plan should address implementation of practice drills and an evaluation of each drill and actual crisis. http://tc.eserver.org/24374.html http://tc.eserver.org/24374.html Risk-Based Corrective Action (RBCA), a process for cleaning up contaminated sites, is not widely understood. To better communicate with the public about RBCA, a research team sought to measure people’s comfort with the role of risk in decision-making by administering a risk-response survey to inhabitants of two US towns. The survey’s most unusual finding was that people seem more comfortable with environmental risks than with other kinds. Because the survey’s wording probably affected the outcome, the finding raises issues about the responsibility of technical communicators in developing the tools and language of responsible environmental communication. http://tc.eserver.org/23870.html http://tc.eserver.org/23870.html This article describes how we investigated software message severity levels using surveys in a series of usability tests and how the results helped us create a standard set of severity levels. These findings can also be applied to other messages. http://tc.eserver.org/23439.html http://tc.eserver.org/23439.html The cause for the careless handling of possible dangers is not so much unwillingness, but rather the lack of know-how. There are no standardised and well-documented processes that are simple to implement and use. http://tc.eserver.org/22282.html http://tc.eserver.org/22282.html The task of informing the public about various health risks is fraught with many problems. It is essential to overcome them if risk communication is to be improved. In 1989, the National Research Council (NRC) released a report that is important for many reasons. In particular, it helped establish a conceptual framework for risk communication and identified a research agenda to improve risk communication practices. One area of need identified by the report was better use of case studies to understand, e.g., 'how people react to different types of messages and channels; [and] what their actual concerns, frustrations, and data needs are' with regard to particular health risks. http://tc.eserver.org/22283.html http://tc.eserver.org/22283.html Risk issues are unarguably contentious. People evaluate risks in incompatible ways and propose conflicting proposals for mitigating or litigating risk issues. The sources of contention are multiple. Sometimes people differ because they have different information; sometimes they differ because they have incompatible interests. This paper addresses one of the more philosophical and systemic bases for differing opinions and approaches: The possibility that people have fundamentally or substantially different conceptions of risk. The philosophical basis for contention over risk is most evident in the scholarly and scientific literature. Experts who study risk or risk issues are more likely to develop well-defined, internally consistent conceptions of risk than members of the lay public. If distinct philosophical and linguistic presumptions underlie competing conceptions of risk, it should be possible to formulate the contentiousness over alternatives in terms of a principled philosophical debate, with implications for risk analysis, risk evaluation and risk communication. http://tc.eserver.org/22284.html http://tc.eserver.org/22284.html Explanations are presented of four principles for intergenerational decision-making and initial guidelines for application: trustee principle, sustainability principle, chain of obligation principle, and precautionary principle. The principles need to be used as a set and include certain actions and public discussions under specific circumstances. Some examples are: comprehensive analysis of possible risks and beneficial or damaging consequences of actions, public discussion of the results of these analyses with those who may be significantly affected before decisions are made, and continuous examination of actions or decisions taken by previous generations to evaluate their continued validity and making adjustments if previous decisions are no longer valid. http://tc.eserver.org/22285.html http://tc.eserver.org/22285.html Risk communication is a complex, multidisciplinary, multidimensional, and evolving process of increasing importance in protecting the public's health. Public health officials use RC to give citizens necessary and appropriate information and to involve them in making decisions that affect them-such as where to build waste disposal facilities. http://tc.eserver.org/22281.html http://tc.eserver.org/22281.html Through experiments with simulated news stories about hazardous materials release, this study finds that providing technical detail about health effects may be less useful than keeping citizens current on the agency's strategies for dealing with problems and other behaviors by officials. http://tc.eserver.org/22270.html http://tc.eserver.org/22270.html A June 2003 publication from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. http://tc.eserver.org/22239.html http://tc.eserver.org/22239.html All medical procedures carry a risk; there is no such thing as a risk-free intervention. It is important for doctors and other health professionals to understand how risk is measured, since they have to interpret information coming from Government Agencies and from drug companies. It is also important for health professionals to be able to communicate the magnitude of the risk of an intervention so that patients can meaningfully appraise their treatment options. Thus there are two aspects of risk communication: communicating with other professionals and communicating with patients. http://tc.eserver.org/22247.html http://tc.eserver.org/22247.html One goal of risk communication on food safety issues (among many) is communication between risk assessors and risk managers and the average citizen. This dimension includes both communication with the citizenry as a whole, through the mass media and other widely disseminated information, and communication with consumer organizations that participate in the risk analysis/risk management process. http://tc.eserver.org/22242.html http://tc.eserver.org/22242.html Risk communication is central to making decisions. It enables people to participate in deciding how risks should be managed. http://tc.eserver.org/22246.html http://tc.eserver.org/22246.html Risk communication is a relatively new field of study which has been concerned with the problems arising from the communication of scientific and technical assessments of risk to various sections of the public. These problems have largely been construed as technical ones: how to transfer difficult material from 'experts' to 'people' with the maximum effectiveness and the minimum loss of accuracy and content. Perhaps because technical or practical concerns have dominated, debates which have occurred in the literature of risk analysis have apparently had little impact on the field of risk communication. http://tc.eserver.org/21973.html http://tc.eserver.org/21973.html Both the Challenger and Three Mile Island disasters involved failures of communication among ordinary professional people, mistakes committed in the course of routine work on the job, small mishaps with grotesque conseqences. http://tc.eserver.org/21818.html http://tc.eserver.org/21818.html Programs in technical and scientific communication educate students from multiple disciplines. As we teach these students from various fields, we often assume they will write to others who are members of the same field. However, professionals commonly communicate across disciplinary boundaries and collaborate with those who do not necessarily belong to their field. We should rethink our approaches in teaching scientific and technical communication to consider how different peoplefrom different areas of expertise engage one another in a communication situation. Based on the understanding that different disciplinary cultures and languages alter contexts for communication, astudy examining how experts from science, engineering, mathematics, and architecture come together as a single group and collaboratively invent discourse can contribute to new knowledge to inform curriculum development. http://tc.eserver.org/21636.html http://tc.eserver.org/21636.html El lamentable accidente del trasbordador Columbia ha propiciado la creación de innumerables gráficos para explicar lo que pasó. Revisamos la importancia de la visualización en este accidente y, especialmente, en el del Challenger en 1986. http://tc.eserver.org/21572.html http://tc.eserver.org/21572.html Technical writers and editors in the environmental field can make additional contributions to the document production process by becoming familiar with risk communication principles. These principles can help us communicate more effectively with the public about controversial environmental projects, which are ever increasing. Considering the public's power to delay such projects, our ability to diminish public opposition through good risk communication skills is invaluable. http://tc.eserver.org/21374.html http://tc.eserver.org/21374.html Risk management is as much art as science. Being aware of what risks are and how they can affect a project can be the difference between success and failure. Three elements of risk management—regardless of project size or scope—will influence success: understanding what risks are; developing and detailing categories of risk; and building a mitigation plan into the project plan. This approach to risk management benefits the project manager by bringing into focus—as early as possible in the project life cycle—many potential detriments to project success. When folded into a repeatable project management methodology, these processes can translate into dollars as the probability of meeting calendar and budget goals increases. http://tc.eserver.org/19959.html http://tc.eserver.org/19959.html This article explores risk communication from the communication science perspective, discusses three theoretical risk communication models: theory of reasoned action, extended parallel processing model, and dialectical discourse model; explores the complexities of risk communication messages; suggests guidance for risk communicators; and provides a working bibliography of recent risk communication literature. http://tc.eserver.org/19967.html http://tc.eserver.org/19967.html Communicating health, safety, and environmental risks to the public and to the scientific, political, and business communities is a persuasive task as well as an informative one. The job is made easier if the assertions about risk can be backed up with empirical data. But risks are often characterized through the analysis of data sets containing thousands if not millions of measurements. Further, the collection of these data is often conducted by many research teams, and the results often appear in disparate portions of the scientific literature or regulatory reports. On top of all this, environmental, safety, and health data compilations are frequently massive. As a result, finding needed data can be difficult, and understanding it can be bewildering. Web tools are available that synthesize these data and present the information they contain in an organized, understand-able fashion. In doing so, they help risk communicators to focus their writing on a specific topic and to base their assertions on hard facts. http://tc.eserver.org/19898.html http://tc.eserver.org/19898.html Using examples from commercial fishing and farming, this article shows how models of health beliefs and risk communication can inform the creation of health and safety materials and campaigns for specialized vocational audiences. These models state that risk communication efforts must balance strong statements of risk with equally strong statements of ways to reduce or avoid risk if they are to motivate change. Audience research can help communicators address attitudes that impair workers’ perceptions of risk, as well as workplace practices, norms, and conditions that the limit the methods that can be used to reduce risk. http://tc.eserver.org/19455.html http://tc.eserver.org/19455.html To explore the barriers to successful communication about environmental risks, a research project addressed the following questions: what do people understand about the terminology and the graphics used in risk messages? what sorts of communication modes and timing do people prefer? Surveys and focus groups were conducted in two towns to explore the level and types of risk (e.g leaking gas tanks) with which people are uncomfortable. The findings extend the discoveries of other environmental communication researchers: People are confused by regulatory language, they do not trust the government, and they want 'true stories,' credible witnesses, and face-to-face interaction with other stakeholders. http://tc.eserver.org/19457.html http://tc.eserver.org/19457.html This paper presents a variety of nontraditional risk communication techniques developed by faculty at the University of Washington Department of Environmental Health and its partner agencies. The common thread of their projects is to communicate with migrant agricultural workers about pesticide hazards through techniques such as home parties, educational outreach, a health adviser network, Hispanic theater, fluorescent imaging, and icon-based health histories. Initial results indicate behavior may change as a result of these forms of risk communication. Similar techniques could be adapted to other populations that are difficult to reach with traditional risk communication methods. http://tc.eserver.org/19158.html http://tc.eserver.org/19158.html En situation de risque, de nombreux échecs de la communication sont dus à une séparation entre l’évaluation et la communication du risque, comme le montre le dilemme classique entre rassurer et informer. Baser la communication sur la perception du risque par les individus plutôt que sur l’évaluation des experts semble donc être essentiel. http://tc.eserver.org/19135.html http://tc.eserver.org/19135.html Around 1 a.m. on Monday, the 3rd of December, 1984, in a densely populated region in the city of Bhopal, Central India, a poisonous vapor burst from the tall stacks of the Union Carbide pesticide plant. This vapor was a highly toxic cloud of methyl isocyanate. Of the 800,000 people living in Bhopal at the time, 2,000 died immediately, and as many as 300,000 were injured. In addition, about 7,000 animals were injured, of which about one thousand were killed. After the incident, over the next few years, numerous studies were conducted, many theories were explored, and the involved parties accused each other. In this paper, I will try to explore the various causes offered for the tragedy. In the course of my research for this case study, I came across many articles that put blame on various people and groups involved in the tragedy. I found one document particularly interesting from a rhetorical standpoint. This document, titled Union Carbide: Disaster at Bhopal , was authored by the retired Vice President of Health, Safety and Environmental Programs in Union Carbide Corporation. So for this paper, I would also like to rhetorically analyze this document and also, try to explore the various image restoration strategies that Union Carbide Corporation used through the course of the crisis. http://tc.eserver.org/19132.html http://tc.eserver.org/19132.html The Rogers report seems to be more than just a report to explain the Challenger accident and give suggestions to avoid a similar tragedy occurring in the future. In a sense, it appears to be a type of apologia. On January 28, 1986 the Space Shuttle Challenger, mission 51-L, launched from Florida's Kennedy Air force Base at 11:38 a.m. Eastern Stand ard Time. As the country watched in disbelief, the shuttle disintegrated 73 seconds later in an explosion of hydrogen and oxygen. All seven crew members died. On February 3, President Reagan issued an executive order to set up a commission to investigate the challenger accident. The commission was sworn in on February 6, and presented its report to the president on June 6 of the same year. This report, commonly known as the Rogers Report, after its chairman William R. Roger, had a dual mandate from the president. First to look at the probable causes of the accident, and second, to develop recommendations for corrective action. This was done through a comprehensive investigation involving all of the following: interviews with more than 160 people, more than 35 formal panel investigations, examination of more than 6,300 documents (which included hundreds of photographs and more then 122,000 pages), the generation of almost 12,000 pages of transcript and another 2,800 pages of hearing transcripts. http://tc.eserver.org/14916.html http://tc.eserver.org/14916.html William Lowrence’s Of Acceptable Risk (1976) began the forthright treatment of the subjective elements of risk assessment. Maintaining that 'risk' was scientifically objective, his discussion of 'safety'—as socially acceptable risk—acknowledged the political nature of the overall evaluation. But even a rigid determination of a clear risk—say of injury from skydiving—cannot tell us why only some people will agree to jump from an airplane. http://tc.eserver.org/14577.html http://tc.eserver.org/14577.html Although safety information is hardly ever read by users of appliances such as hair-dryers warnings must be included in manuals to protect manufacturers from litigation lawsuits. The law stipulates that a warning is adequate when the reasonable user is likely to read it, and when it sufficiently alerts the user both to the nature and degree of the danger. The present study was aimed at examining to what extent regular users of hair-dryers are able to calculate risks that are not explicated in safety instructions; and to determine whether/how users' estimation of the severity of a risk could be paired to the nature of the consequences of non-compliance. As predicted by the researcher the majority of respondents were acquainted with the nature and the level of danger associated with contact between electrical current and water, but were unable to calculate the risks associated with a significant number of other safety instructions. A redesign would, however, require the active involvement of graphic designers, subject experts (electrical engineers and products liability experts) as well as a second round of user-evaluation. http://tc.eserver.org/13891.html http://tc.eserver.org/13891.html In this article, we build on arguments in risk communication that the predominant linear risk communication models are problematic for their failure to consider audience and additional contextual issues. The 'failure' of these risk communication models has led, some scholars argue, to a number of ethical and communicative problems. We seek to extend the critique, arguing that 'risk' is socially constructed. The claim for the social construction of risk has significant implications for both risk communication and the roles of technical communicators in risk situations. We frame these implications as a 'critical rhetoric' of risk communication that (1) dissolves the separation of risk assessment from risk communication to locate epistemology within communicative processes; (2) foregrounds power in risk communication as a way to frame ethical audience involvement; (3) argues for the technical communicator as one possessing the research and writing skills necessary for the complex processes of constructing and communicating risk. http://tc.eserver.org/13770.html http://tc.eserver.org/13770.html Mine safety instruction manuals and training guides reflect an engineering perspective based on the concept of a Rational Man, a perspective which obsstructs effective risk management. http://tc.eserver.org/10281.html http://tc.eserver.org/10281.html This article presents the history of the ANSI standard for preparation of Material Safety Data Sheets, and then provides a section-by-section guide to preparing MSDSs that comply with the standard.